- Super easy to get to: Westwell Wines is located a ~15min taxi ride away from Ashford International Station, which is just a ~40 mins train ride away from London St Pancras international. You can escape the city, be in the middle of the Kent countryside, and be sipping wine in under 60 mins.
- Picnics and pizza: Westwell offers visitors a lush picnic of locally sourced cheese, meats, baked goods and more, paired with their wine of course. If you prefer a laid-back dining experience which allows you to enjoy the outdoors, this is the way to do it!Book here. The vineyard serves un-stuffy food like toasties and pizza, nothing which requires elaborate cutlery.
- Refreshingly atypical branding: This is perhaps more of a reason to have their bottles on your wine rack, than to visit, but their branding is a delight. It’s a departure from wine industry tropes: no gold foiling, no oldy-worldly serif fonts, badges, crests or animal mascots. Their visual identity feels like it belongs in an east London industrial brewery.
- Off-script wines: In a region dominated by chards and the pinots, Westwell grows two rarer grapes: ortega and regent. They make an orange skin contact wine with ortega grapes. They also make reds.
- Quirky experiments! They’re the first winemaker in the UK to make amphora aged wines (wines aged in clay pots), and to store and serve wine from kegs. They’re always up to something interesting so expect to hear some quirky stories when you visit.
What is orange wine?
It’s quite simple really. White wines use white grapes but typically skins are removed during the wine making process. Leave the wine in, for “skin contact”, and you get white wine but with a golden, sun-kissed hue. Voila! Orange wine, which tends to have more dried fruit and savoury notes.
