In all, the number of newly licensed producers entering the wine industry has remained strong over the last five years, with a total of 170 wine producers starting up over that period, the group added. Growth was being driven by English wine as opposed to British wine, which is made using imported grapes and is regarded as being of inferior quality.

Though sales are currently restricted to the UK market, exports are expected to rise over the next four years with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) predicting that UK wine exports will increase from £3.2 million in 2015 to over £30 million in 2020 – an increase of more than 800%.

The predictions represent a marked change in the fortunes of English wine, which has traditionally struggled with its poor reputation and languished in the shadows of more renowned wine-producing countries such as France, South Africa and Australia.

James Simmonds, partner at UHY Hacker Young, said: `In recent years the wine industry has gone from strength to strength, and customers are now opting for English wines over French or Italian products, [a decision] which twenty years ago would have been seen as a joke.`

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