Vineyards and wineries in Dorset

The Dorset chalk that Steven Spurrier showed to Paris.

Steven Spurrier, the wine merchant who organised the Judgement of Paris tasting in 1976, moved to Dorset with his wife Bella, who bought farmland on the edge of Litton Cheney to farm sheep. Walking it, he was struck by the chalk, and showed some rocks to the French critic Michel Bettane in Paris. Asked where he thought they were from, Bettane replied: "Champagne, of course". Spurrier planted Bride Valley on the farm in 2009, with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier.

Chalk lies under Langham too, on Crawthorne Farm north-east of Dorchester, where the estate compares its belemnitic chalk to that of Champagne’s Côte des Blancs. Justin Langham planted the first blocks in 2009. At the WineGB Awards in July 2025, its Perpetual MV was the first wine in the competition’s history to score 99 points, and was named Supreme Champion.

Other Dorset vineyards stand on different ground. Furleigh Estate, near Bridport, grows on free-draining sandy soil it calls Thorncombe Sand, formed in the Early Jurassic; Little Waddon, at Langton Herring on the Jurassic Coast, plants loam, flint and chalk over Kimmeridge clay.

Several of the estates sit in the south-west of the county, between Bridport and Dorchester: Louma and Furleigh near Bridport, Bride Valley at Litton Cheney, and Little Waddon on the coast at Langton Herring, with Langham just north-east of Dorchester. English Oak is in Purbeck, near Poole, and Breezy Ridge, on an exposed slope in North Dorset, grows Seyval Blanc, Solaris and Muscaris.