Toasting England's vintages

Ranging from manicured estates with oak-paneled tasting rooms, restaurants, and quaint bed-and-breakfasts, to no-frills farms with metal sheds and muddy tractors, most English wineries make an easy day trip from London, and ideal pit stops while touring the historic, mansion-rich terrain of southern England. They also tend to produce a surprisingly sophisticated set of wines that render the stopovers as alluring as the pleasant country rides to find them.

Not that Rachel and I were so confident at the outset. Before heading for the wine region in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, we spent five nights in London and could not find one soul sipping a glass of the local vintage.

After considerable effort, we finally located a solitary English wine at the famous El Vino Co. store on Fleet Street, one of only a handful of London wine shops that sell English wines. Restaurant, pub, and even wine bar menus all seemed to feature French Bordeaux, Italian Chiantis, Australian merlots -- anything but English wine. In fact, most wine shop owners literally laughed when we asked if they carried English bottles, as if such a proposition were unthinkable.

"Why would we?" said Len Jeffries at The Four Vintners shop near El Vino. "France is just a few miles away."

True enough, but we were in England, intent on sampling local, distinct culinary offeringsSo, with low expectations, we set off in a rental car from Heathrow Airport, and headed into the unknown.

About half an hour later, we arrived in the affluent town of Dorking, home to England's largest vineyard, Denbies. We turned off the main north-south road and entered what, to my eyes, looked like Sonoma County, California.