Napa was the world’s most glamorous wine region in the nineties — a boldly choreographed Eden with vines as lifestyle statements for those wealthy enough to engage with the process of wine production. Billions of dollars were poured into the valley to build rural palaces and the last word in toy farms. Napa has seen it all: boom and bust, the brutal massacre of indigenous peoples, Mexican rule, the Missions, the gold rush, phylloxera and Prohibition. Over the centuries freed slaves, film directors, counter-culture stoners, and tech billionaires have all made the pilgrimage to Napa.

Today, we are witnessing a new chapter to the Napa epic, as big corporations like the French luxury conglomerate LVMH move in, leveraging corporate glamour, collectability, and marketable green assets. They may open the opportunity to cross-sell via synchronistic luxury brands, even tapping into that most elusive of categories: youth.

Over the years, there have been several trite attempts to draw parallels between the South of England and Napa — each of them new-ish, glowing promised of fertile soils and golden opportunities. And yes, both English wine and the Napa area face many similar challenges right now — like getting choice-saturated locals to switch out foreign wines for stuff their own country produces. (Sustainability and ‘drink local’ initiatives help in this regard, but only slightly). Beyond this, however, is it really fair or accurate to compare the two wine-producing areas? And do the wines themselves even bear the comparison?

But the truth is that Napa can be all things to all people. Wine collectors sate their appetites with names like Screaming Eagle and Harlan. Wine tourists, meanwhile, meander, taste, eat, golf and sleep as a leisure pursuit for a far lower price point.

Napa has struggled with overproduction in the past. England’s bumper 2023 harvest may suffer a similar fate if the market stalls. English wine cannot afford to focus on luxury sparkling alone. We Brits consume a hell of a lot of Prosecco, and producers like MDVC think they might be able to turn that into an advantage by selling large volume British Charmat. And why not?

Napa produces a mere 4% of America’s wine: it’s a teeny tiny, infinitesimal spec of land on the world wine production map. A mere 30 miles long, it encompasses 43,000 acres and is one-sixth the size of Bordeaux. In the UK, we have 4209 hectares under vine: that’s 10,400 acres or 1030 vineyards, 9.2% more than last year.

Wine GB, the British wine body, says wine tourism provides 24% of the total revenue generated by English and Welsh vineyards.

Inglenook on Rutherford Bench was founded in 1879 by a Finish fur trading sea captain named Gustave Niebaum and later bought by the movie Director Francis Ford Coppola with the proceeds of the Godfather trilogy. It took Coppola 30 years to pay for the place. Like many before him, he was hopelessly seduced by the romance of the building, the history and the idea of making wine. Though beloved by America, Inglenook had fallen so low it was known for its rough jug wine, and its famous trademarked name had long been flogged to sell sheer volume. Coppola had the mansion, the land and the willpower to see the farm right. He and Inglenook share certain synergies including a wonderful backstory and a history of bankruptcy. In 2011, he bought back the name Inglenook. It’s rumoured to have cost him as much as the land and house put together. Like prospectors over in England, Coppola is seeking new markets and synergies while continuing to live life on an economic knife edge. Twas ever thus in wine.

Breaky Bottom on the chalky South Downs of England was planted in 1974 by a pioneering English/French/Irish wild man with the charisma of a movie star and the attitude of a petit French general. No one could have accomplished what he has in such an out-of-the-way, impoverished, windy spot but him. Liquorice roll-up-loving Peter Hall was born to a French mother. His grandfather owned a French restaurant in Soho, so he introduced him to wine early on. His survival in this somewhat desolate but utterly beguiling spot is miraculous. The man has made it through four floods, two marriages and numerous hard, windy winters. I met him at his house with his ancient mog and his gorgeous wife. He may be in his 70s, but he’s all the more charming and flirtatious for it. His wines are gorgeous too, and are now sold by The Wine Society and Waitrose. Let’s hope life for Hall and his wife is on the up.

Breaky Bottom Cuvée John Agard 2017

12% alcohol. 65% Chardonnay, 25% Pinot Noir, 10% Pinot Meunier. Rich, bready, tight and elegant with candied lemon fruit, toasted brioche, savoury saline and a gorgeously fresh backbone of acidity. Layered, long and brilliant with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs.

Inglenook Rubicon 2019 Rutherford, Napa Valley, California

Francis Ford Coppola14% alcohol. 81% Cabernet Sauvignon, 11% Merlot, 5% Cabernet Franc, 3% Petit Verdot. Savoury and liquorice-lipped, clove-hued, earthy with golden tobacco and a delicately creamy texture. Balanced by blackcurrants, blackberries and cherries. Built to age beautifully.

The British ‘grazing platter’ is a broad church and should be approached with trepidation. Expect anything from gorgeous bar a vin style unctuous patés rich in duck liver and goose fat wrapped in bacon and peppered with pistachios to the less impressive sliced packet meat section of Lidl on a paper plate. We are not quite at Napa levels yet. Wiston, Ridgeview, Rafthinny, Bolney, and Tillingham are all offering impressive food onsite, however. Most have fabulous accommodation too.

Wiston Estate Blanc de Blancs 2015 

12% ABV, 100% Chardonnay on chalk. Six years on lees, dosage 8 grams per litre (disgorged 2021), half aged in old Burgundy barrels, half in stainless steel to retain the zippy freshness, then a year on cork. They have more of this that they have yet to disgorge for later release. Red apple, salty flint, honeysuckle, tangerine, creamy vanilla and toffee apple. Sensual, seductive, voluptuous and naughty. This will bring racy pleasure to both your table and tongue.

£85.00 Wiston

Vagabond Solena Batch 001 NV England

(Made in Battersea Power Station) 11.5% alcohol. This is a skin-fermented white made using a solera system established in 2018. Copper-coloured, sapid, tangerine, tarragon-noted, savoury beauty – delivers the ultimate expression of England’s textural potential. The palate is fresh and dry and delicately grippy with tannin and spice. Divine.

£30.00 Vagabond

With every step taken toward progress, another was taken back. Californian missionaries instigated genocide, but they also brought European grapes. The 1848 Californian Gold Rush brought both economic and population growth. Then came Prohibition, hard-drinking increased, a lack of respect for law enforcement grew, and organised crime developed capable syndicates.

British wine’s history is similarly dramatic. The seed capital for the wine trade originated from Eleanor of Aquitaine, who ruled over us from 1137 to 1204. Having ditched her forgettable first husband, she married Henry II and made London her court, propagating French good taste along the way. She encouraged the consumption of wines made in her portion of France to be transported to London via her home port of Bordeaux, thus seeding the livelihood of countless British toffs and traders. It's said she introduced us to the exotic seasonings she encountered on crusades, too.

Medieval London was surprisingly rife with ecclesiastical or aristo-owned vines. Saint Giles, Southwark, Bermondsey, Westminster and Piccadilly all had vineyards, and Vine Street is not just a name on a Monopoly board but was the site of an inner-city vineyard, too.

According to the brilliant Vic Keegan’s series, Lost London, quoting the Welsh naturalist and antiquarian Thomas Pennant (1726-1798), Lambeth was ‘remarkable for the manufacture of English wines’ a place where ‘the genial banks of the Thames opposite our capital yield almost every species of white wine.’

Today the Crouch Valley in Essex is the most promising UK still wine spot where we may ripen even capricious Pinot Noir thanks to the attributes of London clay, a tidal estuary and a temperate climate low in rainfall.

Martin’s Lane Vineyard Founder’s Vintage Pinot Noir 2022

Crouch Valley, Essex, England13% alcohol. Fragrant red cherry and raspberry with a touch of spice. Firm, structured and superbly sapid. 

Kutch Wines McDougall Ranch Pinot Noir 2019 Sonoma Coast

California (technically 14 miles from Napa) 13% Alcohol. Ripe, supple and oh so silky, with succulent cherries, raspberries and plums. Delicate, sleek, elegant. Balanced to perfection.

Napa’s first truly commercial winery was owned by Charles Krug, who initially grew Mission grapes. Mission, aka Listán Prieto, Criolla Chicca or Pais, is the grape that was originally used for communion wine by conquistadors. Pais is planted across man’s migratory path to the New World via the Canaries, where tall ships restocked with victuals to get them to the Americas. Pais grows all over Argentina and Chile, too. Krug didn’t think it was much of a goer, however, and he replaced his vines with European varieties.

Wines can be frothy, fresh, fruity, and lightly chilled—though it can age and produce layered complexity—but the wines usually have much in common with fruit-forward English Pinot Noir Précoce and the gorgeous Gamays of Beaujolais.

Vallisto Criolla Chicca 2021

12.3% alcohol. This wine hails from Salta, a wildly beautiful desert spot once home to the Incas and then Spanish conquistadors. The place is resplendent in colonial architecture and Inca mummies. The wine is sublime, too - crunchy and fragrant with garrigue scented herbs, rose petals, sapid succulent cherries and pomegranate zip. Superbly quaffable.

London Crus Pinot Noir Précoce 2022

12.5% alcohol. Fresh, light, and vibrant with cherry, strawberry, cranberry, and white pepper, this is a Beaujolais lovers’ wet dream.

Gusbourne Boot Hill Pinot Noir 2018

12.5% alcohol. Pretty black cherry fruit, strawberry, morello cherry and earth. Sweet, pure, juicy, spiced and long. Aromatically complex with loads of ageing potential.

The Stoner Valley in Oxfordshire is as conveniently close to Britain’s Silicon Valley and Oxford as Napa is to San Francisco. Home to Hundred Hills, which boasts ten parcels of steep chalk slopes surrounded by ancient oak woodland. It’s a tract of land that was meticulously selected by tech millionaires Stephen and Fiona Duckett, who scoured Southern England for THE perfect site for their perfect vineyard to be.

Stephen Duckett is the absolute spit of the actor Stephen Mangan; I mean freakishly similar. He is clearly an erudite man with the necessary obsessive streak and financial wizardry to make faultless wine. The Ducketts examined over 300 sites - 100 to the point of soil analysis at the CIVC in Champagne. They would only consider the steepest slopes, and the soil composition had to be precisely correct. Creating the finest wines known to humanity requires well-fed pockets but poverty-stricken soil.

Having met at Oxford and utilised data to make their fortune, the Ducketts were not about to leave anything to chance. Sheltered, breezy, and practically frost-free, Stoner Valley is the perfect spot. Of 42 acres owned, 17 are under vine—Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on the perfect rootstock for alkaline soil. They built the most stunning barns of vernacular design to compliment the site—oak-pegged structures that house the high-end hospitality facilities and James Bond-level winery.

The winery chef hails from Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons down the road and they cite Napa as their inspiration. Consummate networkers with analytical minds have the single-minded mentality it takes to make world-beating wine. They are great ambassadors for luxury Britain. They have no plans to expand. Hundred Hills has much to recommend it and puts me in mind of Quintessa in Napa which is where we are heading next.

Hundred Hills Signature Rose 2018

A saignée-made rosé from the Stoner Valley. A beautiful pale peony colour; bright, crystalline, full and aromatic with a gorgeous note of English rose, wild strawberry and hibiscus – superbly fitting for a wine that is actually selling well in Champagne.

The Huneeus family are from Chile, a country with a remarkably similar coastline to California’s. Agustin Huneeus was an early investor in what was then a small winery named Vina Concha y Toro, you may just have heard of it. He was instrumental in its growth and subsequent success and by the age of 27 he was also CEO. Valeria Huneeus is a microbiologist, she came across what was to become Quintessa in 1989 whilst looking for a property that could equal the greatest wine estates of the world. She and Agustin planted 135 acres of a possible 280 taking care not to fell a single tree. They planted on slopes, working with the natural contours that trace the Waca Mountain Range. Biodynamic from the start, this was land that had never seen pesticides and they were determined to keep it that way. They too have no plans to expand.

Quintessa 2020 – Rutherford, Napa Valley

86.5% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cabernet Franc, 4.5% Carmenere, 2% Petit Verdot

This wine exudes class, mental Mogadon in the finest sense; it is deep dark sensual and calming. Luxurious and full yet tempered by savoury herbal notes This wine promises ever-lasting pleasure, deep dark fruit, perfectly poised acidity, ridiculously moreish tannins, structure and a succulent finish, the gift that’ll keep on giving for a long time to come.

There are a select clutch of boutique producers in England producing wines with ageing potential who believe the secret to their survival is to remain small and exclusive yet inclusive. They follow Napa’s lead both in hospitality and allocation. Selling directly makes for a higher margin, and limited allocations increase competition. Wine clubs are the dream tool that most make use of, thus generating a potent link directly to consumers.

We should work on adding age-worthiness to that list, too. In both those markets, our wines are considered reasonably priced.

Luxury as a concept is having an identity crisis. Virtue signalling meaningful feel-good purchases encompassing diversity, inclusion, social justice and sustainability is the new line in ‘good taste’. English wine is perfectly poised to capitalise on this post-COVID thinking, but we must produce sustainable, well-priced, gluggable wine too. Few of us can afford to spaff thirty quid on a bottle. Marks and Spencer is championing Charmat with their fifteen quid Bramble Hill, and it’s flying off the shelves. Prosecco is guzzled by the tank load by Brits and English Charmat might be set to take Prosecco’s mantle.

Many producers will fall along the wayside as land prices rise and costs spiral, but those with a pioneering spirit who hold firm, resist over-expansion, innovate and create will have less to fear. England is not just about sparkling but has the potential to be all things to all people, just like Napa, though a full-bodied red might be a stretch – that is, unless we use rot-resistant low-maintenance Piwis. Watch this space. In the words of Cyril Brun, former Chef de Cave at Charles Heidsieck, “Britain has the potential to be great”. But we need to increase sales dramatically and get the government on board to make this happen. Perhaps we need to focus less on other markets and use our maverick spirit to fashion our own — for innovation, not imitation, will be key to our survival.