Corks are popping at vineyards across England as winemakers toast what is set to be the biggest grape harvest ever.

This year has proven to be the perfect conditions thanks to a lack of winter frost and warm sunny weather across the south of England.

Wine is the UK’s fastest growing agricultural sector with business booming at the likes of Chapel Down, Nyetimber and Gusbourne.

All three producers have reported bumper figures in recent weeks – and hailed what they expect to be a record harvest.

‘We have a climate that was the same as the Champagne region in the late 1980s,’ says Chapel Down chief executive Andrew Carter at the winemaker’s estate in Tenterden, Kent, as the harvest gets under way.

‘It is this bittersweet part of global warming.’

The chalky soil in the south-east of England is similar to that found in the Champagne region of France, and warmer temperatures in recent years have meant higher sugar content in the grapes, which makes for higher alcohol levels.

Aside from Kent, West Sussex and East Sussex are also becoming key pillars of the growing English wine market, where the process from planting a vine to pouring a glass of bubbles takes at least seven years on average.

A vine will produce a bud at the end of April and bloom into flower around the first week of Wimbledon in July.

The grapes appear by the end of the summer, with the harvest beginning in the last week of September, with each Chapel Down vine picked by hand.

The process for making sparkling wine – which accounts for around 70 per cent of Chapel Down sales – follows the so-called traditional method used across the biggest Champagne houses.

This includes taking a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes, as well as carrying out two fermentation stages. Although the vineyard work involves a lot of manpower, the juice-extracting process is carried out by large machine pressers.

The UK used to open its doors to around 70,000 seasonal workers a year to pick the nation’s fruit, but this number shrunk to as little as 45,000 after Brexit.

‘It is slightly more challenging from a labour point of view, but not insurmountable,’ Carter says, explaining how he employs around 180 pickers for the season from countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Romania.

As the country’s largest wine maker, Chapel Down owns around a tenth of the UK’s 10,000 wine growing acres, though Tenterden is one of its smaller units at 19 acres.

Last year Chapel Down sold 790,000 bottles of sparkling wine, representing 33pc of the English wine market. And this number is set to be even larger this coming year thanks to bumper crops.

Yet strict brand protection laws in France mean that even if English growers follow the same method as the likes of Moet & Chandon, only grapes grown in Champagne can use the 326-year-old moniker.

And although there may be some snobbery, English sparkling wine recently came out victorious in a blind taste test across the Channel.

Some 60pc of French wine drinkers said they preferred wine made in Kent to their native tipple during the tasting which took place on the streets of Reims in May.

Disguised under the French label ‘Chapelle en Bas’ – which translates as Chapel Down – French consumers were invited to compare the English wine with Moet.

Unwittingly, Frenchmen described the undercover English drink as ‘lighter’, ‘fresher’ and ‘more perfumed’ than its home grown rival.

Federica Zanghirella, vice president at the UK Sommelier Association, told the Mail: ‘People are always surprised that the quality of English sparkling wine is so high.

‘The thing with wine tradition countries is that they can get a bit competitive. There is a little bit of jealousy there.’

Carter appears unfazed, saying: ‘We aren’t too worried about the French not drinking it.

‘We have the English drinking it and so many other markets. The French will always be the French and they will be drinking a lot of Champagne.’

Even though 95 per cent of Chapel Down is consumed in the UK, the firm is keen to expand overseas, especially through Duty Free.

The US market is of particular interest, says Carter, thanks to the American love for all-things British and the immense room for growth.

Around 33m bottles of Champagne were shipped to the US last year.

And this great British appeal has led to bumper sales following events such as the Coronation, where tourists are keen to snap up UK goods.

The Tenterden site alone welcomes as many as 65,000 visitors through its doors each year for wine tasting and tours.

But a major goal for Carter – who has been in the job for two years – has been signing

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