Cliff Richard shows no signs of slowing down as he approaches his 71st birthday, as Andy Welch discovers

SITTING in his Portuguese home, surrounded by 16 acres of vineyard, Sir Cliff Richard has it made. The farmland in the mid- Algarve town of Guia, is, when he’s not “wintering” in his Barbados residence, where the Peter Pan Of Pop spends most of his time.

From there, he oversees his slowly blossoming Vida Nova wine business and is currently rehearsing for his forthcoming tour.

He has an easy-going charm, but spend more than a few minutes talking to him and the numerous facts, figures and percentages he reels off reveal a man who is very much in control of everything he does.

Wine, especially the bottles bearing his winery’s name, is top of the agenda today.

“I’m very happy because I woke up to a lot of mist this morning,” he says, in those familiar dulcet tones.

“Luckily, we just managed to get our grapes in before the weather turned.”

Most casual observers found out about Sir Cliff’s wine-making in a rather unfortunate incident on Gordon Ramsay’s F Word in 2006, where, in a blind taste test, the Summer Holiday singer described his produce as rubbish, adding: “I’d never buy that, it’s tainted, it’s insipid. It tastes like vinaigrette.”

The sweary chef was delighted to have caught his guest out. Red-faced Sir Cliff was less amused, but clearly things have turned around since then.

“We’ve been winning awards,” he beams. “We got another one last week here in Portugal for our white and our rosé, and then another award for the best Algarve wine. We even picked up a prize in Germany, who are very proud of their own produce, so that’s really good.”

He goes on to bemoan the low prices offered in supermarkets and the glut of emerging wine-making countries making his venture more and more difficult, but insists Vida Nova is a labour of love, not about taking on the big names in plonk.