Climate

Kent has always called itself the Garden of England, and when it comes to weather the name rings doubly true. No other English county gets as much sunshine. The southeast as a whole is considered the sunniest, driest corner of the country. Winemakers like Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger now openly call Kent one of the warmest and driest regions around. At the height of summer, July brings nine to ten hours of sunshine a day.

Fifty years ago, that still wasn't enough. Average temperatures in southeast England have since risen by about 1.8 degrees, and that single figure explains almost the entire English sparkling wine success story of the last twenty years. Kent's current climate now resembles that of Champagne in the 1980s. What was once a marginal site there is now the norm here.

This progress has one catch: April. Warm spells bring the buds out early, and a single cold morning afterwards is enough to destroy the young harvest. In April 2017, temperatures in the southeast dropped to minus six degrees on three consecutive nights, a cold snap not seen in twenty years. At Hush Heath vineyard in Kent alone, forty percent of the expected harvest was lost that year, and nationwide the harvest in that ill-fated year fell to just 5.9 million bottles, the lowest figure in years. Since then, many estates have placed candles or wind machines between the vine rows.

At night, however, the proximity to the sea reliably cools things down. This difference between day and night locks the acidity into the grape instead of letting it burn off in the summer heat. On the south-facing slopes of the North Downs there is a third advantage. Plant here and you catch the low-angled sun from morning to evening, with no hill in the way.