© Wikimedia/Jonathan Billinger
Wales is rarely thought of as a wine region, and one could be forgiven for disbelief upon learning there are vineyards there at all. With its cool, wet climate and total absence of winemaking heritage, Wales ranks high on the list of unlikely viticultural areas.
Wales is one of four constituent countries of the United Kingdom (the others being Scotland, Northern Ireland and England), and accounts for just one-tenth of the nation's total land area. A large proportion of the landscape here is mountainous, and used for the country's most famous industry: sheep farming. Very little land is given over to viticulture of any kind, and the few Welsh vineyards that do produce wine from their grapes distribute almost exclusively to a local consumer base.
Although warmed by the Gulf Stream, which brings warm waters up from the Caribbean and across the Atlantic, Wales' climate is cool and very wet. Only in the most sheltered spots, in the warmer south of the country, is viticulture possible. The country’s first commercial winery was established in 1875 but the industry has grown very little.
Welsh wines are labeled as either Welsh Vineyard Quality Wine or United Kingdom Table Wine. A promotional body called the Welsh Vineyards Association is a member of the greater United Kingdom Vineyards Association but has a very limited membership pool – in 2013 there were 17 commercial producers in the country. The grape varieties used here are not effectively reported, due to the lack of official administration required for such a small wine industry, but most Welsh vine rows are planted with the same cool-climate wine grapes used in England: Triomphe D'Alsace, Cascade, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier for reds, and Madeleine Angevine, Seyval Blanc, Schonburger and Muller-Thurgau for whites.
