Wine from the United Kingdom Normans, with over 40 vineyards in England mentioned in the Domesday Book, although much of what was being produced was for making communion wine for the Eucharist. From the Middle Ages, the English market was the main customer of clarets from Bordeaux, France, helped by the Plantagenet kingdom, which included England and large provinces in France. In the 18th century, the Methuen Treaty of 1703 imposed high duties on French wine. This led to the English becoming a main consumer of sweet fortified wines like sherry, port wine, and Madeira wine from Spain and Portugal. Fortified wine became popular because
Wine from the United Kingdom unlike regular wine, it did not spoil after the long journey from Portugal to England. When Henry VIII was crowned in 1509, 139 vineyards were recorded, 11 of which produced as Royal vineyards, dedicated to the monarchy. In the 1660s Lady Batten, wife of Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the Navy, had a vineyard at their estate at Walthamstow; Samuel Pepys thought the wine (which was red) "very good". Just as English wine began to recover from the epidemics of phylloxera and powdery mildew in the mid-19th century, brought back by the explorers of New America, commercial English wine was