The Queen launches her own sparkling wine label

The Queen has joined the British sparkling wine craze and released a wine grown on her own estate.

Her first vintage, Windsor Great Park Vineyard Sparkling 2013, has already sold out. 

Described as having a "rich, rounded fizz with flavours of cherry blossom crisp apple and ripe peach" the wine comes from vines that were planted on a seven-acre plot back in 2011. 

The release of the Queen's wine comes as British sparkling wine is exported to a record 27 countries. Around 30 new vineyards have opened in the past two years and output is expected to double by 2020 from five million to 10 million bottles annually.

There are now 130 wineries and around 500 vineyards in Britain, with sparkling wines accounting for almost 70% of production.

Last month, the drinks business declared: "No longer a little-known enterprise skeptically dismissed by critics as an eccentricity, English sparkling wine has emerged from its chrysalis into one of the most exciting and promising developments in the wine world today."

Windsor Great Park Vineyard Sparkling 2013 was available as a three-bottle gift set online for £75 through wine retailer Laithwaite’s, but soon sold out.

A second batch is expected to be released later this year priced at £35 a bottle, with production expected to grow to 20,000 bottles a year within six or seven years.

Vines were first planted on the estate in the 12th century by Henry II. The new plantings include 16,700 chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier vines. The wine was then created at the Ridgeview estate in East Sussex.

Chief executive Tamara Roberts said the wine is already “delicious” and a “superb example” and vintages will get better and better as the vineyard matures. 

She speculated that many buyers will keep it as an investment rather than drinking it.

"I have got a bottle at home in a beautiful box and I might hold on to that. Rare vintages can go for astonishing prices," Roberts said. 

"It is impossible to guess how much it might be worth one day – it’s however much someone is prepared to pay – but it has all the right accolades, grown on the Queen’s estate, the first vintage. Who knows?"

The Telegraph notes: "The Duke of Edinburgh is said to have kept a close eye on the development of the vineyard in his role as the head ranger of the Great Park."