WINE is made in some remarkable places. I believe that there are floating vineyards in Thailand, and just this week I have read of thriving vineyards in Burma. Earlier in the year, however, I tasted wine from equally unlikely vineyards, on the floor of the crater of an active, though quiescent, volcano. This was Chã, from Fogo, in the Cape Verde Islands, produced in a small co- operative cellar founded by a French nobleman in the 1870s.

The bottle of red wine which I brought home, made from the Portuguese Touriga Nacional grape, tasted more than respectable.

When I was living in Burgundy, some 40 years ago, England must have appeared just as unlikely a venue for a group of wine growers whom I brought on a vineyard visit to Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Our first call was to the Hambledon vineyard of the late Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones. The guests were surprised to be offered, instead of a tasting, a cup of tea; the total crop of the latest vintage had already been sold.

There are now 685 vineyards in Britain, and more than 125 wineries where their grapes are turned into wine. In a recent international competition held in Italy for sparkling wines, the supreme champion came not from Reims, but from the Ancre Hill vineyard, Monmouth.

Just before Christmas, I was at a reception given by the English Wine producers at the Royal Society, in Carlton House Terrace. The venue was chosen to commemorate a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1675 by a certain Dr Merret, which explained how "Our wine-coopers of latter times use vast quantities of sugar and molasses to all sorts of wines, to make them brisk and sparkling."

In those times, the wines of Champagne were still, and it was not until the British invention of the heavyweight bottle that it became viable to bottle sparkling wines.

Most merchants now have English wines on their list, and it is generally felt that potential future success lies in the production of sparkling wines. It is rumoured that Champagne companies are investing in vineyards in England. One of the biggest problems is the weather, and the autumnal British rain has meant that some producers had to abandon their crop.

At the reception, however, the general feeling was that, while it was a very difficult vintage, with production only 50 per cent of normal, some good wines were made. Because of the climate, and the overall small scale of production, good English wine will never be cheap.

Waitrose is to be congratulated on its range of English wines. Among the still wines that I would recommend are Three Choirs Annum 2011, from Gloucestershire (£8.99); Chapel Down Flint Dry 2011, from Kent (£9.99); and Denbies Surrey Gold NV (£8.49).

Of the sparkling wines, my four would be Breaky Bottom Brut 2006 (Sussex, £21.99); Ridgeview Merret Bloomsbury 2009, named in honour of Dr Merret (Sussex, £22.99); Camel Valley Brut 2009 (Cornwall, £22.99; and Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2007 (West Sussex, £29.99).