How wine is made at an English vineyard that produces 200,000 bottles a year

• English wines are slowly gaining recognition.
• Over 5 million bottles are produced yearly.
• A million vines were planted in the UK in 2017.
• Bolney Wine Estate produces over 200,000 bottles of wine a year. It produces red, white, and sparkling wines.

Over the last few years, England has hugely increased its wine production. Bolney Wine Estate is one of the many English vineyards and they make a range of red, white, and sparkling wines. We visited the vineyard to see how the wine is made.

All of the grapes are harvested by hand, once selected they can be collected for processing. The processing varies depending on the type of wine being made.

With white wines and rosés, the grapes can be moved straight into the tank for pressing. With red wine, the grapes need to be de-stemmed and crushed. This mixture is then left for around 3-7 days which gives the red wine its colours and aromas. Once these processes are complete the wine is moved into storage for fermenting.

The sparkling wines go through a slightly different process again. They are fermented in the bottle, each bottle must be spun occasionally to consolidate the sediment that forms. This sediment can then be removed by a process called disgorging.

Disgorging involves placing the bottle upside down, causing the sediment to settle in the neck of the bottle. The bottleneck is frozen and the pressure from the sparkling wine pushes out the frozen sediment, leaving a clear wine. Once this process is complete the bottle can be corked.

Produced by Charlie Floyd