Bumper harvest for wine makers

The driest September in 23 years has produced a bumper crop of grapes at Halfpenny Green Vineyard.

Harvesting among England's 416 wine-growers has begun, with the country expected to produce three million bottles of still and sparkling wine.

And Martin Vickers, owner of the Halfpenny Green vineyard, believes the "Indian summer" has helped him to smash last year's harvest record.

"We are busy picking the Rondo red variety now and the crop is far better than last year," he said.

"The dry summer has definitely meant favourable conditions for growing grapes."

This year the South Staffordshire vineyard expects to make 50,000 bottles of wine - more than double the amount made in 2008.

Mr Vickers added: "There are three critical times in the grape-growing season and we have been relatively lucky this year.

"There wasn't too much Spring frost, it was fairly hot and sunny during the flowering period in June and July, and September has been good for ripening and picking."

Latest figures from the Met Office show that one third of the usual amount of rain fell during September - with just 0.2mm falling across the West Midlands in the last two weeks.

While rainfall is set to continue declining annually, industry experts predict that home-grown wine production will almost double in the next six years.

The English Wine Producers association believes English wine production could rise to 5.6 million bottles by 2015 - but remains behind France's eight billion bottle output.