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Make it a sparkling occasion with premium sparkling wine produced locally in South Wales using “la méthode traditionelle’ from mature 40 year old vines at the family owned
Croffta Vineyard |
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Call today
01443 231441 |
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The first vines in Wales are believed to have been planted in Caerleon in AD75 for governor Suetonius Paulinus during the Roman occupation. When the Romans left Britain in the 4th century the monks of Wales continued making wine in monastery vineyards across Wales. In the 8th century the Viking invasion laid waste the remaining local viticulture and the art of wine making all but vanished from Britain, only to re-emerge after 1066 as a result of the Norman invasion of William the Conqueror accompanied by his French abbots with their wine making know how. The art of viticulture declined once again through the Middle Ages and was dealt a further blow with the dissolution of the monasteries during the reign of Henry VIII in the 1500s.
This state of affairs continued through to the 20th Century, with one or two exceptions in Southern England. In the early 1880s the 3rd Marquis of Bute planted 3 vineyards in South Wales at Swanbridge near Penarth, St. Quentins in Cowbridge and on the slopes of Castell Coch.
His winemaker was dispatched to Champagne and Burgundy to learn viticulture. By the early 1890s, some 12,000 bottles were being produced annually by the Marquis vineyards. In 1900 the Marquis died. His son did not share his father’s interest in wine and then a few years later the Bute’s winemaker was killed in the 1st World War. The vineyards were subsequently sold and uprooted by the new owners.
Since the 2nd World War grape cultivation and wine making has seen a renaissance across the United Kingdom, including Wales. Vineyards started to appear in the South of England in the 1950s. The 1960s, 70s, and 80s saw a rapid rise in the number of vineyards in Wales as well as England reaching well over 400 and by the 1990s, with the total area under vines exceeding 2,000 acres. |
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