Langham Wine Estate

If you want a single event that illustrates how rapidly English wine's centre of gravity has shifted, consider what happened at the WineGB Awards in 2025. A single-estate Dorset producer, operating on 34 hectares of chalk near the village of Puncknowle, swept eight trophies including Supreme Champion, claimed the title of Best Producer for the year, and scored the first 99 points in the competition's history. Langham Wine Estate's Perpetual MV did not just win; it redrew the map of English wine excellence by placing it firmly in a county most wine drinkers had not previously associated with serious sparkling production.

The estate was established around 2012 by Justin Langham, on Dorset chalk soils that share the same Cretaceous geology as Champagne and the better-known Sussex chalk belt. The signature approach is a dual-cuvée system: the Corallian Classic Cuvée is Chardonnay-dominant, named for the Corallian limestone and chalk of the Dorset terroir; the Culver Classic Cuvée is Pinot Noir-dominant, named for the sea cliffs at the coast's edge. They are complementary expressions of the same ground, made available side by side so that tasters can observe how the lead variety shapes the wine's character while the chalk mineral signature threads through both.

The Perpetual MV sits above this, a multi-vintage blend built on perpetual reserve in the solera tradition, and it is here that Langham's winemaking reaches its most complex expression. The 2025 score of 99 points from the WineGB judges confirmed what The Real Review's Winery of the Year award for 2024 had already suggested: that this is not an estate peaking for a single competition but one operating at a consistently exceptional level. Multiple Decanter Silver medals in 2024 added international validation.

The visitor experience at Langham is pleasingly informal for a winery of this calibre. Smith's Kitchen café serves lunch and light food, the guided tours run on a regular schedule for around £25 to £30 per head with tasting included, and the Fizz Friday evening events have built a local following that extends well beyond the wine trade. The estate's commitment to single-site production, its Dorset chalk terroir, and its emerging reputation as England's most decorated winery of 2024 and 2025 make it a compelling destination for any serious English wine tourist.