The vineyard has remained family owned and is today run by the second & third generation, drawing on many years of experience in winemaking at Biddenden. Eleven varieties of grapes are grown across 23 acres, producing award-winning white, red, rosé and sparkling English wines. Ortega, Biddenden’s signature wine, accounts for approximately half of the vineyards.
Approximately 80,000 bottles of wine are produced each year and all the grapes are estate grown, with all vine work & picking carried out by hand to ensure that the very best quality grapes are selected to produce Biddenden’s wines. Pressing, fermentation and bottling is also carried out on site, and the majority of wines are sold directly from the cellar door.
The famous Biddenden Cider is also produced on site to the Barnes traditional family recipe, using locally grown culinary & dessert apples along with farm-pressed Kentish apple & pear juices including Clearly Juice, a range of clear, wine-like juices.
The vineyard shop offers tastings of Biddenden’s wines, ciders & juices as well as stocking a wide selection of locally produced food & drink. Sharing platters are also available on a walk-in basis along with drinks by the glass or bottle to enjoy overlooking the vineyards.
The land occupied by Biddenden Vineyard has been owned by the Barnes family since the 1920s, originally planted as an apple orchard to produce cider. This part of the business is still very evident in the continuing contract cider production for many other local growers. It was also fascinating to note that if you were to come across a supermarket food product containing cider in some form, the cider element has almost certainly passed through Biddenden’s doors at some stage. When apple prices began to fall in the 1960s, the Barnes’ were forced to consider their options and after hearing a feature about English Vineyards on BBC Woman’s Hour, Mrs Barnes decided that grapes were to be the answer to their problem.