Dominic Buckwell on the Sussex vineyards offering the best hospitality, and English Wine Week.

It is often said that the experience of tasting wine is enhanced by the location where it is enjoyed, as much as who you are drinking it with, or the food it accompanies.

Tourism in Sussex is becoming one of its most important industries, worth a whopping £5 billion every year to the local economy, according to a recent survey, conducted for Sussex Modern. Hospitality is a critical part of the offering, and some of Sussex’s 160 vineyards have taken note. But while every vineyard encourages you to buy the bottled fruits of their labour, only a few encourage you to stay and soak up the scenery, while sipping their wine.

Sussex Modern has 17 vineyards as members, but only nine of them offer food to enjoy with their wines on site, usually in combination with a tour costing between £20 and £40 per person. They are: Ashling Park, Bluebell, Bolney, Digby, Rathfinny, Ridgeview, Tillingham, Tinwood and Wiston.

Experience Sussex, a joint enterprise between East and West Sussex Councils to promote tourism, lists 32 vineyards open to visit. However, the type of hospitality is varied and few open every week. At the top end, I would say Leonardslee is in a class of its own: Grade I-listed gardens and a house with an art gallery, rooms to stay in and the Michelin-starred Interlude restaurant, using ingredients from its own estate in each of the 20-plus courses.

Then comes Tillingham, near Rye, with a Green Michelin Star, and Rathfinny’s Michelin-recommended Tasting Room in Alfriston near Lewes. Both score equally high in terms of standards, but each with a different vibe, the former more arty and relaxed, the latter rather swish. Next in line is Wiston’s Chalk Restaurant near Worthing on the A24. This is a beautifully presented conversion of the estate’s former 58 poultry sheds, but its kitchen has yet to make a strong enough impression for inclusion in the Michelin Guide. And snapping on their heels is Artelium in Streat, who have recently appointed MasterChef Professional executive chef Michael Notman-Watt for their regular supper clubs.

Other vineyards with their own chefs for pop-up and alfresco summer events are Nutbourne, offering monthly Burger & Bubbly evenings near Pulborough, and Sugrue South Downs’ Sunday lunches (sold out already for 2025!).

Two mid-market options in mid-Sussex, Bolney and Ridgeview, both offer family/dog-friendly full-service restaurants. The Rows & Vine Restaurant at Ridgeview features ingeniously designed open-ended alfresco dining pods with retracting roofs in case of sudden natural irrigation. This will be the lunch stop for a tour at the end of June for English Wine Week (see overleaf).

For most of the others the regular offering is limited to the ubiquitous cheese/charcuterie boards or visiting food trucks. Although tasty and making use of local ingredients, this doesn’t make for a dining destination. While that’s useful to take the edge off wines at the lower end of the pH scale, I find low effort sharing boards wreck rather than satisfy my appetite.

Several vineyards have accommodation on site, including a few of those already mentioned which have restaurants. A couple of other noteworthy places to stay are: Ashling Park near Chichester, which offers luxurious lodges, designed by Sussex celebrity carpenter William Hardie, and Oastbrook, near Bodium, which built its own ‘Hobbit house’, that had to be renamed The Vineyard Hollow due to assertion by the Saul Zaentz Company of certain intellectual property rights acquired in 1976 from the estate of JRR Tolkien.

A national initiative to increase visits to English Wine vineyards, English Wine Week, is run every June by the industry body WineGB. This year Sussex has a dedicated team organising a new festival in Lewes to celebrate Sussex wines, in and around the town. And there’s plenty to celebrate: ‘Sussex Winelands’ is the term now being used to promote the UK’s greatest wine region, when you consider number of producers, volume of output and (I would argue) quality. Of course, it all started here: Sussex can boast the leading pioneer of English wine, Nyetimber, who first put English Sparkling Wine on the world stage in numerous tastings and awards.

There are plenty of events to look forward to. On June 25 Lewes Depot cinema is screening a one-off showing of the film The Story of Champagne. Only 38 seats are available as I write, so book now if it hasn’t already sold out. The ticket will include a seat for the ‘Battle of the Bubbles’ – a one-off England v France tasting of sparkling wines hosted by the world’s youngest Master of Wine Mike Best, who lives locally.

On June 28, Charleston in Lewes is given over to the inaugural Winelands Lewes tasting, a free-to-enter event with a dozen different wine producers across Sussex, and even a couple 60 based in Kent. Henry Jeffreys, whose book Vines in a Cold Climate tells the story of the people behind English wine, will be there to sign copies and chat. In the evening, a supper by Field Food paired with several of the top local wines, hosted by wine comic Olly Smith, will also take place in the same venue (get your tickets from rosamagazine.co.uk).

Other Lewes venues hosting special events and tastings for English Wine Week include Cheese Please, Dill, Harveys, Squisito, Seasons, Symposium, 34, and a new wine shop, Maggie’s.

Finally, wine presenter Tom Surgery is offering a guided tour to a trio of vineyards near Ditchling: Artelium, Ridgeview and Everflyht, on June 29. There are a limited number of places on the Art Bus leaving Lewes at 10.30am, or you can use your own transport. Tickets are also available from ROSA’s website. Santé? Let’s make that ‘cheers’