Shrewsbury vineyard raises a glass to award-winning year

In the last 12 months the Shrewsbury estate has earned a place in English winemaking history for its red wines, won rave reviews from some of the UK’s top experts, successfully reopened its stunning restaurant after lockdown and enjoyed a record-breaking year for bookings in both the restaurant and its glamping operation.

And all the early indications are that 2022 could deliver more of the same.

General manager Mark Stevens said that despite the challenges of the pandemic, 2021 had been something of a vintage year for Hencote.

“During the year we have become the first English vineyard to win gold medals for two separate still red wines at the International Wine Challenge – the Olympics of our industry. The results mean that in total our 2018 vintages have won a remarkable two golds, a silver and six bronzes at the 2020 and 2021 IWC competitions, with a further four silvers at the Decanter World Wine Awards.

“Our wines have been praised by a host of national experts throughout the year, including both Oz Clarke and Jancis Robinson. Jancis said our wines were ‘pure’ and made with a ‘light touch’ whilst Oz said he was ‘absolutely delighted’ with our Evolution sparkling wine.

“We’ve also shared a stage with Jean-Christophe Novelli at Shrewsbury Food Festival, enjoyed record-breaking levels of bookings for the restaurant and glamping and even welcomed the Real Housewives of Cheshire onto the vineyard for a day’s filming.

“One particularly pleasing aspect of the last year was our decision to join the Shropshire Chamber so that we can play our part in helping the whole of the county’s business community as it recovers from the pandemic.”

Mark said Hencote would be expanding its corporate offer in 2022 with some exciting new initiatives to support the business community.

“We are currently working on plans which we think will offer something new and unique in Shropshire and which we hope to be able to announce very shortly.”

Mark said the coming months would also see the release of the 2021 vintage from Hencote – with hopes high that the quality will equal that of the award-winning 2018 wines.

“The 2021 harvest was slightly lower in terms of yield than that of 2018 but our winemaker Gavin Patterson believes the quality is as good as it’s ever been and something to really look forward to.

“When we established the estate here in 2016 we were determined to produce wine which was the equal of anything produced anywhere in the world. Our 2018 vintage showed that we were on the right track and we are confident that our 2021 wines will further enhance our reputation.”