English sparkling wine fit for a king

Chapel Down Sparkling Brut, England NV (£21.99, Waitrose) Amid all the pomp and circumstance of next weekend's festivities, it's easy to see why the sector English wine spy good opportunity. It's all part of the remarkable progress of English wine over the past two decades, a period in which it has gone from being a largely amateurish pursuit to, to be honest, to use the ridiculously propulsive language of the British government for once, a "global" industry. Certainly the crowning glory, like last year's platinum jubilee, will have its share of commemorative bottlings by English sparkling producers and it seems likely that many punters will choose, as they did last June, the patriotic option as a sparkling choice at parties and gatherings. Among the producers preparing a special cuvée for King Charles is one of the biggest, Chapel Down, which released a series of 2,000 bottles of Coronation Edition from the 2016 vintage at £65 a pop. I haven't tried it, but the company's regular and widely available Brut NV is one of England's best-loved sparkling wines.

Leckford Sparkling Brut, England NV (£24.99, Waitrose) One measure of the progress of English fizz is the confidence its leading producers now have in selling at prices close to the best champagne. Chapel Down’s Kit Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2016 is £120 a bottle, while Gusbourne’s 51° North 2014 is £195. English sparkling wine has been embraced by supermarkets, all of which now have an own brand or two of the style on their shelves. Waitrose took the idea even further, after planting a small vineyard on the company's Leckford Estate farm in Hampshire in 2009. The sparkling brut, which is made from the grape varieties pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay from Leckford by the well-established Ridgeview Estate in East Sussex is really, really good, with a mix of typically tangy English Cox apple acidity and buttery toasty notes.

Breaky Bottom Seyval Blanc Cuvée Grace Nichols, England 2017 (£35.99, Breaky Bottom) Ridgeview is still one of England's top producers with, among others, Nyetimber, Gusbourne, Exton Park and Camel Valley. Ridgeview's champagne-style white and rosé sparkling wines will always be their main stock in trade, but last year they added a Ridgeview Sparkling Red Reserve (£55, ridgeview.co.uk) to their range which, if you go splash on English fizz this holiday weekend, is pretty much fun, with its tangy, crunchy and sappy summer pudding berries. Peter Hall, another ever-creative pioneer South Downs producer, planted his vineyard near Lewes in 1974. In addition to the classic champagne grapes, Hall still works with the under-advertised seyval blanc, the basis of his very good , incisive, Cuvée Grace Nichols.

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