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From The Times
September 12, 2003

Britain's wines are hot stuff

By Simon de Bruxelles
ENGLAND’S winegrowers are to begin their annual grape harvest two weeks early because of the summer’s record temperatures.

While many French vineyards were adversely affected by the heatwave, English vineyards are expecting a vintage year after a long dry summer ripened grapes perfectly.

Ian Berwick, general secretary of the UK Vineyards Association, said that wine production among Britains 333 vineyards is expected to be up by 50 per cent this year from two million bottles to three million. The weather has also meant high quality as well as quantity.

Thomas Shaw, managing director of Three Choirs Vineyard in Newent, Gloucestershire, said: “Quality is the over-riding and most driving aspect of each year’s harvest. This year the quality has been superb.”

Fraser Thompson, chief executive of English Wines Group, the nation’s biggest wine producer, said: “Last year we had a very late summer, so it was average quantity but good quality. This year the quantity will be up but the quality will be even higher again. ”

Some of France’s best known wine regions have been scorched and withered.

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