Dinton Wines - A Family-Run English Sparkling Vineyard in the Chiltern Hills
Tucked away in the village of Upton, just outside Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, Dinton Wines is a small, family-run English vineyard that has earned a quiet but devoted following for its elegant, traditionally-made sparkling wines. Founded in 2010 by Laurie and Margaret Kimber, the seven-acre site overlooks the rolling Chiltern Hills - an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty - and from its south-facing, chalky slopes has produced two of the most characterful boutique English sparkling wines on the market today: Dinton Folly White and Dinton Folly Pink.
The story of Dinton Wines is one of a retirement project that grew into something much more ambitious. Having spent a lifetime growing fruit and vegetables in gardens and allotments, Laurie Kimber bought a field down the road from his home and, learning as he went, set about planting hundreds of vines on land that turned out to be perfectly suited to viticulture. The vineyard's south-facing aspect traps the sun throughout the day, the underlying chalk mirrors the geology of Champagne just across the Channel, and the temperate microclimate of the Chilterns provides exactly the kind of long, cool ripening season that classic sparkling-wine grapes need to develop real depth and aroma.
From a Field to a Flagship English Sparkling Wine
When the first vines went into the ground, the Kimbers had no way of knowing how well the land would perform. The first harvest, in 2016, yielded around two tonnes of grapes - a modest but encouraging start. By the second harvest, production had tripled to six tonnes, and the fruit was already showing the concentration and acidity needed to make genuinely serious sparkling wine. Subsequent years have continued to build on that trajectory, and today the vineyard produces enough grapes from its seven acres to supply a small but growing network of stockists across southern England.
The vineyard remains, at its heart, a family operation. When harvest time comes around each autumn, Laurie's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren all muck in alongside neighbours from the villages of Dinton and Upton to bring the grapes in. It is the kind of community-led effort that has become something of a hallmark of small-scale English viticulture, and it gives every bottle of Dinton Folly a personal provenance that few larger producers can match.
The Wines: Dinton Folly White and Pink
Dinton Wines produces two cuvées, both made from the same traditional Champagne blend of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier - the classic trio that gives traditional-method sparkling wines their structure, freshness and complexity.
Dinton Folly White
The original Dinton Folly, the White is a dry, elegant and complex English sparkling wine made by fermenting only the pressed grape juice - the skins and seeds are separated immediately after crushing, in the same way a white Champagne is made. Planted in 2013 and first harvested in 2016, it has gone from strength to strength with every vintage. The wine has picked up Gold at the Thames & Chiltern Wine Awards in 2018 and again took home a medal at the same competition in 2021, where it received Silver at the Thames & Chiltern Annual Wine Challenge. According to winemaker Vince Gower, who sampled the first vintage: "This is an excellent wine for any year, but for a first vintage, it's exceptional."
The White is the perfect aperitif, but its dry, structured palate also makes it a brilliant food-pairing sparkling - try it alongside fish, chicken, soft cheeses or anything that would ordinarily call for a Champagne.
Dinton Folly Pink
First produced in 2021, the Pink is the newer of the two Dinton Folly wines and has been an instant hit. Made from exactly the same trio of grapes as the White - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier - it is created by leaving the crushed grape skins in contact with the juice for a few hours of maceration. This short skin-contact period gives the wine its delicate salmon-pink colour and contributes subtle tannins along with delicate floral notes of rose petals and dried flowers.
Despite being noticeably more fruit-forward than the White, the Pink is achieved without any added sugar - it is a drier style of pink sparkling than many people expect, with the same elegant backbone as its older sibling. It is, in the winery's own words, "the ideal drink for summer." The Pink took home a Gold award at the 2021 Thames & Chiltern Annual Wine Challenge, underlining just how seriously this boutique English sparkling wine should be taken.
Why the Chiltern Hills Work So Well
It is no accident that the Chiltern Hills have produced yet another high-quality English sparkling wine. The combination of free-draining chalk soils, a gentle south-facing slope that catches the sun for most of the day, and the relatively dry, temperate climate of this part of Buckinghamshire creates near-perfect conditions for the three Champagne varieties. The chalk particularly helps with drainage and root development, while also contributing a subtle mineral note to the finished wine - the same kind of terroir signature you find in the best bottles from Épernay and Reims.
Where to Buy Dinton Wines
Because Dinton Wines is a small, seven-acre vineyard, it does not currently operate its own online shop. Instead, the wines are available through a carefully chosen network of stockists located across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. Each of these stockists has a personal connection to the vineyard, and many of them have reported that Dinton Folly has become one of their best-selling English sparkling wines.
- Seven Stars, Dinton - the village pub nearest the vineyard. As the team at Seven Stars put it: "We are proud to support a local business like Dinton Folly, especially as they are so close to us. Whenever we have served Dinton Folly wine, our customers have all been complimentary and are especially fond of the pink Dinton Folly."
- Loddon Brewery, Dunsden Green (near Reading) - the brewery shop and Tap Yard. "We've sold Dinton Wine in our brewery shop since it launched, and we're now proud to offer it to customers in our Tap Yard. We've stocked a number of English sparkling wines over the years but none have been as popular or acclaimed as Dinton Folly. It remains our best selling wine by some way, due to its quality and consistency."
- BeerGinVino, Haddenham
- Long Crendon Manor Stables Farm Shop, Long Crendon
- Hartwell House Hotel, Restaurant & Spa, Stone (near Aylesbury)
- The Broad Leys
- Tythe Barn, Launton (near Bicester)
Anyone planning a visit to the Chilterns or the Aylesbury Vale can quite easily put together a short itinerary that takes in several of these stockists - pair a tasting at Seven Stars in Dinton with lunch at Hartwell House, for example, and stop at BeerGinVino in Haddenham on the way home.
The Name Behind "Dinton Folly"
The name Folly, applied to both cuvées, is a knowing nod to two things. First, the ruins of Dinton Castle, the local landmark just down the road from the vineyard, which was famously rebuilt in striking folly-form in the early 1990s and later featured on Channel 4's Grand Designs. And second, a self-deprecating acknowledgement that taking on a vineyard in retirement is, by anybody's standards, a small madness - one that has, fortunately for all of us, paid off handsomely in the bottle.
Visiting the Vineyard
Dinton Wines is primarily a working agricultural vineyard rather than a visitor centre, but the team are more than happy to hear from anyone interested in the project, the wines, or stocking Dinton Folly. General enquiries can be made via email at dintonwines@gmail.com or by telephone on 01296 748187. The vineyard is located in Upton, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, just a short drive from the M40 and within easy reach of Oxford, High Wycombe and Milton Keynes.
A visual gallery of the vineyard through the seasons - from the first bud burst in spring through the busy harvest and into the depths of winter - offers a glimpse of how a small, family-run English sparkling wine vineyard actually works on the ground.
The Future for Dinton Wines
With both White and Pink cuvées now firmly established and decorated with regional awards, the focus for the Kimbers and the small Dinton Wines team continues to be on quality, consistency and care for the land. Seven acres is a deliberately modest scale - large enough to make commercially interesting quantities of seriously good English sparkling wine, small enough to manage by hand with the help of family and friends. It is that ethos, more than anything, that makes Dinton Folly such an appealing prospect: a real wine, from a real place, made by real people who care about every bottle.
For anyone who loves English sparkling wine and hasn't yet tried Dinton Folly, the network of stockists across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire makes it easy to do so - and the enthusiastic endorsement from venues like Loddon Brewery and the Seven Stars at Dinton suggests you won't be disappointed.