Barry Anderson, the head grower at the award-winning Leonardslee winery in West Sussex, joked this week that there are only two types of landscape that remain green amid England’s sweltering summer – golf greens and vineyards.

But while golf greens benefit from an exemption that allows watering while much of the rest of the nation suffers a hosepipe ban, the verdant vineyards are evidence that Britain’s wine producers are among the few farmers and growers enjoying the current weeks of unceasing sunshine.

While arable farmers and horticulturalists are struggling with drought and plunging yields, viticulturists from Kent to Yorkshire are cautiously optimistic for what is set to be the second bumper harvest in a row after 2025 produced the UK’s biggest-ever grape crop.

Anderson, a South African-born wine expert who is managing director of the Leonardslee Wine Estate, explained that vines, which on this estate and most others go unwatered, are staying green while other crops up and down the land are turning a parched yellow.

“We’ve got no irrigation in our vineyards – it’s not even something that would be considered. The vines have a fantastic root system and go down up to two metres to look for water. Ours are currently showing no drought stress – all the work goes into trying to create that green canopy so the plant can produce the grapes.

“As far as quality goes, 2026 is shaping up to be an exceptional harvest. The fruit is looking very clean and healthy and I think the flavours should be exceptional.”

‘Looking as good as last year, if not better’

While drought can spell disaster for shallow-rooted crops from barley to broccoli, well-tended vines tend to prosper in heat stress, often producing more grapes than in cooler years. Unbroken sunshine also keeps disease at bay and concentrates the sugars, allowing a higher alcohol content for more full-bodied and flavoured wines.

Some 260 miles north in rural North Yorkshire, Tim Spakouskas, managing director of the Yorkshire Heart vineyard set up by his parents as a hobby in 2006 alongside their milk delivery business, is similarly enthused about the prospects both for this year’s harvest and the UK industry now worth nearly £500m a year.

After starting with just 1,500 vines, the vineyard – for a while, Britain’s most northerly wine producer – now has some 30,000 vines spread across 21 grape varieties. Last year, Yorkshire Heart produced 36,000 bottles and could this year produce north of 40,000 as new vines begin to crop.

Spakouskas, 50, said: “This is not something I thought I’d be doing for a living 20 or 30 years ago. But it is going well. This summer the vines are fully loaded and as long as nothing goes wrong in the next four or five weeks, we’re going to get a good harvest with good quality. It’s looking just as good as last year, if not slightly better.”

7,000 football pitches of vineyards

Such forecasts are not made lightly. On the back of another long, hot summer, last year saw the vineyards of England and Wales produce a record 16.5 million bottles of wine – a 55 per cent increase on the admittedly poor 2024 vintage.

According to one analysis, the British wine sector has grown by an average of nearly seven per cent a year for the last five years and now produces annual revenues of £477m. The number of vineyards stands at 1,158 – an increase of 54 on the previous year – and there are now 4,851 hectares of grape production, equivalent to nearly 7,000 football pitches.

Much of England and Wales now enjoy summer conditions comparable to those that would have been found in French wine regions such as Champagne or the Loire 20 years ago.

Consequently, where once British growers routinely picked their grapes in October, many are this year expecting to harvest from mid-September onwards if the weather stays fine. A large majority of British wine – some 69 per cent – is sparkling whites, although the proportion of still whites and reds is increasing.

‘Black frost’ – how weather decides wine quality and quantity

But viticulture remains highly susceptible to the weather.

Anderson remembers with an amount of horror the Monday in May when a “black frost” – a sudden windborne drop in air temperature to as low as minus 4°C – swept across England and damaged flowering vines for a significant number of producers. While Leonardslee only saw a small proportion of its vines affected, it still lost up to 30 to 40 per cent of the crop on the affected plants.

The result is that while the quality of this year’s UK wine harvest may be the best ever, yields for some growers may not be quite as high as 2025 as they battle the shifting climate.

Nicola Bates, chief executive of WineGB, which represents producers in England and Wales, said: “Their vineyard management is currently delivering healthy, high-quality fruit and whilst it’s too early to definitively say the overall impact on this year’s UK harvest the vineyards look strong and we’re optimistic.”

Is the fizz going out of Champagne?

In the vineyards of Champagne, arguably the UK industry’s most direct competitor in terms of quality if not quantity, the picture is not so rosy.

Growers in the region, which like much of the rest of France has suffered extreme heat and drought, last month announced their lowest ever yields as they slashed annual production to 250 million bottles.

While the cut is more to do with streamlining production to ensure more champagne is not produced than can be sold, questions are already being asked about whether the world’s premier region for fizz can survive summers where temperatures above 40°C are increasingly routine.

It is far from impossible that English wine could one day step into any champagne-shaped hole in global fizz production. Earlier this year, English sparkling won 19 medals compared to champagne’s three in the one of the most sought-after categories for high-quality bubbly at the industry’s largest awards.

Anderson said: “At the moment there is no particular trend to the weather – we have had such diverse conditions over the last five years. But that comes with the territory, ultimately the beauty of wine is that every vintage tells a different story. And we have a saying – the harvest isn’t over until the wine is in the bottle.”