stdP
One Swiss dinosaur in Polly Gosling's anorak hood
Rather bizarre to see a discussion about wine here but here goes.
The underlying geology of a lot of SE england is the same rocks as the NE of france, so the soil is generally broadly similar; with climate being broadly similar, it's possible to grow grapes of the same calibre as those in parts of france. If memory serves me correctly, some champagne houses had bought some land in kent as a hedge in case climate change rendered parts of the champagne region non-viable in the future.
But because the UK's climate is slightly colder and wetter and gets less sunlight, so a given land area will yield less in the way of grapes in the UK than in france. The UK also doesn't have the same economy of scale for wine as france does, and both land and labour are more expensive, so as good as some english wines can be they're almost always going to be considerably more expensive to produce than their french equivalents and there's no way in hell that the relatively tiny output of the south of england is more than a drop in the bucket of UK wine consumption. My favoured italian plonks are liable to get a lot more expensive, but then british beer is as well since so much of that is made with imported grain.
As an aside for people who enjoy his style, Jonathan Meades used the climatological line where grapes cease to become a viable staple (and thus local booze production revolves around cereals and fruit) as the mythical boundary dividing north and south europe in his excellent series "Magnetic North".
The underlying geology of a lot of SE england is the same rocks as the NE of france, so the soil is generally broadly similar; with climate being broadly similar, it's possible to grow grapes of the same calibre as those in parts of france. If memory serves me correctly, some champagne houses had bought some land in kent as a hedge in case climate change rendered parts of the champagne region non-viable in the future.
But because the UK's climate is slightly colder and wetter and gets less sunlight, so a given land area will yield less in the way of grapes in the UK than in france. The UK also doesn't have the same economy of scale for wine as france does, and both land and labour are more expensive, so as good as some english wines can be they're almost always going to be considerably more expensive to produce than their french equivalents and there's no way in hell that the relatively tiny output of the south of england is more than a drop in the bucket of UK wine consumption. My favoured italian plonks are liable to get a lot more expensive, but then british beer is as well since so much of that is made with imported grain.
As an aside for people who enjoy his style, Jonathan Meades used the climatological line where grapes cease to become a viable staple (and thus local booze production revolves around cereals and fruit) as the mythical boundary dividing north and south europe in his excellent series "Magnetic North".
