Vineyards and wineries in Norfolk

The county whose Bacchus took a Decanter platinum in 2017.

Winbirri’s 2015 Bacchus, from Surlingham outside Norwich, won one of only 34 Platinum Best in Show medals at the 2017 Decanter World Wine Awards, from more than 17,200 entries — the award for the best-value white made from a single grape. Decanter described it as a £13-a-bottle wine. Lee Dyer, who makes it, later told Vineyard Magazine the estate had received 10,000 emails in the first 48 hours, all with orders, and that most of England’s Bacchus is planted in East Anglia.

Bacchus recurs across the county. Sveinn’s Bacchus Fume was named Best Bacchus two years running, at the East of England Wine Awards 2025 and the WineGB East Awards 2026. Brecks, on the family farm at Hockwold cum Wilton, made a Bacchus its first wine from the 2025 harvest, and Walsingham Estate chose Bacchus, Solaris and Pinot Noir Précoce for Norfolk’s maritime climate.

Solaris and Rondo turn up more than once. Babu’s, at Weston Longville, chose them as varieties bred for the cooler climate of northern Germany and Denmark; Burn Valley grows both, with Regent, on chalk and flint near North Creake. Brecks plants disease-resistant Piwi hybrids beside traditional varieties. On the north coast, Walsingham’s field lies over chalk with the sea five miles off, and at Cobble Hill, near Docking, coastal air keeps frost from the vines.

The estates fall into two groups. Around Norwich are Winbirri, Chet Valley at Bergh Apton, Sveinn’s at Swainsthorpe, Humbleyard near Mulbarton and Babu’s; along the north coast, Burn Valley, Walsingham and Cobble Hill. Flint is on a working farm outside Bungay, in the Waveney Valley, and Brecks is in the far south-west of the county.