Vineyards and wineries in the East Riding of Yorkshire

Pressed on the farm, a few hundred yards from the vines.

Laurel Vines sends its grapes a few hundred yards to its own winery, which Vineyard Magazine noted in 2019 set it apart from most vineyards in the UK; fruit is in a tank within four hours of coming off the vine. Little Wold, at South Cave, built its own winery in 2022 and made its first wine in-house that year, around 12,000 bottles.

Ian and Ann Sargent bought Laurel Farm, a former livestock farm at Aike between Beverley and Driffield, in 2009. Its vines are on a south-facing slope just 8 metres above sea level, close to an estuary. Wind and frost are handled on site: windbreaks at the foot of the vines, and a fan system Ian Sargent developed that sucks cold air from under the vines and throws it over the top, so it does not settle on the crop. In 2022 Rebekah Sargent told the Wolds Weekly that spring frosts three years earlier had cost the vineyard 80 per cent of its crop.

The Wilson family has farmed at South Cave since 1947 — a dairy herd, then pigs, then sprouts and broccoli for the frozen food market — and Henry Wilson planted Little Wold’s first 6,000 vines by hand in 2012, the year he turned 65. Its wine is canned too, and the cans are sold, among other places, on board Hull Trains.

Little Wold lies directly on the Yorkshire Wolds Way, and a 5km circuit on its footpaths passes all three of the estate’s vineyards in South Cave. Laurel Vines is a short drive or taxi ride from its local stations.