At the London Wine Fair at Olympia in May, 13 pairs of sparkling wines were blind tasted by 16 experienced wine judges including Oz Clarke, four Masters of Wine and yours truly, with one champagne and one sparkling in each pair. When our scores were added up, the top two wines, 1086 by Nyetimber 2010 and Gusbourne ’51 degrees North’ 2016 beat the following five champagnes: Cuvée Dom Perignon 2013, Champagne Ruinart ‘Dom Ruinart’ 2010, Champagne Taittinger ‘Comtes de Champagne’, Krug Grande Cuvée 172ème Édition 2013, and Bollinger ‘R.D’ 2008. Result. For England at least.

Just as the 1976 Judgment of Paris putting California wine on the map was barely reported in France at the time, so the Olympian Battle of the Bubbles did not receive much, if any, publicity, in France. To be fair, it was not as widely reported as it might have been even in the UK mainstream media, although the trade magazines did pick it up. In my view, the fact that two English sparkling wines beat five of Champagne’s top prestige cuvées is a significant indicator of how far the quality of English sparkling wine has come in a relatively short space of time.

This impressive performance is confirmed in a study this year by Wine Lister comparing English sparkling wines with fizz from around the world. Averaging out the scores of four leading critics (Decanter, Jancis Robinson, Vinous, and the Wine Advocate), Champagne holds the average highest score, as might be expected. However, English sparkling wine ranks a close second, less than one-fifth of a point behind Champagne. Franciacorta is not that far behind, and Prosecco (which produces twice as much sparkling wine as Champagne) is perhaps surprisingly high.

WineGB’s latest figures reveal that vineyard numbers have increased by 74 to 1,104 in 2025 with 25 newly registered wineries bringing the total to 238. The area under vine has also grown from 4,209 to 4,841 hectares, representing a growth rate of 510% since 2005.

Kent is the most planted county with almost double the vineyard area of the next county—West Sussex. In surprising third place is Essex, for its burgeoning still wines. Next in line after Essex come East Sussex and Hampshire.

UK sparkling wine continues to dominate production at 69%. As for grape varieties, chardonnay is on the rise with 33% of all plantings, as is pinot noir, now at 30%. Surprisingly perhaps, there are as many as 99 different grape varieties now planted in the UK.

In his book The Wines of Great Britain, Stephen Skelton MW states:

“The factor that has most influenced viticulture in Britain in the last three decades is that of climate change”.

The torrid 2003 vintage was the canary in the coalmine that alerted wine producers throughout Europe to the dangers—and potential benefits—of climate change. The gradual rise in the number of days when the temperatures rose above 30°C has meant that once-marginal varieties like pinot noir and chardonnay have moved into the mainstream. Natural sugars have increased, but acids are still high, even if not as high as they were.

Climate change apart, the most significant factor in the greater quality and consistency of English fizz is the choice of location. At Exton Park in Kent, Corinne Seely’s research into the impact of the chalk on the juices has led her to believe that chalk has a significant impact.

“The distinctive style of English fizz is higher acidity than Champagne, and I find that this acidity lifts the flavours,” she says.

Yet though producers talk the chalk, chalk doesn’t necessarily always walk the walk.

Protection from frost and wind along with a southerly or south-easterly exposure to sunshine and good drainage are key elements. Equally important are healthy soils with levels of organic matter that can help reduce the need for sprays and fertilisers. England’s soils are more diverse and nuanced than those of Champagne. In the right spot, and where all the major criteria for planting are met, greensand and both clayey and sandy soils with good drainage are as likely as chalk soils to produce fine English sparkling wines. Back in the day, Nyetimber was planted on a band of greensand, though it has now added chalk to the vineyard portfolio.

Perhaps the greatest challenge now facing the UK wine industry is that of getting corks popped to avoid, as it were, a production and storage bottleneck. As Dermot Sugrue noted recently in an article in Harpers:

“The elephant in the room for the industry more broadly is oversupply.”

The UK produced 10.6 million bottles last year. The average yield of 21.3 hectolitres to the hectare was low but thanks to the increase in vineyard area, it constituted the fourth highest production volume. 2018 and 2023 yielded huge harvests and even if production is relatively modest this year, the numbers will be significant. Nyetimber for instance is already predicting a yield of 1.6 – 1.8 million bottles, three times that of 2015. As Dermot Sugrue says:

“The issues will only deepen when the huge volumes of stock from the 2023 vintage come into play.”

To help boost sales, producers are increasingly grasping the nettle of wine tourism along with online and cellar door sales and good distribution. But while they are a welcome and essential string to the English wine strongbow, they are not the panacea in the face of the projected increases in production and the issue of deep discounting by the bigger players and supermarkets.

The UK doesn’t have a magic wand in the shape of a brand name like Champagne. In a noisy, crowded market, each and every wine producer is going to go have to stiffen every sinew and go not just once more unto the breach but many more times to find practical and imaginative ways of aligning brand Fizz UK with the growing volumes.