A DORSET vineyard is looking to bring a taste of France to the UK in 2016.

The Langham Estate, just outside Milborne St Andrew, is the largest vineyard in the South West. It is currently building a tasting room and shop so that they will be able to become a destination for wine tastings at the cellar door.

The vineyard was planted in 2009 and the estate’s first vintage, the 2010 cuvee, won them the top prize at the Judgement of Parson’s Green tasting.

Their second vintage won the UK Vineyard Association award, so it’s fair to say that business has been booming from the get go for the vineyard.

Since the planting, the estate has gone from strength to strength. Dorset sits on an area of chalk and limestone, which is the same as the Champagne region of France.

Daniel Ham, pictured, who moved to the vineyard from Ridgeview Wine Estate in Sussex in September, said he enjoys the freedom the UK wine industry as there is more room for experimentation.

He told Taste: “If you move to France for example there’s an expectation to how the wine should taste.

We are not confined by expectations here. We can play around. It’s quite an exciting time to be in the UK industry.”

And Daniel has come full circle in his career and links to Dorset. As a youngster his family had a holiday home in Charmouth, which led to a love of Marine Biology. This led to him going to New Zealand where he fell in love with wine making and retrained.

He said: “Each vintage is really challenging because we are on the very limit to grow grapes for wine making.

“It’s so challenging each year and we have to adapt each year. In a wine producing country like Australia, that variability is tempered down a lot. I have high hopes for the vintage just gone. Because it was a very difficult year.”

Daniel said that August was bad weather wise but the autumn was good, leading to a small crop but of excellent quality with high sugars and the high acidity needed for sparkling wines.

However, he will have to wait around another three years to see how the vintage turns out.

His ambition for 2016 is to get the name of Langham out there and get Dorset out there as a destination for wines.

He said: “It’s about spreading the word. It’s making people understand that there’s some really exciting things going on in the English wine industry. It can give people experiences they never thought possible in the UK, five or ten years ago.”

He added that Dorset produce had a strong following and the word about the county’s amazing products was slowing spreading.