‘Burgundy eat your heart out!’: Devon producer is toast of wine world
They began by producing drinks more usually associated with the rolling hills of southern England – hearty ciders, warming tipples made from hedgerow fruits and good old-fashioned mead,But Lyme Bay Winery in Devon is celebrating a bit of history having become the first English producer to win prestigious international trophies for both red and white wine in the same year,Its Martin’s Lane Estate chardonnay 2020 and Lyme Bay Winery pinot noir 2021 won the English white trophy and English red trophy respectively at the 2025 International Wine Challenge (IWC),“We knew we had produced some really good wine that had aged beautifully,” the winery’s operations manager Wolfgang Sieg-Hogg said,“We thought we’d be there or thereabouts but to take both prizes is wonderful.
“It’s a labour of love – the entire team has worked tirelessly to get here.It’s a huge moment for us – and for English still wine.English wine producers are the new boys on the world stage but we’re definitely on the up.”The IWC judges were certainly gushing.Of the chardonnay, they said: “Burgundy eat your heart out! Spry, toasty oak with ripe peach, melon, and apples.
Wholesome fresh dry flavours of wet stones, citrus zest and a long, lingering finish.Harmonious and expressive.”They described the pinot noir as having “beautiful aromatics of autumn leaves, ripe cherries, dried herbs, and iodine”, adding: “The palate reveals ripe strawberry and cranberry, with appealing spicy details.A complex, textured finish completes this elegant wine.”Founded 32 years ago, and now employing 30 people, the winery is on a winding lane just outside the town of Axminster in East Devon (next to a vehicle reclamation yard and artisan coffee factory).
It still sells cider, hedgerow wine and mead but its decision to branch out into fine wines has proven a good one,Rather than relying on its own vineyard, the grapes for its wine are sourced from all over southern England,The winning chardonnay was made with grapes from the Martin’s Lane vineyard in the Crouch valley, Essex, and benefitted from the long, hot summer of 2020,Grapes for the pinot noir were from Martin’s Lane and four other Essex vineyards,The summer of 2021 was cool but a late warm spell in October allowed an extended “hang time”, ripening the grapes nicely.
Sieg-Hogg said the ethos was not to be tied to one vineyard but to source the best grapes from the best,“We don’t go for quantity but for quality,” he said,It means when the grapes ripen there is a race to harvest them and drive them across the country to Devon, where they are crushed and pressed and the “magic”, as Sieg-Hogg called it, of turning the juice into wine in gleaming tanks and oak barrels begins,“You don’t get much sleep at that time,” he added,Sign up to First EditionOur morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersafter newsletter promotionOnce the butt of jokes, the English wine industry has begun to silence the cynics, with sparking wines such as those produced in the Camel valley in Cornwall leading the way.
The climate crisis has created excellent conditions for growing grapes, not just in the south of England but, increasingly, farther north and west in the UK,Extreme heat threatens to harm some more traditional wine regions, such as those in Spain, Italy and southern California,The Lyme Bay trophy-winning wine is not cheap – the chardonnay is £35 and the pinot noir is £29,99,Buy there are only a few thousand bottles of them and they will soon go.
There are cheaper “entry level” wines on offer and the winery sells to Aldi.“It’s about increasing the popularity of English wine, making it more accessible to more people,” said Steve Richardson, the manager of the winery’s cellar door shop.The visitor book at the shop shows that visitors from Australia, North America and continental Europe come here seeking out the Devon wines.“The Scandinavians love our wines,” said Richardson.“The Australians come with very open minds; the French don’t like to admit how good it is.
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ECB president Christine Lagarde says she’s ‘determined’ to complete her term, after speculation of early exit to run WEF – as it happened
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ECB cuts interest rates to 2% in effort to bolster flagging eurozone growth
The European Central Bank has cut interest rates to 2% in an effort to boost flagging economic growth across the eurozone.The ECB, making its eighth quarter-point cut in a year, said the 20-member currency bloc needed a reduction in the cost of borrowing as it reeled from the damage caused by Donald Trump’s trade wars.Economic growth has slowed across the eurozone and especially in France, Germany and Italy, while the outlook for next year is weak, according to forecasts by the EU.The move cuts the cost of borrowing to less than half the level in the UK, where the Bank of England last month cut interest rates to 4.25%, and the level set in the US by the Federal Reserve of between 4
Amazon ‘testing humanoid robots to deliver packages’
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English-speaking countries more nervous about rise of AI, polls suggest
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Lizzie Deignan’s farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads
There was personal celebration but professional frustration for Lizzie Deignan on the opening day of her final Tour of Britain when her Lidl-Trek team failed to stop the Mauritian national champion, Kim Le Court, taking the first stage win and overall race lead in Redcar.Deignan’s valedictory race on British roads began with a fast 85.6km opening stage, from Dalby Forest to the beachfront in Redcar, and took in some of her longstanding training roads within an hour or so of her home in Otley, West Yorkshire.But although her team had strength in depth in the 20-rider pursuit of the day’s breakaway, they proved unable to close down Le Court and Kristen Faulkner, the Olympic champion, who stayed clear to contest the seaside finish.“We had a clear plan and executed it exactly as we wanted,” said Le Court, riding for the AG Insurance-Soudal team
French Open semi-finals: Sabalenka dethrones Swiatek, Gauff routs Boisson – as it happened
And here’s Tumaini’s take on today’s action. A bientot!C’est tout! Many thanks for your company today, Daniel will be back tomorrow with coverage of Jannik Sinner v Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz v Lorenzo Musetti.That was a business-like performance from Gauff, who silenced any doubts after her unconvincing quarter-final win over Madison Keys, and well and truly silenced the crowd with the calmest and most mature performance you could see from a 21-year-old playing against 15,000 fans. She didn’t give them – or Boisson – anything to get into. I hope the disappointment doesn’t last too long for Boisson
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