Vineyards and wineries in Buckinghamshire

A wine merchant’s family makes its English wine above Marlow.

Marlow is where the Laithwaites make their own English wine. Tony and Barbara Laithwaite built Laithwaites Wine from a van load of Bordeaux in 1969; their son Henry planted Harrow & Hope above the town with his wife Kaye in 2010, and makes the wine there for Barbara’s vineyard at Wyfold, near Henley, and for the vineyard Tony helped establish in Windsor Great Park, whose grapes are brought to Marlow.

The ground is the river’s work. The Thames cut into the Chilterns chalk around 450,000 years ago and left clay, flint and gravel on the terrace Harrow & Hope sits on, giving way to pure chalk further down the slope; Pinot Noir grows on the terrace, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier on the chalk.

Several of the county’s other vineyards are in the Chilterns too. Chiltern Valley at Old Luxters, above the Hambleden Valley, has grown vines since 1982 and shares its farm buildings with a brewery; Daws Hill, at Radnage, ages its sparkling wine for at least four years in converted stables; and Woodfine, near Seer Green, makes its wine with no added sulphites. Dropmore sends its grapes to Stanlake Park in Berkshire to be made, and Marlow Valley, planted in 2022, has its wine made off-site by Itasca. In the north of the county, Chafor, near Buckingham, grows on land that was once part of the royal hunting forest of Bernwood, and Stonepit, near Olney, on a field over limestone.

Oaken Grove, at Fawley, is the end of a 6km Walk Works trail from Fairmile Vineyard in Henley-on-Thames, which is within walking distance of Henley station.