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News
English wine guide omits entire region
Popular US wine education blog Wine Folly has published a guide to English wine with one substantial omission – can you spot it?
Tumbleweed blows over the South West in Wine Folly’s Wine Map of England
A post titled ‘All About English Wine’ published on the Wine Folly blog this week includes a Wine Map of England which highlights the winemaking regions of Hampshire, Sussex, Surry, Kent, East Anglia and – that’s it.
Several observers noted the omission of the entire South West of England, home to such wineries as Camel Valley (Cornwall), Sharpham (Devon) and Lyme Bay (Devon).
There are around 110 vineyards in Cornwall, Dorset, Devon and Somerset, around half of which are of a “medium to large” size, according to English wine marketing group English Wine Producers.
Wiltshire and Gloucestershire have around 29 vineyards between them, making a total of around 139 for the entire South West region.
The award-winning Wine Folly site is run by Madeline Puckette, a former graphic designer and qualified sommelier whose wine infographics have helped many thousands, if not millions, of wine novices to better understand the subject since its launch in 2011.
The site has also led to the publication of a New York Times best-selling book.
The omission came as a slight surprise to Sam Lindo, winemaker at Cornwall’s largest winery, Camel Valley, which has been making wine in the region since 1989.
Prefacing his comments by saying that “England is a very small place and it’s odd that people want to have this regionality”, Lindo said: “I would say in the International Wine Challenge there were more medals won [by wineries] in the South West region than any of the other regions…
“If you group all the South West together then we do better than the South East.”
Lindo speculated that there were “not that many people who are actually feeding information into the US”. The Wine Folly article appears to have used the 2010 Guide to English Vineyards written by Stephen Skelton MW.
Camel Valley does export a small amount of wine to the US – including a proportion to Seattle, where Wine Folly author is based.
The otherwise detailed and informative article, which was written by Wine Folly contributor Camille Berry, can be read here.
Yeah, I actually pointed this out to Sam originally as Wine Folly is regularly writing poor content that is light on facts and heavy on inaccuracies. Anyone using it for their wine education is being misled.
I’ve pointed out numerous problems about their Spain coverage as I live here and write about the wines. Few seem to care as they enough the pretty pictures.
64% of Americans have never left the US.
I have also pointed out numerous inaccuracies on their coverage Spanish wines.
To Everyone:
I received a great little note from a few readers when the article came out in regards to Camel Valley and I worked with Camille to get an update out. It just took a couple of days to do. I’m happy and thankful to all who have helped improve the content on the site, and I will continue to update and improve it (a major update is also in the works!). Thanks so much for taking notice of it. I’ve been following and enjoying the stuff from team db 🙂
In regards to other errors spotted (not sure what specifically Miquel and Rosa Maria are referring to with Spain) please send me an email and I’ll make sure to check sources: madeline (at) winefolly
If you click on the link the site has already been updated.
You Brits really are a bitter bunch!
Miquel is right. Madeline Puckette has put out a lot of misinformation and continues to do so. Being a sommelier provides a person with some basic information about wine but hardly make one an expert. Regardless of how many books she has sold or how many website visitors she’s had, anyone holding themselves out as an authority on the subject of wine (or any subject) should actually be erudite and take the time and effort to become a source of reliable information. Ms. Puckette clearly hasn’t yet caught on to that concept yet.
That said, I appreciate her spirit and enthusiasm for wine but she really needs to tighten up her facts before releasing information into the world. It’s a big problem with the Internet, in general, and wine specifically.
David Boyer
classof1855.com