Grapevines are not native to the British Isles, and there are no wild examples. It is claimed that the Romans introduced them, although the archaeological evidence for this is almost non-existent. After the Romans left around 400 CE, over six centuries passed before the next invaders, the Normans, landed near Hastings in 1066. We know with certainty that at this time, vineyards were planted, grapes harvested, and wine made, albeit in small quantities. However, despite these vineyards and several others that followed over the decades and centuries, none survived. Why? The climate. It was simply not warm enough to produce grapes that were sufficiently ripe, in terms of both natural sugar levels and acid levels, to make palatable wine consistently. In addition, yield levels were not high enough to make the establishment of a vineyard a commercial enterprise. Of course, the grape varieties available before the 1950s were only suitable for growing in the (much warmer) traditional winegrowing regions of the world, and without modern pesticides, growers found that keeping mildews and rots off their precious crops was an impossible task. Viticulture has now taken off in Great Britain, but significant challenges remain, tied to these initial struggles with climate.
The vine is a plant whose modus operandi of survival is to produce grapes sweet enough for birds and wild animals to put on the menu, thus spreading the seeds of future generations. In Britain, until the late 19th and early 20th centuries, neither the actual climate nor the social climate made wine production from home-grown grapes a commercially viable enterprise, despite numerous attempts. The last great experiment in viticulture—before the current revival—was by the Marquess of Bute at Castell Coch in South Wales, where between 1875 and 1920, the incredibly wealthy marquess planted (at maximum) a total of 13 acres of vines, with wine being made at Cardiff