Vineyards and wineries in Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire wine, handed on from father to daughter.

When Tony Skuriat planted vines in Nottinghamshire in the 1970s, his daughter Helenka Brown says, everyone thought he was deluded. He and Veronica planted their first vineyard in 1975, then moved the vines to establish Eglantine, on the hill between Bunny and Costock, just off the Nottingham to Loughborough road.

Eglantine’s flagship dessert wine, North Star, is made from Madeleine Angevine and has had only eight vintages in almost 50 years, because the fruit must be perfectly ripe. Hanwell’s account of the family dates it to the early 2000s and calls it the country’s first ice wine.

Helenka grew up at Eglantine. Her own vineyard, Hanwell, at Hickling Pastures, was planted in May 2012 with the Champagne varieties her father guided her to, and each vintage travels 15 minutes to Eglantine’s winery to be made into wine.

About four miles from Eglantine, at Stanton-on-the-Wolds, Wolds Wine Estate was planted in March 2020 by Rob and Louise, who had worked on a wine estate in Umbria; the wine is fermented with wild yeast and left unfiltered and unfined. The Keyworth bus from Nottingham stops a 13-minute walk from the estate, and Nottsbus on Demand drops passengers on the Melton Road, a five-minute walk from Hanwell.