How to taste your way around the vineyards of Sussex

Sussex was put firmly on the wine map when Ridgeview – in the South Downs, about eight miles (12km) north of Brighton – became the first English winery to be named Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine and Spirit Competition 2018. This is no mean feat when up against wineries from 90 countries.

Founded in 1995, Ridgeview is one of the more well-established wineries in Sussex, although a number (including Wiston, Breaky Bottom and Bolney) date back to the early Seventies.

It’s still a very young wine region in international terms (Champagne dates back to the 17th century) and has yet to establish its own wine trail of the sort you’d find in Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County, California, made famous by the 2004 film Sideways. However, local hotel group Historic Sussex Hotels is planning to change all that.

It already has what is possibly the most extensive list of Sussex wines in the country at Ockenden Manor, an Elizabethan manor house set in eight acres in the village of Cuckfield, with Bluebell Vineyard in Danehill to the east, Bolney Estate to the west and Ridgeview to the south. With two sister hotels also close to vineyards (The Spread Eagle in Midhurst, 19 miles/30km west of Nyetimber; and Bailiffscourt Hotel, 10 miles/16km south of Tinwood Estate near Chichester) it is uniquely placed to convince oenophile travellers that Sussex has something special to offer.

“A winery tour of Sussex is something I’ve been talking about for years,” says Martin Hadden, the group executive head chef at Historic Sussex Hotels, who has championed Sussex wines for two decades. He is liaising with the Sussex Wineries organisation (which includes the likes of Oxney Organic and Rathfinny Estate) on initiatives such as a five-night wine trail around Sussex featuring winery visits and a stay in a vineyard lodge. “I’m convinced that in 20 to 30 years’ time, driving around Sussex will be akin to driving around Champagne,” Hadden says.

A regular visitor to Champagne, he emphasises the point that some winemakers there have told him they consider the climate in the South Downs to be superior to that of their own region, where harvests are getting earlier each year and achieving the required level of acidity in the grapes is more difficult. They see a potential risk of losing skilled winemakers to the UK, something that has already happened on at least one occasion with the arrival at Rathfinny of Jonathan Médard, originally from épernay in the heart of Champagne and who previously worked for Louis Roederer.

After passing through Rathfinny’s grand entrance, just south of the beautiful village of Alfriston, I followed the mile-long driveway through a valley landscape that looks like something out of a Ravilious painting. It was immediately clear that the estate is thinking big.

During a fascinating tour of the vineyards and winery (held on selected dates between May and September), I discovered that the 2018 harvest will produce about 25,000 cases of sparkling wine from the 180 acres planted with 260,000 vines. Once the full 350 acres are planted, production is scheduled to reach 100,000 cases.

That evening, we had a chance to sample the first sparkling wines produced by the vineyard at Rathfinny’s fine dining Tasting Room restaurant that overlooks the vines. Glasses of the refined, 100 per cent chardonnay Blanc de Blancs 2014 and the elegant strawberry and peach Rosé 2015 accompanied purple foot mushroom and pine gougères that kicked off an impressive six-course tasting menu.

Chef Chris Bailey, who previously held a Michelin star in Winchester, champions local produce in robust dishes such as assiette of Pevensey lamb; a carnivore’s delight with the deeply savoury flavours of tongue, sweetbread and fillet highlighted by the clever combination of green olive and turnip.

Sussex might be an emerging wine region on the global stage, but my mini tour convinced me that there is enough world-class wine, food, accommodation and scenery to put it high on the must-do list of any gourmet traveller.

Read more articles by Andy Lynes at telegraph.co.uk/tt-andy-lynes. Twitter @andylynes