Do pick your grape variety carefully. Bacchus is particularly suited to our shores.
Don’t be tempted to over-manure. Unlike most crops, vines actually do better on poorer soils, so aim for the gravelly soil of Champagne rather than the rich loam of Shropshire.
Do keep it clean when bottling. If you don’t want to come down in the morning and find that your demijohns have exploded all over the kitchen, painstaking sterilisation is a must.
Do use a proper tasting glass to taste the finished wine. This is partly because otherwise the wine’s delicate flavours will be lost, but mainly because it will give you a sense of great achievement.