English vineyards are producing more and more quality award winning sparkling wines that can rival Champagne from France. A sparkling wine made in Sussex has been judged the best in the world and was deemed appropriate to serve to President Obama on his recent visit. Even the French are investing over here - a sure sign that we are doing something right! Mr Balfour-Lyons, who owns a vineyard as well as the Malmaison and Hotel du Vin groups says "the English climate is ideal for producing the right level of acidity and mouthwatering freshness which is vital for good quality Champagne and sparkling wine."

But the question remains: what do we call it? Italy has Prosecco, Spain has Cava and France has Champagne. We need a catchy name. English sparkling wine sounds so dull but a Hampshire producer called Christian Seely has come up with ‘Britagne.’ However Mike Roberts of the Ridgeview winery thinks the fizz should be called ‘Merret’ in honour of the Englishman who reputedly invented the method of capturing bubbles in the glass. Others have suggested ‘Pippa’ in honour of Pippa Middleton who seemed to capture something quintessentially English at ‘The Wedding’. Any other suggestions?

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The Domaine de la Romanee-Conti is the most famous of all the great Burgundy vineyards. Situated just south of Dijon, the vineyard boundaries have remained untouched for 600 years. There are six ‘grand cru’ vineyards (known as ‘climats’) and the original boundaries were probably mapped out by Cistercian Monks from the 4th century onwards. By trial and error (and a great deal of drinking!) the monks discovered that different plots of vines delivered markedly different tastes and qualities from the classic Pinot Noir grape. The La Tache vineyard, the most famous of the lot, can sell for upwards of £12,000 a bottle and yet its neighbour in the same appellation of Vosne Romanee might only achieve £30. The greatest wine experience of my life was drinking a bottle of the 1953 La Tache over lunch with Auberon Waugh - there was so much sediment that I filtered the remaining 1/4 of the  wine though a tissue and gave a sip to my wine class that evening. To this day I am reminded of the experience.

Anyway the point of this story is that there is a campaign to make the Romanee Conti Vineyards a Unesco world heritage site. In an age of uniformity and brands they argue that authenticity and quality is everything. However this will only irritate other top producers from famous regions such as Bordeaux and Champagne and I can see the stuffy world of top French wine producers brewing for another major battle.

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You will have read (hopefully in this column last month!) about the  excessive prices paid by the Chinese for famous red wines. Now however, we have news concerning the most expensive white wine produced. A 200 year old bottle of the 1811 vintage of Chateau d'Yquem, the most famous dessert wine from Bordeaux, was sold for £75,000 to a hotel owner in Bali. Whilst this might be out of your reach I can provide a bottle of the 1995 in any of our shops for a mere £399 a bottle. An investment for your great great grandchildren perhaps!?