Just some of our reviews

July 2021 (read full article)

Monmouthshire’s White Castle Vineyard scoops top prize against global rivals in prestigious blind tasting award

May 2022 (read full article)

April 2021

The New Day Trip

Sunday 22 June 2020

There are over 500 commercial vineyards in England and Wales (it’s still too cold to grow grapes in Scotland & Northern Ireland), so we’ve selected some of the best where you may soon be able to enjoy a tasting, buy a case or three, and even stay to make a weekend of it.

WINE: The mountains of Snowdonia provide a stunning backdrop to the Gwinllan Conwy vineyard (gwinllanconwy.co.uk), where vines have been carefully chosen to suit the tough climatic conditions. Each of the five wines produced here is distinguished by a pattern on its label taken from the Tudor buildings in nearby Conway. The Rondo 2018 red £18 is the ideal accompaniment to Welsh lamb or ‘cawl’.

DINE: White Castle Vineyard (whitecastlevineyard.com), in the beautiful rolling countryside of Monmouthshire, was a retirement project which became a full-time job and thriving business for former postie Robb Merchant and his wife Nicola.
They produced Wales’s first fortified wine, named 1581 after a listed Tudor barn on the vineyard, alongside reds, whites and rosés.
Cheese, meat or fish platters are served in the Cellar Door cafe from £12 to £15 per person.

RECLINE: Llanerch, a 15-minute stroll from the turreted Hensol Castle, is a hotel, vineyard, restaurant and cookery school.
It is also just a nine-mile drive from Castle Coch. Centred on a whitewashed farmhouse building, its sparkling, white and rosé Cariad products are testament to the strength of today’s Welsh wines. Double rooms in the farmhouse or around the adjacent courtyard cost from £95 a night (llanerch.co.uk).

November 2019

Move over English sparkling, Cymru has plenty of award-winners to offer too, from the island of Anglesey to the rolling hills of Monmouthshire, says Terry Kirby (read full article)