Three Choirs Vineyards near Newent in Gloucestershire was one of the first to be planted with vines back in 1973. Local wine retailer Alan McKechnie started harvesting a few rows of vines on his small fruit farm and with a little help from the 1976 record summer temperatures and bumper harvest, his production began to expand. After nurturing the estate for 11 years, Alan sold up in 1984 due to poor health and John Oldacre took it on. He changed the name was changed from Fairfield Fruit Farms to Three Choirs Vineyards due largely to his connections to the Three Choirs Festival, England’s oldest choral festival. Though John Oldacre died in 2001, the company largely remains in the hands of his family and has now expanded to 75 acres. This is large in the context of English producers, but small enough to enable careful management of viticulture and wine making. The results are award-winning wines that showcase the quality of modern English wines. A deep, ruby coloured red wine full of ripe blackberry and cherry fruit on the nose with a subtle hint of lightly toasted oak from the American Barrel ageing. English red berry fruit character dominate on the palate, (damson, cherry, with a hint of blackberry and raspberry) and on the finish subtle vanilla oak character adds a degree of complexity to this cool-climate red wine.