What I'm looking for when I visit a vineyard

Dogs, old buildings, interesting people and good wine, of course.

I wrote this to tie in with English Wine Week but most of it applies to vineyards wherever they are.

Even as someone who loves wine, I have to admit that visiting vineyards can be a bit boring. For a start, the vines themselves are often monotonous, especially if the scenery isn't spectacular. Think of the Médoc in Bordeaux, which is essentially a drained marsh—imagine Norfolk but with grapes. No wonder the Médocains filled the place with outlandish châteaux. They'd have gone mad otherwise.

Vineyard paradiso (photo credit: Sandridge Barton in Devon)

Then there's the winery. Thanks to the magic of technology, most wineries have roughly the same equipment. There will be lots of stainless steel tanks, an enormous press that looks a bit like an iron lung, some wooden barrels and various odds and ends like pumps. If you're really unlucky, you will be shown around the bottling line.

The sense of sameness can also occur with the design of the buildings, especially in newer wine regions like England: warehouse-style buildings disguised with wooden weather boarding, big glass doors and a terrace so you can see out over the vineyards. Sometimes seeing another achingly tasteful vineyard restaurant makes me long for the faux-French châteaux that some Chinese wine producers build to lure in tourists.