Quaffing English Rose in Kent

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It was an early start, up and out the door by 7.30am to get down to Kent for a harvest tour at Biddenden Vineyard. We headed away for the weekend with our friends Kate & Mal to sample some of England’s finest in Kent, one of the country’s best wine producing regions. The drive down was fast, no one on the road that early in the morning. It wasn’t long before we were in the country side and once off the motorway we spied the vines. We checked in at our hotel The George, lovely old coach house from the 13th century. Our taxi driver (David) was waiting outside to take us around four vineyards. We arrived just in time of the tour and joined about 15 odd people to walk around the 22 acre property. The guide was hilarious rambling on about this and that as we wandered around. It was actually the first time I have been on a vineyard when the grapes were at their peak. The funniest thing was all the other people on the tour trying all the grapes right off the vines. The tasting was a little shambolic, but they had a couple of nice drops. We were soon on the road again and heading towards England’s best known producers Chapel Down. We thought we would try our luck at getting in to Richard Phillips restaurant which is on the property, although booked out when we tried to book on line we were able to get for an early sitting. To keep in the spirit of things we ordered a bottle of Chapel Downs English Rose sparkling wine, which was excellent and the food just as good. After lunch we had a wonder around the vineyard and came across some alpaca in a back field, rather skittish wee things. On return to the store we managed to sample around 7 wines, every single one of them were fantastic. One of their sparkling wines recently won an international award and you could see why, it was great. Needless to say we left there with about ten bottles between us.
The next stop was one of the more interesting. Initially we whizzed past Harbourne Vineyard, we turned round and even when we drove in it still looked like a normal house. Laurence came out at the fun began. We were all bundled into a tiny room; it reminded me of a washing room in those old weatherboard houses in NZ. Laurence could possibly be one of the most eccentric people in Kent. He talked non-stop on topics such as ‘screen people’ (those that look at computers for their jobs), Germans and their boots, pyjama’s in business class when flying and trying to catch wasps with jam ... whacky and super friendly. The wine wasn’t great, but it was a good laugh visiting Laurence. Our final stop was Sandhurst Vineyard, again a lady appeared and we went into a wooden room off the shed. All the grapes are grown on the farm along with hops for beer, cherry and plums. Our tasting was in tiny paper thimble type vessels. The wine, to our surprise (given we were standing in a large shed) was good and the red was the best we had tasted all day. We ended the day with dinner at the lovely boutique hotel and headed back to London the following morning with at least a month’s supply of wine!

PHOTOS

Early in Sept we went to the Promos in the Park. It is always good fun listening to the world’s best opera and classical music. The highlight of the evening is the flag waving and singing classic British songs at the top of your lungs to close the night. Good clean fun.

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