Dorking; Sunday, 07 July, 2024

I had a bit of a lie in and a late breakfast before packing my bag, checking out and heading out of the hotel for the short walk over to the nearby Denbies Wine Estate.

Denbies has been around since the mid-1980s and is now the largest vineyard in the country, accounting for about 10% of the entire wine industry in the UK, helped by it’s sheltered location on the south face of the North Downs, the chalk mimicking the wine growing regions of Champagne amongst others.

I’d booked on a two hour walking tour that was scheduled to head to some of the secret places within the estate for views and tastings. With the weather quite so catastrophically bad at the time we set out the decision was taken to use one of the visitor centres land trains to get around so that we didn’t all get totally soaked, which also meant that we didn’t have to slog all the way to the top of the hill a good couple of hundred feet climb, at a similar level to Box Hill!

The tour included four tasting points out in the vineyard (albeit toady the first tasting was done in the comfort of the cinema and the second was on the land train as the last of the rain passed over), as well as some stunning views of the Surrey countryside and over towards Box Hill as it slowly emerged from the clouds.

The last two tastings were down amidst the vines before we headed back to the chateau and down into the cellars for the final part of the tour and a final bonus tasting of an English red wine.

I decided to stop in the estate restaurant to grab a full lunch as the skies were indicating another heavy shower, and as if on queue a couple of minutes after starting my lunch the roof of the conservatory was being pounded by the rain.

My lunch lasted the whole of the shower after which a quick check on the weather apps showed I had a short window to get back to the hotel to collect my luggage before the next shower and then another short window that lined up with the bus from the hotel back to Dorking station so I decided that was all the signs I needed to start making my way home.

In the end it turned out that the first window wasn’t completely dry, but just some light drizzle, the second window was almost to the minute perfect and as the train pulled out of Dorking station it did so into another heavy squally shower.