Vineyards and wineries in Cornwall

The UK’s first single-vineyard PDO, on Cornish slate.

In 2017 the European Union gave Protected Designation of Origin status to the Darnibole vineyard at Camel Valley, near Bodmin, making it the first UK single vineyard to hold it. The case rested on the ground: Bob Lindo told Decanter in 2012 that its ancient slate subsoil produced a different style of Bacchus, and a Darnibole wine may not be acidified, de-acidified, chaptalized or sweetened.

Lindo, an ex-RAF pilot, and his wife Annie planted their first eight thousand vines in 1989, on a farm where they had kept sheep and cattle. Slate turns up again at Trevibban Mill, near Padstow, planted in 2008 on soil that sits 30 centimetres above solid slate, with a disused slate quarry still on the land.

Several Cornish vineyards took over other crops. St Martin’s, in the Isles of Scilly, planted its vines on old flower fields in 1996, on granite ground 28 miles off Land’s End; it is reached only by boat, plane or helicopter to St Mary’s. Polgoon, near Penzance, was a flower farm before it stood derelict, and was planted in 2004. The Atlantic Vineyard, outside Newquay, turned potato and barley fields into vineyard in 2022, planting only hybrid vines, and Bosue, near St Austell, grows modern varieties such as Solaris, Rondo and Regent, which it describes as suited to Cornwall because they are high yielding and disease resistant.

On the south coast, Knightor, above St Austell Bay, draws on vineyards at Seaton, near Looe, and Portscatho, on the Roseland; Looe Valley Vineyard is near St Keyne, and The Cornish Vineyard is on coastal land near Truro.