Introduction....

Well having finished long distance paths - at least for the time being, we needed a new project! And having recently acquired our little red Morgan 4/4, it seemed that she should be involved too. So it was that Chris decided that Sassy - our car - would enable us to travel the countryside in search of good British red wine! We think we should be patriotic again and buy British.

With such a brilliant plan afoot - we had started to collect our list of vineyards - and there are very many - and increasing all the time it seems, a little like all the microbreweries that have been on the increase.

We had recently sampled red German wine brought to us by our friends and that is quite a fruity wine - none of the tannins we associate - and love - like the Bordeaux wines. We have been until now very francophile in our taste for wines.. And then more recently we visited the Ludlow Food Fair weekend which was fantastic. So many local producers in the same place offering everything from fruit and veg to chocolates - the cheeses were terrific, the hams and smoked sausages amazing, the peanut butter in so many flavours, the honey and jams prolific! It made us feel very proud! And determined to find what we are looking for....

There were indeed plenty of cider producers represented and indeed one of them is distilling now in Ludlow so brandy and whisky are in the making....again on the increase

There were also one of two vineyards at the Food Fair, one of which was Wroxeter Roman vineyard. Very northerly we thought to be able to produce red grapes for red wine...but not so! They even had 2 different types which we had to sample...Roman Red which Chris preferred but I found it a bit dry so we bought the Shropshire Red, very light and fruity..

So - let the little red English car visiting vineyards in search of the best British Red (a little subjective I agree...) begin!