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British wines are ultimately coming into their own, with 2 English vineyards winning gold for the 1st time at the respected World Wine Challenge. Thanks to this improvement in quality as well as falling costs due to the weaker pound and the existing trend for purchasing regional goods

- English viticulture has lately been enjoying an upsurge of interest. The industry, which is still quite young ( our oldest vineyards date from the 1960s ), hasn't only matured but has developed a characteristic English style - especially fragile, bright savoury whites - which is winning fans along with global awards for our zingy Champagne-style fizzies.

Camel Valley, Cornwall
The wines here are among England's best - Camel's 2008 Pinot Noir Rose Brut has just scooped the gold award at the Global Wine Challenge - described as "completely balanced, quite fat though not full tempered" by their wine maker Sam Lindo. This is Cornwall's biggest and most celebrated vineyard, with 82 acres of south facing slopes found just off the Camel Trail, which follows the brook valley from Bodmin Moor to Padstow. It was set up in 1989 by former RAF pilot Bob Lindo after a mid-air collision compelled him to rethink his life. There are 2 stone-built holiday cottages: the one-bedroom Cowel Gwenyn (meaning bee hive) and the two-bedroom Lion's Barn; the second has a balcony overlooking the vines.
Use your time fishing on the Camel at the vineyard's own stretch of riverbank, cycling to Padstow, or quaffing cups of, say, Camel Valley Bacchus ( dry and savoury with whiffs of the Loire Valley ). Costs include a Wednesday-afternoon Grand Winery Tour and a complimentary bottle of red or white.

Three Choirs, Gloucestershire
Started by 2 farmers on half an acre in 1976, this Forest of Dean vineyard now seventy acres is the all-singing, all-dancing viticulture experience : shop, tours, wine tastings, visitor centre, BB, lunch, dinner, four hundred tons of grapes ( on a good year ) and some fourteen types of English wines ( unique, fruity and best-served young ). You can stay in one of 8 terraced Vineyard View rooms or one of 3 purpose-built Scandinavian lodges (the second have verandas, roll-top baths and floor-to-ceiling windows). All are a short stagger from the restaurant, which serves modern English food or the new summerhouse for light lunches among the vines.

Purbeck Vineyard, Dorset A boutique hotel in a two-acre micro vineyard, this tiny number opened in two thousand to supply "chateau-bottled" wines made in an on-site winery from, among others, pinot noir, chardonnay and phoenix grapes. Set in a bright Wessex valley between Corfe Castle and Swanage, close to Dorset's Jurassic Coast, it also has a restaurant (try a bottle of Studland Ruby with Dorset duck breast) and 9 luxury guest rooms (think hand-sprung mattresses on wrought iron beds dolled up with silky throws). Most have perspectives of the vineyard or the Purbeck Hills; some have balconies; one has a four-poster. In the summertime you can arrive by steam train the Swanage Heritage Steam Train line runs a service through close by Harmans Cross Station.

Adgestone, Isle of Wight
This Isle of Wight vineyard is one the oldest in the UK, at the grand old age of 42, though it modified hands when previous Londoners Alan and Gillian Stockman acquired the place in 1996. On the fringe of stunning Brading Down, to the east of the island, its chalky ten acres produce a fruity white mller-thurgau, a medium-bodied rondo red and a crisp sparkling made of seyval blanc.

There's a shop, a cafeteria serving cream teas, and cottage rooms in the cottage, that has wonderful perspectives across the island to Sandown and the ocean. Guests get free tours of the vineyards and cellars, and a wine tasting. Doubles from £50. English-wine.co.uk, +44 (nil) 1983 402503. Biddenden Vineyards, Kent Set up by the Barnes family in 1969, Kent's oldest vineyard nestles in a dip of Wealdon country, a mile or so from Biddenden. 10 sorts of vine produce a selection of reds, whites, roses and fizzy wines alongside Biddenden's robust Kentish ciders and apple juices. There's a shop and tea room, free twice-monthly vineyard tours (vines, presses, bottling line etc) and a self-catering Vineyard Residence. On the higher floor of a farm annex, the open-plan studio for two has a decked balcony overlooking orchards and vineyards.