Your photos: Travel Europe 2KEY POINTS:
Let's drink a toast to the inventor of sparkling wine with a glass of the finest sparkling wine in the world.
No, no, I don't mean Dom Perignon, though as cellar master at the Abbey of Hautvillers, near the French city of Epernay, from 1688-1715, he did much to improve the production of sparkling wine.
And it's not one of the great French champagnes - Krug, Kristal or even the eponymous Dom Perignon - producing celebratory golden bubbles in my glass either.
Actually, it seems to have been an Englishman, one Christopher Merret, who first produced sparkling wine.
And at the 2005 International Wine and Spirits Competition an English wine named after Merret - RidgeView Merret Bloomsbury 2002 - won the trophy for the best bottle fermented sparkling wine in the world (last year another English entry, Nyetimber classic cuvee 1998, took the trophy again).
So it's RidgeView's Bloomsbury I have in my glass and it's Merret I'm drinking the toast to.
And after that I'm planning to drink another glass, this time of RidgeView's Grosvenor 2001, the wine selected for Queen Elizabeth's 80th birthday party, to celebrate the fact that English wine - long regarded as a joke - has come of age.
It's no coincidence that that two of the vineyards leading that charge, RidgeView and Nyetimber, are both in the south of England, in Sussex, or that they both specialise in sparkling wine.
Mike Roberts, the boss of RidgeView, reckons the problem with the English wine industry until now has been that "we've had lots of bad amateur winemakers" growing "a lot of funny varieties of grape entirely unsuited to our conditions."
Roberts made his money building up and selling a computer business, and when he decided to use the money to fulfil his lifetime dream of starting a vineyard, he went into it with computer-like logic.
"The nearest wine region to us, geographically and climatically, is Champagne so it's obvious that's where we should be looking," he says.
"The French aren't stupid. Over hundreds of years they've developed varieties and techniques that suit these conditions. We'd be foolish to ignore them.
"It's not an accident that Nyetimber and ourselves have both taken the International Wine and Spirits Competition trophy for best sparkling wine. We have the perfect conditions for producing that sort of wine."
Historically, England used to be a significant winemaking area. The Romans introduced grapes two thousand years ago. A thousand years ago the Domesday record showed 46 vineyards mostly run by monasteries. In Henry the VIII's time there were about 150 vineyards.
Furthermore, wine writer Tom Stevenson, researching for Christie's World Encyclopaedia of Champagne and Sparkling Wine, has found that it was almost certainly the English who first learned how to make sparkling wine.
In the archives of the Royal Society he uncovered some papers, dating from 1662, showing that not only was Merret the first person to record how to make sparkling wine, but also that this "gay, brisk and sparkling wine" was being drunk in London 30 years before the French started producing the stuff and 70 years before the first champagne house was established.
It should be no surprise that there are now more than 400 commercial vineyards in the south of England and Wales - though many are still extremely small - and that they are increasingly specialising in producing sparkling wine.
Competition successes have also produced a dramatic change in attitudes towards English wine.
"When we started there was a lot of snobbery," says Roberts. "There was a general attitude that anything foreign must be better. But in the last three to four years, since we started winning awards, there has been a dramatic change. Now we can't keep up with the demand."
But don't take his word for it. Next time you're in Britain try some of the local wine and see what you think.
A good starting point is the English Wine Centre, in the beautiful village of Alfriston, East Sussex, where you can enjoy a tasting lunch matching some fine local wines with delicious regional cheeses and sausages.
If you want to visit an individual vineyard there's a pretty full list on www.english-wine.com/vineyards.html.
But remember, most are very small, many aren't geared up for visitors and some are not particularly good.
Nyetimber, which is good, is near West Chiltington in West Sussex (www.nyetimber.com).
Another consistently good sparkling wine producer is Camel Valley Vineyard, near Bodmin, in Cornwall (www.camelvalley.com).
The largest wine company in Britain is Denbies Wine Estate, at Dorking, Surrey, which runs an impressive wine tourism operation (www.denbiesvineyard.co.uk).
And, of course, there's RidgeView, set in the English countryside on Ditchling Common, in East Sussex (www.ridgeview.co.uk/), where my wife and I ended up one cold winter's day.
Presiding over activities there was Vicky Garnett who comes from Manchester but, coincidentally, acquired an interest in winemaking from a stint waitressing at Sacred Hill Wines in Hawkes Bay.
"I decided I wanted to learn more," she says, so on her return home she worked for a while at a wine store, studied oenology and viticulture at nearby Plumpton College, which offers the only wine course in Britain, and then started working at RidgeView.
The day we came to call she was busy popping bottles of sparkling wine for eager customers to taste.
As I raised the proffered glass of RidgeView Merrett Bloomsbury to my lips the first thought that came to mind was that I never expected to find myself voluntarily drinking English wine. And the second thought was that it was very good. Who'd have thought it?
In fact it was so good I needed an excuse to drink some more so I raised the glass again. "Here's to Christopher Merret."
* Jim Eagles got the chance to try out English wine as guest of Visit Britain and Emirates.
Checklist-Britain
Getting There
Emirates has three flights a day from Auckland and one from Christchurch to Dubai, and flies from Dubai to several British airports including Gatwick in the south of England. Basic round trip fares start at $2460 plus taxes but there are frequent specials. See www.emirates.com or call 0508 364 728.
Further Information
General information on visiting Britain is at www.VisitBritain.com.
