Heard it on grapevine: Scottish wine

SCOTLAND is usually more associated with Buckfast than Burgundy. But the nation's reputation as a desert for vinophiles is about to change with the planting of a vineyard to produce the first commercially-sold bottles of wine.

Chateau Largo is the dream of award-winning food writer Christopher Trotter, who hopes to produce the first bottles for sale by 2014. He has planted 100 vines in the garden of his home in Upper Largo, Fife, an area noted for its fertile farming land.

Given enough care and sunshine over the next three years, the vines could produce as many as 1,200 bottles of dry white.

The 53-year-old has enough land for 6,000 vines, which could eventually produce around 70,000 bottles annually, worth in the region of 750,000. He is banking on predictions that climate change could transform the area into a new "Loire Valley" on the northern shores of the Forth.

Wine experts have backed Trotter's bold plan, predicting Chateau Largo will sell well on the novelty value of Scottish wine alone. And they point out that England's wine industry, after a ropey start, is now producing some eminently quaffable liquid.

Trotter, who is also a food consultant, said the idea took root a decade ago following a light-hearted conversation with a friend. He said: "I was having a chat with a farmer friend who thought that in the next 20 years the East Neuk of Fife would be as good as the Loire Valley in France for vineyards."

Three years ago he put his scheme into action by planting trees to create a wind barrier. Soil experts were called in to give advice before he prepared the land by adding nutrients and organic compost.

Trotter bought three different varieties of vines from a vineyard in Yorkshire and planted them in May. The vine types - rondo, solaris, and siegerrebe - were chosen as they are disease-resistant, ripen early, and are capable of withstanding colder climates.

Trotter said the plants were perfectly capable of surviving the harsh Scottish winter. "The vines are dormant over winter so the weather can do what it likes. In Germany you get sub-zero temperatures and it doesn't matter what happens as the vines go completely to sleep," he said.

Surprisingly, Trotter says the vines cannot get too much rain and has even installed a sprinkler system just in case the East Neuk has a dry summer.

What may be more of an issue is sunshine. Trotter is hoping for around 100 sunny days a year in Fife over the next three years. The statistics are not encouraging: the Loire Valley enjoys an average of 1,418 hours of sunshine annually compared with 1,221 in Fife.

But Trotter points to predictions of climate change. Just two years ago, French climatologist Jean-Pierre Chaban suggested there could be vineyards in Scotland if global temperatures rose by more than 2 per cent before the end of the century.So what does Trotter hope the first bottles of Chateau Largo will taste like? He said: "The first English wines were revolting and now some have become quite successful.

"We have tasted wine produced by the Ryedale vineyard (Yorkshire], where the vines come from and that's the closest we'll get to knowing what ours will taste like. It's quite a dry wine but not as dry as you get from the Loire Valley and with the edition of the siegerrebe grape it makes it quite aromatic. So I just hope we can make something as good as theirs." Wine experts said last night that the time was right for Scotland to start producing its own vintages.

Lorenzo Magnani, general manager and sommelier at Divino winebar and restaurant, Edinburgh, said: "They are making wine everywhere nowadays so why not in Scotland? It is a good idea. It depends on how it tastes, of course, but I would certainly be happy to sell it here."

Oliver Richardson is competitions secretary of the Mercian Vineyards Association, which represents vineyards and wine enthusiasts in the UK.

He said: "Nobody ever thought once they would produce it in Yorkshire, but there are four vineyards there now. And all the Yorkshire wines are perfectly drinkable. I don't see why he shouldn't be able to produce wine if it's a sheltered enough site. If you're producing something which gives kudos to the area people will buy it."

Not everyone is sold on the idea. Matt Thomasson, manager of the Great Grog wine merchants, Edinburgh, said: "I think with the current climate in Scotland it is a bit of a waste of time to try and make wine here.

"Too much rain will cause dilution. The grapes get a lot of their flavour from the soil they are grown in, they get a lot of their character and if there is too much water in the soil it becomes diluted and you could end up with a pretty tasteless wine. However, I wish him all the best."