A new survey has revealed that more half of Britain have never tasted English wine before. Who knew that there are apparently more than 400 vineyards in England and Wales – it’s not like it’s ever advertised in any of the “visit” promotions – probably because it’s raining for the majority of the time and who wants to see pictures of that?

In the supermarket, there’s never an indication in the alcohol aisle that British wine is even readily available – it’s very clearly marked that we have a choice of America, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, France and Italy bottles and never have I ever seen a promotion for British wine.

The UK imports 1.3 billion litres of wine every year which gives an indication as to the lack of knowledge we have about grapes grown on our own soil. We Brits probably think that because of the extreme lack of sunshine that the wine that we do produce is probably undrinkable anyway. But it’s probably worth knowing that a UK wine just beat 21 other countries to win a gold medal at the International Wine Challenge.

Maybe we haven’t celebrated this little gem enough? Why are we not boasting about the fact that despite the dire climates compared to the other traditional wine producing countries, we are winning awards for our products. A little PR could go a long way – if the tourist boards promoted this properly, there could be a surge of tourists travelling to see our vines. Plus, the fact that a lot of people don’t even know we produce wine, could be a bonus. A new attraction has just been created. Forget London or Lego Land or Stonehenge – visit our wineries!

Maybe I’m not giving it enough justice – maybe it is being promoted to our foreign visitors – but personally I think it should be more. Why not? We’ll just add it to the long list of things we already have.