Leventhorpe Vineyard West Yorkshire

Grapes

Facilities

Opening hours: Monday to Friday 11am to 4pm, Sunday noon to 4pm.

Established in 1985, Leventhorpe re-introduced commercial wine growing to Yorkshire. The five acre vineyard is situated within Leeds City boundary.

Leventhorpe’s success is due to the excellent site which endows its wines with their unique character. The low altitude, protected south-facing slope with good drainage, warm soils and low rainfall, plus the benefits of a river valley situation, make it a favourable site for wine growing. All the wines produced at Leventhorpe are made in the vineyard in which they are grown. The purpose built winery enables control of the wine-making process, thus preserving the wines’ unique character and identity.

Over the years the wines have gained recognition and a reputation for quality both within the trade and with customers at the winery. The vineyard is recommended in Rick Steins Guide (2003) and Leventhorpe Madeleine Angevine was included as one of the ‘Wines of the Week’ in the Daily Telegraph in July 2006 and recommended by Jancis Robinson in the Financial Times in May 2007. Oz Clarke has recommended Leventhorpe’s wines over the years and the vineyard was included in his series ‘Oz and James Drink to Britain’. Leventhorpe was included in Oz Clarke’s ‘Pick of the Best’ six British vineyards for the May 2009 issue of BBC Countryfile magazine. He stated that ‘Leventhorpe is a once tasted always remembered kind of wine’. In Decanter magazine (September 2011) Leventhorpe Madeleine Angevine 2009 was selected by Susy Atkins in her pick of English wines. Leventhorpe Late Harvest 2007 featured in The Times (29.08.2013) when it won supreme gold medal in the Mercian Wine Challenge.

Leventhorpe is one of the few UK vineyards to have received a royal visitor with HRH The Duke of Kent making an official visit in July 2007. He stated that he was ‘astonished’ at the quality of Leventhorpe wine. In 2013, at one of the events celebrating their 650th Anniversary, Leventhorpe Madeleine Angevine 2010 was served at a Reception and Dinner hosted by The Worshipful Company of Vintners in the City of London. HRH The Duchess of Cornwall was in attendance.

Directions: Exit Junction 46 from the M1. Follow signs to Leeds. At first roundabout – Sainsbury Retail Park, turn left. At mini roundabout take 2nd exit A642 Wakefield on to Bullerthorpe Lane. Road crosses motorway. Go passed Gamblethorpe Farm on left hand side. Then take 1st turning right (vineyard on corner) – signposted Newsam Green. Take immediate left turn by Lodge House on to Newsam Green Road. Winery further down road on left hand side just before the cottages.