Rathfinny bottle first wines

Rathfinny Estate in Sussex, one of the newest and biggest English wine producers, has bottled its first wines around one year after opening its winery.

Around 6,000 bottles of still wine - a blend of Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay of Italian style - will be released this June under the Cradle Valley label. Rathfinny owner Mark Driver said a further 6,000 bottles of sparkling Blanc de Blancs will spend about three years on the lees and be released by the end of 2017 or in 2018.

Later this year, Rathfinny expects to harvest between 50 and 80 tonnes of grapes to make up 60,000 bottles of sparkling wine for release in 2018, a third of which will be a sparkling rosé. About 72 ha of grapevines – mainly of the Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier varieties - have been planted on Rathfinny Estate's south facing slopes. It has total capacity of 243ha, making it the largest vineyard in the UK.

Driver is hoping that plans for a Sussex appellation (PDO) will be in place in time for the release of his first batch of sparkling wines.