Flint Vineyard

Ben and Hannah Witchell planted their first vines in Norfolk's Waveney Valley in 2016, on a small holding in South Norfolk near Bungay that was, by the standards of the English wine establishment, about as far from the accepted map of quality viticulture as it was possible to be and still claim to be in England. The chalk-and-flint soils of this part of East Anglia are fundamentally different from the Cretaceous downland of Sussex, and the climate is different too: drier than the south, with less maritime influence and a continental character that lets the vines accumulate sugar reliably but also exposes them to occasional frost risk. What Witchell understood, and what his wines have since confirmed, is that these conditions are particularly well suited to Bacchus.

Bacchus, England's signature aromatic white variety, is a crossing of Silvaner and Riesling with Müller-Thurgau, bred in Germany for marginal northern climates. It ripens earlier than the Champagne varieties, accumulates aromatic intensity reliably in East Anglian conditions, and produces wines with a distinctive herbaceous-elderflower-gooseberry character that is entirely its own. Flint's Bacchus, fermented in stainless steel to preserve its fruit character, won East Anglian Wine of the Year on its first release. The Bacchus Fumé, barrel-aged, adds a smoky richness that makes it one of the most complex expressions of the variety in England. Stocking by Berry Bros. and Rudd, a retailer not known for cautious regionalism, followed quickly.

The Silex, Flint's premium still wine, won the WineGB East Regional Trophy in 2025 for the 2023 vintage, confirming what the Berry Bros. listing had suggested: that Flint is producing wines of national rather than merely regional significance. The name itself, flint, both reflects the vineyard's terroir and positions the estate firmly within a specific geological tradition, the siliceous flint-bearing soils that distinguish parts of East Anglia from the chalk-dominant south.

The Charmat range, tank-fermented sparkling wines released at a price the traditional method cannot match, makes English sparkling wine available to a broader audience without compromising the estate's quality reputation. It is an unusual model for a serious English producer, and its deliberateness reflects Witchell's thinking: that Bacchus deserves its own sparkling expression, and that the Charmat method's preservation of primary fruit character suits the variety better than eighteen months of autolytic development would.