![\"Vines](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_264461108-960d.jpg\")
\n\t\tVines covered in snow at Pant Du vineyard in Snowdonia (Picture: Pant Du Vineyard)<\/p>\n
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\n\t\tVines covered in snow at Pant Du vineyard in Snowdonia (Picture: Pant Du Vineyard)<\/p>\n
The slopes of Snowdonia are a long way from Provence, but you can now find a vineyard there growing rondo and seyval blanc.<\/p>\n
Pant Du is one of dozens of vineyards now thriving in Wales<\/a>, more famously the home of dragons and male voice choirs.<\/p>\n It\u2019s down to climate change<\/a>, which is now serving us homegrown cab franc alongside flood, famine, and fire. <\/a><\/p>\n While many traditional wine<\/a> regions are becoming too hot<\/a>, rainy Wales is not yet in danger of this.<\/p>\n As of August, there were 59 registered vineyards there, more than twice as many from just nine years ago in 2017, when there were only 24. <\/p>\n You may have already been enjoying some of Wales\u2019 famous bottles, like those from Ancre Hill, which are in \u2018every natty wine bar\u2019 in London<\/a> according to British wine expert Alice Griffiths.<\/p>\n She has just returned from a trip around Welsh vineyards, and told Metro<\/strong> that people tend to \u2018forget\u2019 Welsh wine. <\/p>\n \t\t English vineyards<\/a> like Chapel Down, Denbies and Camel Valley are well known, with champagne grape varieties suited to cooler climates, such as chardonnay and pinor noir, widespread in the south east.<\/p>\n But Ms Griffiths said Welsh growers are \u2018looking outside the box, with some growers seeing success with grapes like Bordeaux\u2019s cabernet franc, usually a grape for warmer climates, as well as a focus on organic and sustainable<\/a> farming. <\/p>\n Dr Kate Gannon, who has researched how climate change is affecting British viticulture, told Metro <\/strong>a warming world is the reason we now have a Welsh wine industry.<\/p>\n Grape varieties grow within narrow average temperature ranges, she explained, so can now reliably grow where they couldn\u2019t before. <\/p>\n Across England<\/a> and Wales, this has allowed planting area for vines to grow \u2018exponentially\u2019, even as global wine production slowed to its lowest level for over 60 years in 2023. There are now nearly 1,000 vineyards in the UK as a whole.<\/p>\n \u2018It\u2019s rare when you\u2019re covering climate change to get a bit of a nice story embedded in there,\u2019 she said \u2013 though added that sadly, it\u2019s not all positive. <\/p>\n \t\t Many established wine regions are \u2018just becoming too hot for the varieties that they\u2019re known for,\u2019 Dr Gannon, of the Grantham Research Institute, LSE, said. \u2018At the same time they\u2019re also experiencing other climatic challenges like wildfires<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n The climate of south east England is projected<\/a> to become more like Burgundy within 20 years, she said, making it hard to know which grape varieties will be best suited for the long term, given planting vines is expensive and you\u2019d hope they would last for decades.<\/p>\n Richard Huws, who founded Pant Du vineyard in 2007, told Metro <\/strong>it would soon be possible to plant different varieties than he thought of when starting out with wife Iola. <\/p>\n \t\t\t\tHave you started buying British wines? <\/p>\n Not all their grapes thrived, and they planted apple trees for cider as a back-up plan, saying \u2018when you\u2019re pioneering, it hurts when you get things wrong\u2019. <\/p>\n But there is \u2018huge potential\u2019 for UK wine, he thinks, predicting Welsh and English wine will soon regularly beat sparkling wine from Champagne in blind tastings. <\/p>\n A striking photo of his vineyard in Gwynedd shows vines poking out from drifts of snow, with a mountain in the background.<\/p>\n It looks dramatic, but snow isn\u2019t the real problem, as the vines will be dormant over winter. <\/p>\n More of a problem is late frosts after the growing season has started, or wet weather causing an invasion of pests: both unpredictable weather<\/a> events more likely now than 100 years ago.<\/p>\n Dr Gannon said this is not a story of despair, as the wine sector does \u2018wonderful things\u2019, but cautioned \u2018there are no robust opportunities from climate change if we don\u2019t slow the rate of change\u2019. <\/p>\n Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk<\/a>.<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n For more stories like this, <\/strong>check our news page<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\tComments Arrow Arrow![\"Alice](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_264484219-1cc6.jpg\")
\n\t\tUK wine expert Alice Griffiths at White Castle vineyard in Abergavenny last month (Picture: Alice Griffiths)<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/SEI_86383302-2889.jpg\")
\n\t\tEven the Queen is a fan: Camilla meets the owner of Llanerch Vineyard, Ryan Davies, in Pontyclun (Picture: PA)<\/p>\n
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