Did you know the 'den' ending of names is primarily found in Kent; Hubby's family history search revealed his family came from this area and there is a very small hamlet called Hearnden Green. Being in the South East it would have been remiss of us not to visit a 'den' vineyard, and what a super visit it was.
Biddenden Vineyard lives between the village of Biddenden and Tenterden and was originally a 40 acre apple orchard. With apple prices declining and farming getting harder the Barnes family, led by Joyce Barnes in 1969, diversified into growing vines.
Their first wine was produced in 1972 and the vines, still owned by the Barnes family, now cover 23 acres of 11 different grape varieties. It is in a beautiful setting of gentle slopes, open to the south absorbing the sun; a very peaceful location.
Biddenden offer a self guided tour, which before arriving we thought would be a simple wander amongst the vines. We were very delighted, and impressed, when given a self guide book complete with a choice of routes to follow depending on time and ability.
We walked the longer route which covered all the grape varieties grown, a very enjoyable 40 minutes in the English countryside. Along the route were numbered stop points with detailed information corresponding to each in our booklet. It was so interesting to discover the vines and their history; being a self guided tour we had plenty of time to look at the vines, take photos and learn more about the different varieties.
The name and date markers gave a real insight as to how the vineyard expanded and which varieties had more coverage. I was delighted to see my favourite Ortega and Bacchus grapes as well as some German and French varieties.
Biddenden offer Private Guided and Meet the Winemaker tours which include visiting the winery and learning about the wine making techniques. Our self guiding route lead us back to the vineyard buildings and the well stocked shop full of local produce including of course Biddenden wines, ciders and fruit juices.
Our tour included three tastings so we were able to taste six wines between us: there was a sweet wine but we chose still and sparkling wines. We had a tasting card each to select our wines, each wine had tasting notes to help choose. The three wines came on a flight board accompanied with water biscuits. It was such a lovely experience in a great setting, considering we were doing the tour ourselves we felt very welcomed.
The Biddenden wines were:
Ortega 2021 - our favourite still wine, crisp with lovely apple flavours
All the wines were superb, it was quite hard to choose but we decided on Ortega 2021 and Pinot Reserve Sparkling White 2018. Although English wine is growing in production and popularity it is understandably higher in price to cover the smaller vineyards costs; for Hubby and I English wine is a treat wine and these will certainly be a treat.
Thank you Biddenden for a super time discovering your vineyard and wines, we will certainly be visiting again.
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