Say it ain't so....

"Say it ain't so, Joe"... I had a sinking feeling when I heard a consistent rumour - which no one was particularly keen to verify - that Kent was applying for its own PDO. Oh dear, I thought, "Haven't they got better things to do?"

Kent had reacted with commendably adult restraint when the self-serving Sussex PDO was thrust upon us a couple of years ago, and I'd rather hoped that the whole damp squib of designating counties as viticulturally different from each other would quietly slink back down its rabbit hole for the foreseeable future.

Yet once Sussex had somehow massaged through their own PDO, and the handful of producers who seemed to want it were crowing about how this would lead to people now pointedly asking for 'a glass of Sussex' - as against a glass of English wine, I suppose - its objectives became plain. Self-promotion.



Of course, promotion of a brand is natural and necessary for our success as a wine nation. Strong brand values will lead the charge for our country's wine. And promotion of our country as a whole is of enormous importance to all English wine producers.

But discrimination between counties on grounds which have nothing to do with viticultural conditions, or, frankly, historical, traditional practice, makes no sense to me. Kent, Sussex and Hampshire should be joining hands, not drawing lines in the sand. I mean, do people in Helsinki, Chicago, or Rio de Janeiro actually know or care where Kent or Sussex are? They don't. For the next decade and maybe more our job is to put all our effort behind national identity and brand awareness. Telling people where your winery and your vineyards are is part of the story-telling, not part of the legislation.

Kent and Hampshire already have successful promotional groups based on wine tourism and encouraging people to investigate the joys of these counties and visit their wineries. Other areas, most notably Yorkshire, are doing the same. (Interestingly, Sussex seems to be having more of a bureaucratic struggle. About a simple thing like Wine Trails?) Come and visit us, they say. Try our wines, try our cuisine, get to know us, take ownership of us in all our glorious English eccentricity. But don't make rules and regulations telling us what to do. WineGB can handle that on a national basis quite well enough, thank you.

It might be worth reminding ourselves why the cumbersome Appellation and Denomination systems of Europe were developed. Usually to stop corruption and counterfeiting and fraud. Has anyone been counterfeiting Sussex wine? Has anyone been "passing off" wine as Kentish?



In time, when regions and localities have proven to have something special about them, it can make sense to designate and delimit. Marlborough in New Zealand has recently gone part of the way towards doing that - after 2 generations of proving that it's a truly exceptional area.

But the New World was built on courage and ambition and a strong degree of risk-taking. Its whole strength lay in being able to say - let me have a go, and if I'm good enough I'll survive and flourish - but please don't let someone in a suit tell me what to do.

And England is a New World wine country. We have a perfectly decent, some might say slightly restrictive national PDO already. As yet, that's all we need. And we should channel all our energy and imagination into making the best wine we can - in whatever style we wish - and selling it as effectively as we are able.

If you really wanted a so-called Protected Appellation system in England that meant something, based on indisputable wine quality and character - what about this? Martin's Lane. Great Whitman's. Clayhill. Crow's Lane. Crouch Ridge. Crouch Valley Vineyard. These may be our Montrachet Grands Crus of the future, our Corton Grands Crus, our Chambertins.

And they are very specific plots of one clearly defined and limited low ridge of land with an absolutely finite beginning and end. And they have proven their worth year by year through the quality of the wine in the bottle proudly bearing the vineyard's name.

We have relished their personalities, and the excitement of their individuality even though a dozen years ago they were just farmers' fields. That's a bit quick, to be honest, to earn yourself a rock-solid reputation. But isn't a Grand Cru just a farmer's field? A farmer's field with a unique, special soil and climate? A farmer's field whose grapes are made into superlative wines by human beings of passion and talent? And not a bureaucrat in sight?