Vineyards and wineries in Devon

Vines beside Devon’s rivers and estuaries.

When Michael Caines announced a vineyard at Lympstone Manor in 2018, he gave the rivers as his reason: “The great vineyards of Europe are all located on rivers, the Médoc châteaux of Bordeaux on the Gironde, wine estates along Rhône, Loire, and Rhine rivers, the great port vineyards of the Douro. Why not the Exe estuary?” Lympstone Manor’s vines run down its parkland towards the estuary, and Kenton Park lies close to the same water, in the foothills of Haldon Forest.

Several of Devon’s vineyards follow a river. On the Dart, trial plantings went in at Maurice and Ruth Ash’s Sharpham Estate in 1981, and Sandridge Barton, which traces its wine back to them, has its winery three kilometres downriver from the original Sharpham vineyard. Bantham Estate planted south-facing slopes beside the Avon estuary in May 2021. Tamar Valley looks from the Devon side of the Tamar across to Cornwall; Huxbear and Swanaford are in the Teign Valley, Heron Farm runs alongside the River Otter, and Castlewood is on a hillside below Musbury Castle, a hill fort above the river Axe.

Rain decides some of the planting. Madeleine Angevine was popular in the west country in the late 20th century because it copes with higher rainfall, and most of the vines at Combe Head Meadow, a restored heritage vineyard in Mid Devon, are that variety; Alder, on the edge of Dartmoor, and Tamar Valley grow it too. Torview, sheltered by Dartmoor, credits the tors with moderating the wind and acting as a rain belt that keeps some of the rain off its vines.

Away from the water, Wellhayes grows in red Devonian soil over shillet on the edge of the Brendon Hills, and Ten Acres planted the slope of Winkleigh’s former wartime airfield.