The Sussex Wine Trail

We will meet at Ockenden Manor (10 minutes taxi from Haywards Heath train station) by 11.00am. The private luxury coach will leave for Bolney Wine Estate where we will have lunch and a tasting of their wines. This vineyard is a mid-sized producer aiming at around 300,000 bottles a year. It is family run and a champion of Pinot Noir and very much a pioneer of English wine. We then visit Breaky Bottom, which turns most conventions about producing wine on its head. On only six acres, Peter Hall produces unbelievably original wines on north facing vines. It is also impossibly beautiful. We will sample wines and listen to this maverick of the industry, before returning to Ockenden for dinner.

We leave for the Tinwood Estate near Chichester. Vines were first planted on this farm back in 2007 and they produce a typically English range of Blanc de Blanc, Brut and Rose. After sampling these, we set off for Wiston Estate Winery, where we will have lunch and a tasting in the magnificent setting of Wiston Estate, home of the Goring family for the last 300 years. It has only a small vineyard area of around 24 acres, but winemaker Dermot Sugrue is making some intriguing wines which we will sample in his company, before returning to Ockenden Manor for dinner. If time permits, we will detour to Stopham Estate Vineyard for a quick taste of their still whites.

We leave for a morning visit to Plumpton College which has 20 acres under vine. It is Britain’s only winemaking school and represents an important though largely unrecognised role of producing many of the country’s current wine growers. As well as sampling a few wines we hope to learn more about how the changing climate might shape wine making in England and how research is helping to combat disease in British conditions. We then drive to the town Lewes, home of family brewer Harvey’s which has been brewing on the site since 1790. You are free to roam and find somewhere for lunch in this historic town for a few hours before we head to Rathfinny Wine Estate. This ambitious estate has planted over 226 acres. Mark Driver is keen to see his county have a separate PDO, or Protected Designation of Origin, so that wine drinkers will start asking for Sussex wine as one already does for other regions such as Burgundy or Marlborough.

On our last day we will drive into the heart of East Sussex to visit a low profile, but nonetheless a medal winning, producer at Hidden Spring Vineyard followed by a wine tasting and picnic at Bluebell Vineyard, situated cheek by jowl to the Bluebell Steam Railway. Here we will find still wines and some surprising features such as the only place in the country growing Merlot. We then return to Ockenden Manor where the tour ends.