PIESPORTER, Sauternes, Frascati and Littleton Panell?

A new vintage, which has been grown, pressed and bottled in a village near Devizes has just been launched on the wine market.

The launch of the new wine is a landmark for Paul and Lynn Langham, who took over the former a'Beckett's fruit farm four years ago.

Mr Langham was an executive in the information and technology industry when he stopped and took stock of his life. He said: "I was travelling all over the world and I asked myself if I wanted to be doing that for the next 15 years."

Many couples in rat-race jobs go through the process of looking for something less stressful, but few could have plumped for such a challenge.

The couple planted the 5,100 vines with their own hands on land where raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and other soft fruit grew. It was a big investment in time and money for the couple who moved from nearby Market Lavington to realise their dream to establish their own "chateau", gambling on the vagaries of British weather.

Mr Langham said: "I took two weeks off work and managed to plant the whole lot in that time. I found myself planting vines in my dreams. It is a very repetitive process.

"But it was well worthwhile. We can look out of our window and say, we did that."

In the good soil of Littleton Panell, the vines achieved a growth of six to eight feet in the first year and last October Mr and Mrs Langham and their band of willing volunteers mainly friends and family picked the first crop of grapes.

Last month Mr Langham considered that Chateau a'Beckett's was ready to be launched on to the market. The vines produce enough grapes to make 15,000 bottles of wine a year, a drop in the ocean compared to the huge volume of wine that reaches these shores from Australia, Chile and South Africa each year, but a welcome addition to the English wine market.

Mr Langham said: "No other market in the world is as cosmopolitan for wine as the British market. We have already had great feedback on the wine.

"We were invited to have a stall at the recent farmers' market to celebrate the 750th anniversary of Market Lavington's royal charter and people were very complimentary about it."

As if embarking on a new venture were not enough, the Langhams have a young family, Benjamin, eight, Matthew, six and 22-month-old Victoria.

Mr Langham said: "Benjamin is already showing an interest in the vineyard so we may have launched a dynasty of wine growers here."

The wine is on sale at local outlets, such as Edwin Giddings wine merchants in St John's Street, Devizes, and Whitehall Garden Centre in Lacock.

Most of the Langhams' business, however, will be over the Internet.

Mr Langham said: "A French couple have put in an order.

"Also a gentleman from Australia, whose name is a'Beckett, saw it on the net and had to have some wine with his family name on it.

"We are now working on how we can get it to him!"

Mr Langham describes the wine, which retails for £7 a bottle, as "a light, dry, lunchtime wine" which owes more to French country wine that most other wines produced in England.

He said: "Young vines produce young wines. It will be perfect for drinking at Christmas and will drink well for six to 12 months after that."

By that time the 2004 vintage should be ready. The grapes will be picked in October.

The vineyard is open to visitors each Saturday from 10am to 2pm, except Saturday, August 21. Despite the roadworks on the A360 visitors can reach the vineyard from the West Lavington crossroads where the vineyard is signposted.

The vineyard's website is www.abecketts.co.uk