Great Britain 1662-2024
The production of sparkling wine in Britain – although not from home-grown grapes – is verifiably more than 350 years old, and we know from the two papers read at the newly-founded Royal Society in December 1662 that sugar added to a fermented product and sealed in a bottle with a tightly bound stopper produced a ‘brisk and sparkling’ product.[1] The Reverend John Beale’s ‘Aphorisms on Cider’, read to the Royal Society on 10 December 1662 says that ‘bottling is the next best improver’ for cider and that ‘two to three raisins into every bottle’ plus ‘a walnut of sugar’ – a recipe guaranteed to produce a secondary fermentation – works wonders on the cider. A week later, on 17 December, it was the turn of the now famous Dr Christopher Merrett to read his paper, ‘Some Observations Concerning the Ordering of Wines’ and describe how Britain’s seventeenth-century ‘wine coopers’ were making their wines ‘brisk and sparkling’ by the addition of sugar. This practice was certainly happening before 1662 and followed the development of the strong verre Anglaisbottles which Sir Kenelm Digby had (probably) been involved in perfecting since around 1628-1630[2].
Exactly when the first sparkling wine made from English grapes was produced is open to debate.[3] Certainly, wines being made in England in the 1750s were considered comparable to Champagne and as has been documented by me in other books, the wines produced at Painshill Place between 1741 and 1779 were often described as such. Of course, Champagne in those days was not always the sparkling wine that we know today. I have a wine list from the Magaszin de Vins Fins Chez Terral from Pontac, a village just outside Bordeaux, dated 1760, which lists Champagne mousseux and Champagne non-mousseux both at the same price.
The first recorded production of bottle-fermented sparkling wines made from British-grown grapes is probably that carried out by Raymond Barrington Brock at his Oxted Viticultural Research Station in the 1950s. The Daily Mirrorof 17 August 1950 carried an article entitled ‘A bottle of Maidstone ’49’ which praised the work of Brock and that other viticultural pioneer, Edward Hyams and ended by saying, ‘perhaps ten years hence you’ll be raising a glass of sparkling Canterbury [Hyams lived in Shottenden, near Canterbury and had a small vineyard there] in honour of the men who made an English wine industry possible.’ In September 1959 Brock welcomed members of the wine trade to his vineyard for a tasting and offered them a number of different wines, including sparkling wines. I have a letter dated 11 September 1959 sent to Brock from John Clevely, then a young Master of Wine, in which he thanks Brock for the visit and tasting and ends with a postscript saying: ‘Moët must look to their laurels if you really start going “commercial” with that sparkling wine. I thought it was wonderful.’Praise indeed. Some of these sparkling wines survived undisturbed in the Station’s cellars until the 1980s.
Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones at Hambledon, whose initial (1953) plantings included 20 Chardonnay vines, experimented with the production of a bottle-fermented sparkling wine, and in 1969 Bill Carcary, his vineyard manager, produced a batch of 60 bottles. Salisbury-Jones expanded the plantings of Chardonnay in 1970 with a further 1,000 vines but whether to make still or sparkling wine is not known. In 1979 his winemaking consultant Anton Massel helped produce a batch with apparently favourable results and as Salisbury-Jones also grew Auxerrois and Meunier, which ripened more easily, these became the basis of their sparkling wine cuvée. However, Sir Guy considered that the production costs were too high and the length of time the wine needed to mature was too long to make the product commercially viable and production ceased. Little did Bill Carcary know it at the time, but his experiments were to be the foundation stone of Britain’s highest profile sparkling wine producer, Nyetimber.
The first producers to make commercial quantities of bottle-fermented sparkling wines were Nigel (de Marsac) Godden at Pilton Manor Vineyard in Somerset – first planted in 1966 – and Graham Barrett at Felsted (or Felstar[4] as it was originally known) Vineyard in Essex – first planted in 1967. As was quite usual at that time, the main varieties grown were Müller-Thurgau and Seyval blanc and it is probable that it was these varieties that were used. Their wines – never produced in large volumes – were certainly interesting, maybe even worth drinking and in the 1979 English Wine of the Year Competition (EWOTYC) the 1976 Felstar Méthode Champenoise won a silver medal and the following year, 1978, the NV Pilton Manor De Marsac Brut Méthode Champenoise won a bronze. These early successes, however, didn’t seem to help sales much and the production of both faded out.
1983 Carr Taylor starts making bottle-fermented sparkling wine
The next appearance of a bottle-fermented sparkling wine in the EWOTYC (ignoring the carbonated 1983 Barton Manor Sparkling Rosé that won a gold medal in the 1984 competition – delicious though it was) was in 1987, when the first Carr Taylor sparkling wine won a medal. David and Linda Carr Taylor first planted vines at their vineyard in Westfield, near Hastings, East Sussex, in 1973 and until 1983 their grapes were sent to Lamberhurst Vineyards for winemaking. From their huge 1983 vintage however, when Reichensteiner cropped at 15 tonnes-acre and their total output came to 186,000 bottles, they decided to start making bottle-fermented sparkling wines. They engaged Clement Nowak, a Champagne-based Polish-French consultant winemaker to help and whose name at one stage actually appeared on the neck-label. For a few years Carr Taylor became the major producer – in fact almost the only producer – of bottle-fermented sparkling wines in Britain and achieved considerable success. Their Vintage Sparkling won a gold medal in the 1988 EWOTYC and their Non-Vintage Sparkling won the Jack Ward Trophy (best large volume wine) in the 1989 EWOTYC. In 1993 they won the IWSC English Wine Trophy with their 1987 Vintage Sparkling. They also entered their wines into overseas competitions – a rarity in those days – and did surprisingly well. Their 1988 Vintage Sparkling was awarded a gold medal at the prestigious Concours European des Grands Vinsbeating 1,800 Champagnes and other bottle-fermented sparkling wines from around the world, and in 1999, in the same competition, their 1996 vintage was awarded a gold medal, this time out of 4,300 entrants. A fact that tends to get forgotten in these days of Britain’s mega-vineyards planted with Champagne varieties is that the Carr Taylors were certainly the first to make serious commercial quantities of bottle-fermented sparkling wines. They did, however, only ever use what might be termed ‘native’ varieties for Britain: Reichensteiner, Schönburger, Kerner and Huxelrebe being the most important ones. This reliance on non-classic varieties, while it gave their wines a point of difference from other Chardonnay and Pinot based wines, also gave the wines a character more akin to Sekt or Asti than Champagne, something not all critics and commentators liked.
1985 New Hall grow grapes for the first Champagne variety sparkling wine
In 1985, Karl-Heinz Johner, then winemaker at Kenneth McAlpine’s Lamberhurst Vineyards, started making sparkling wine for Piers Greenwood at New Hall Vineyards in Essex, a major grape supplier to Lamberhurst. New Hall had started growing Pinots in 1971 when they planted 0.47-ha (1.16-acres) of Ruländer, the name under which Pinot gris used to be known in southern Germany, especially Baden, and in 1973, 1974 and 1975 they continued planting and established 0.62-ha (1.53-acres) of Pinot noir in each of those years. Unknown to them at the time of planting, 50 Chardonnay vines had been included by mistake with the Pinot gris, and in 1983 (or it could have been 1984), 1,300 kgs of Pinot noir and 150 kgs of Chardonnay, ‘the very last grapes picked from the harvest’ according to Greenwood, were sent to Lamberhurst for Johner to make into sparkling wine. This wine was therefore almost certainly the first ‘Champagne variety’, bottle-fermented sparkling wine to be produced in Britain. Greenwood says the wine ‘was released in December 1986 after ten months on the yeast’ (which makes it more likely to have been a 1984 wine, bottled in March 1985) and is the wine which Chris Trembath, Piers’ brother-in-law and now part-owner of New Hall Vineyards, remembers having at his wedding in 1987. More sparkling wine was made in 1985 (verified by a New Hall 1992 stocktaking report, which I have seen, which lists ‘1985 sparkling’ on it). These wines were probably those that I listed as my ‘Vineyard Choice’ in my 1989 book The Vineyards of England, which said ‘1984/5 New Hall Sparkling Wine Medium Dry £9.95’.
McAlpine was so impressed with this wine that he asked Greenwood to plant more Pinots, exclusively for Lamberhurst, and this he did in 1988 with 3.98-ha (9.83-acres) of Pinot noir and 1.80-ha (4.45-acres) of Pinot blanc. This was at a time when most people considered Chardonnay as being too difficult to ripen, so none was planted. When I took over as winemaker at Lamberhurst in May 1988 (after Johner was dismissed for dubious blending practices) there was a stock of bottle-fermented sparkling wine in the cellars and I was told that this was made from Pinot noir, Pinot blanc and Chardonnay, all grown at New Hall. After getting Tom Stevenson to taste the wine and give it his seal of approval, it was released as Lamberhurst Brut in 1988 or 1989[5]. Whether this was from the same 1984/1985 grapes as New Hall’s or from a subsequent vintage, I am unsure.
1986 David Cowderoy makes his first sparkling wine
The next on Britain’s sparkling wine scene was David Cowderoy, son of Norman Cowderoy, who had established a vineyard at Rock Lodge near Haywards Heath in 1963 (the vineyard is now leased by Plumpton College). David had been to Wye College to study agriculture (and met Jo, now his wife who was also studying there) and after getting his degree went to Roseworthy College in Australia to study winemaking. Returning to Britain in 1986, and with the knowledge that marriage to Jo was on the horizon, he made a batch of sparkling wine using Müller-Thurgau and Reichensteiner from that vintage. Thus, when he and Jo got married in 1988, they and their friends and family were able to celebrate with what was to be the first of many batches of English sparkling wine. David continued with his experiments in sparkling wine and, working at his father’s winery at Rock Lodge, produced the 1989 Rock Lodge Impresario[6] which won the IWSC English Wine Trophy in 1991.
1992 Chapel Down created
In 1992 David joined forces with others to create Chapel Down Wines and one of their first wines, the non-vintage Epoch Brut, a sparkling wine, made from a blend of Müller-Thurgau, Reichensteiner and Seyval blanc, was in fact a re-badged Rock Lodge wine. The fact that Chapel Down was not using the classic Champagne varieties (which, with the exception of New Hall Vineyards, were not being grown in enough quantity for them to buy), gave them something of a marketing advantage and enabled their prices to remain reasonable – under £10 – although at the time this was at least twice that of still wines. In the end though, once Chardonnay and Pinot-based wines started to appear in 1997-98, this marketing edge disappeared and their Müller-Thurgau, Reichensteiner and Seyval blanc based wines, although very good and well-priced, were always playing second fiddle to the Champagne lookalikes in quality (and quality perception) terms, as well as in price. At much the same time, John Worontschak, winemaker at Thames Valley Vineyard (today’s Stanlake Park) made a sparkling wine using Pinot noir from Ascot Vineyard, a 1-hectare (2.47-acre) vineyard planted in 1979 on Crown land near Sunninghill Park and owned by Colonel ‘Robby’ Robertson. Called Ascot Brut NV, it was released in 1992 and won a silver medal in the 1994 EWOTYC. Worontschak produced a number of Ascot sparkling wines from both Pinot noir and (unusually) Gamay noir, winning several silvers and bronzes between 1994 and 2004.
Mid 1980s Early days for Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Meunier based sparkling wines
The production of sparkling wines using the three classic varieties – Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Meunier – started in the mid-1980s when growers like Piers Greenwood (see above), Martin Oldaker at Surrenden Vineyard, near Ashford, (planted between 1984 and 1986) and Karen Ostborn and Alan Smalley at Throwley, near Faversham(planted in 1986)[7], both in Kent, all started growing Chardonnay and Pinot noir with the encouragement of Christopher (Kit) Lindlar. After leaving the Merrydown Wine Company[8], based in Horam, East Sussex, where he had been one of the winemakers since 1976, Lindlar set up as a contract winemaker, firstly at Biddenden Vineyards, and then, in 1986, at his own High Weald Winery at Grafty Green, near Ashford, Kent. Lindlar, who also supplied vines, persuaded the two Kent vineyards above to experiment with these varieties, which had until then been very unsuccessful in Britain. Brock had grown Chardonnay in his collection at Oxted but could never get it to ripen properly. Ian and Andrew Paget at Chilsdown Vineyard planted Chardonnay and also had no luck getting it to ripen. In 1981, a very dismal year for British vinegrowers, the acidity (in grams per litre) in their Chardonnay was higher than the degrees Oechsle. Ouch. Extreme unripeness was a common finding among those early growers who persevered with it, although most decided to give up and removed the offending variety. Only in really hot years would Chardonnay produce anything like ripe grapes and tolerable wine. Pinot noir, like many of the black varieties then being grown, suffered from terrible botrytis and was very difficult to ripen without huge losses. It is only since the arrival of better anti-botrytis sprays – initially Rovral and Ronilan, but more recently Scala, Switch and Teldor and now others – that growing fungus-sensitive varieties like Pinot noir has been possible. Meunier, in the guise of Wrotham Pinot, had always been grown in small amounts, but never used for anything other than blending with other, riper, reds. Lindlar’s biggest, and subsequently best-known clients, were Stuart and Sandy Moss who decided, in 1988, to plant a vineyard at Nyetimber near Pulborough in West Sussex.
1986 Nyetimber established
The Mosses had, by all accounts, been looking at various locations to plant a vineyard – California was at one time the front runner – but it was Sandy’s love of (and business in) early English oak furniture, that persuaded them that England was the place. In 1985 Hambledon Vineyards was up for sale and the Mosses viewed it and made a bid for it, but lost out to another bidder, John Patterson, who owned it until 1994. Bill Carcary, who had been at Hambledon since 1966, got to know the Mosses quite well at the time and when they then bought the 49-hectare Nyetimber estate in 1986, they asked Carcary to come and work for them as estate manager and eventually as their winemaker and got so far with this idea as to refurbish a cottage for him and offer him a contract of employment. In his discussions with them about planting a vineyard on the land at Nyetimber, Carcary remembers that it was his idea that they should plant the Champagne varieties for sparkling wine production, something he had long wanted to do at Hambledon, but which, as has been stated above, Salisbury-Jones had ruled out on cost grounds. In the end, Carcary decided for family reasons (his son had been awarded a place at the local grammar school) not to leave Hambledon and stayed, working for the new owner. Whoever actually came up with the idea of producing bottle-fermented sparkling wines on this (for the time) very large scale, the Mosses went ahead and planted the classic Champagne varieties, something which at the time was revolutionary – I said bonkers!
The vines for the Nyetimber plantings between 1988 and 1991 were sourced from the Fay nursery in France and it was to Lindlar’s High Weald Winery that the first commercial vintage, the 1992, was taken for processing under the watchful eye of French winemaking consultant Jean-Manuel Jacquinot. As Lindlar modestly says, ‘While they did hire Jacquinot, the winemaking buck stopped with me; that is to say, had those early vintages flopped it would definitely have been down to me.’ Given the importance of the Mosses’ enterprise, which when all was said and done was still something of an experiment, one has to give praise to Lindlar where it is due.
The Mosses released their first wine in 1997, the 100 per cent Chardonnay 1992 Nyetimber Première Cuvée Blanc de Blancs, which won an IWSC[9] Gold Medal and that competition’s English Wine Trophy. Then, in 1998 they released a second wine, the 1993 Nyetimber Classic Cuvée (a true Champagne-variety blend) which went one better, winning not only an IWSC Gold Medal and the English Wine Trophy, but also the Bottle Fermented Sparkling Wine Trophy. Suddenly, everyone woke up to the fact that good wine, even stunningly good wine, could be made from hitherto seemingly unworkable varieties – Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Meunier – and what was more, the wine could be sold at a premium price. Some of us had been wondering if things were about to change, but after these successes we realised that the game was up for German-variety based wines. With these two wines and these two significant trophies, English Sparkling Wine had definitely arrived. Nyetimber went from strength to strength, winning the Gore-Browne Trophy in 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 and the IWSC International Sparkling Wine Trophy in 2006, 2008 and 2009[10].
1995 Ridgeview and others join the party
A few years after the Mosses planted, another Lindlar client, Mike Roberts, also decided to establish a dedicated classic-variety, bottle-fermented sparkling wine business at Ditchling in East Sussex. Ridgeview Winery was established in 1995 with thirteen clones of Chardonnay, Pinot noir and Meunier, also supplied by the Fay nursery, and today it covers 6.48 hectares (16 acres), although it has access to grapes from a much larger area. A modern winery, with underground storage cellar, was built and equipped with the contents of the High Weald Winery, which were acquired when Lindlar closed his winery. In order to kick-start Ridgeview’s production line, Chardonnay and Pinot noir grapes were bought from other growers, including Surrenden and Throwley, and the 1996 Cuveé Merret Bloomsbury was produced. This wine won the 2000 EWOTYC Gore-Browne Trophy, awarded for wine of the year. Since that first release, Ridgeview has produced a range of wines, all named after London squares or areas – Belgravia, Bloomsbury, Cavendish, Fitzrovia, Grosvenor, Knightsbridge and Pimlico – and the tally of awards has been impressive. They won the Gore-Browne Trophy in 2000, 2002, 2009, 2010 and 2011 and regularly win gold and silver medals in the major wine competitions. Their most notable success was probably winning the Decanter World Wine Awards International Sparkling Wine Trophy (beating four very prestigious Champagnes in the process) with their 2006 Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs.[11]
When first Nyetimber and later Ridgeview started selling wines and achieving the sort of prices that many in the wine business in Britain had thought impossible, the way forward for home-grown sparkling wines started to look a lot different. Following their significant commercial and competition success, plantings of the three classic Champagne varieties in Britain increased year on year and since the very warm year of 2003, several significant vineyards have been planted. The largest vineyard owner is Nyetimber, who only produce sparkling wines and only from their own vineyards. The business has changed hands twice since the Mosses owned it, and now, under its current owner, Eric Heerema, has expanded on various sites from its original 15.8 hectares to a whopping 424-hectares (1,047-acres) spread over 11 sites from Stockbridge in the west, to Chartham in the east, 177 km (110-miles) away. They have around two-thirds of their currently planted vineyards in production. Heerema told me he was always looking for more land. The next largest is Chapel Down who produce both still and sparkling wines and who own, or have planted on leased land, 341-ha (842-acres) of vineyards and take grapes under contract from another 71-ha (175-acres). This makes a total of 412-ha (1,018-acres). Chapel Down currently (2025) have 314-ha (777-acres) in production. The third largest by vineyard size, although with not all of their planted land yet cropping, is Mark Dixon’s MDCV Ltd with vineyards in East and West Sussex, Kent and Essex currently totalling 355-ha (878-acres). The next three largest sparkling wine producers are: Rathfinny with 93.5-ha; Hambledon with 90 hectares; Gusbourne with 93 hectares (although they are not currently cropping all of this); and Ridgeview with 90 hectares (both owned and under contract). Other major sparkling players (in alphabetical order) include Balfour Wine Estate, Bluebell Estates, Bolney, Camel Valley, Coates and Seely, Denbies, Evremond, Exton Park, Furleigh, Greyfriars, Hundred Hills, Laithwaites, Langham, Pinglestone, Roebuck, Simpson’s, Squerryes, Tinwood, and Wiston. There are also several quite sizeable growers who mainly grow grapes under contract to the major producers. Together, there are around 25 producers who control 50 per cent of Britain’s vineyard area and probably nearer 65 per cent of its sparkling wine production. And then there are the French.
2004 The French connection
French producers, both from Champagne and elsewhere in France, have been interested in wine production in Britain for almost twenty years. In 2003, following the hottest and earliest ever harvest in Champagne, a grower and winemaker from Avizes, Didier Pierson, and his then (life) partner, British-born Imogen Whitaker, entered into a joint venture with a Hampshire farmer, and in 2004 and 2005 planted 4 hectares of the three classic Champagne varieties on a somewhat isolated, exposed and high site (up to 203 metres above sea level). The vines were planted very much à la méthode Champenoise with narrow rows and low trellising (an ideal height for pheasants) and farmed using the only enjambeur tractor in Britain. The vineyard, known as Meonhill, was subsequently bought by nearby Hambledon Vineyards following the break-up of the Pierson-Whitaker relationship. The vineyard has now been abandoned.
In around 2004–5, Champagne producer Duval-Leroy instructed the Canterbury office of Strutt & Parker, well-known land agents with strong farming links, to seek out suitable land for planting. Their brief was short, if slightly eccentric: the land must be within one hour of the Channel Tunnel, the soil must be chalky and there must have been no livestock on the land in recent years. This last request baffled most of those involved, who were told that there might be residues in the soil which would interfere with the fermentation process. (I suspect there was something lost in translation.) Although several sites were found and one selected (Squerryes Estate) and lengthy negotiations entered into, nothing came of Duval-Leroy’s quest and they retreated to Épernay[12]. In 2006, on an exceptionally wet and windy June day, I took Louis Roederer boss Frédéric Rouzaud, his winemaker Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon and Mark Bingley MW, their British agent, on a tour of English vineyards simply to show them what we were up to. While this visit fuelled a lot of speculation about their intentions, it had only ever been a fact-finding trip and I never expected it to be anything else.
In 2007 Champagne producer Billecart-Salmon, in a joint venture with London wine merchants Berry Brothers and Rudd, found land in Dorset for the creation of an English sparkling wine brand. They were all set to go but the financial crisis of 2008, when Champagne sales took a sudden dive, put them off the whole idea and it was shelved. When well-known wine writer and taster Steven Spurrier wanted to plant a vineyard on his wife’s farm in Dorset, he first approached Duval-Leroy, who again proved difficult to negotiate with. He then he tried teaming up with the Burgundy producer Boisset whose sparkling wine house Louis Bouillot produce around 10 million bottles of Crémant de Bourgognea year. However, Boisset were convinced that home-grown English sparkling wine couldn’t sell for more than £12.99 a bottle (this was in around 2006/7) and wouldn’t take things any further. Spurrier subsequently went ahead on his own, planting 10 hectares under the Bride Valley label.
2015 Domaine Evremond and Champagne Taittinger
The first Champagne house to actually take the plunge was Taittinger who, after over two years of discussions and negotiations, put their mouths and their money behind Domaine Evremond. On 26 February 2014, Patrick McGrath, a fellow Master of Wine and MD and part-owner of Hatch Mansfield Agencies Ltd (Taittinger’s British agents among other things) got in touch with me saying that he wanted to discuss English sparkling wine. As a successful wine wholesaler, Hatch Mansfield had decided that they needed an English Sparkling Wine on their books. How should they go about this? Should they look at buying an existing producer? Should they go the Champagne route – buy grapes and create a blend which they would market exclusively? What were the options? Buying an existing producer I said was out. The best were not for sale and you wouldn’t want any of the rest. Buy grapes? Forget it – too many of the large wineries were already chasing them and supplies were too erratic and – more importantly – too expensive (at that time). Why not go the whole hog I inquired? Buy land, plant vines, harvest grapes, make wine, bottle wine, wait three years and – hey presto – wine for sale? ‘Is that a practical option? asked McGrath. That’s what I help people do I said. When do we start looking for land?
The next eighteen months were spent finding a suitable site. The south-east was chosen as the target area and Kent the favourite county. Why? I knew it well, it was near the Channel Tunnel and I considered it to have the best sites and best growing conditions for vines in Britain. As Hatch Mansfield were agents for Taittinger, they had to be consulted and Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, grandson of the founder and most definitely an Anglophile, agreed that Taittinger would become an investor. There then followed several fraught Taittinger board meetings, at which the board eventually decided NOT to get involved. This put something of a damper on the project. However, after McGrath gave a passionate defence and promotion of the project, the board decided that they would get involved, but only if they could be majority shareholders. This was agreed and today, Taittinger and Taittinger employees hold around 55 per cent of the equity with the other 45 per cent owned by some significant minor shareholders, plus around thirty very small shareholders, mostly Hatch Mansfield employees, plus myself.
Various sites were found, looked at and rejected, but eventually what I considered to be a perfect site, south-facing, less than 100 metres above sea level, well sheltered and with mainly chalk soil was found between the villages of Selling and Chilham, eight miles south-west of Canterbury. After lengthy negotiations with the landowners, buying land they didn’t want to sell and not buying blocks they wanted to sell, a deal was done and on 16 November 2015 the purchase was completed (it should have been the previous Friday but that, being the thirteenth, was rejected by the French as being inauspicious). The press launch was held on 9 December 2015 in the magnificent surroundings of Westminster Abbey, final resting place (in Poet’s Corner) of Charles de Saint-Evremond. He was another Anglophile and Champagne lover who did much to introduce late-seventeenth-century Londoners to sparkling Champagne, which was becoming more popular than the predominantly still wine that was the norm at that time. The next 15 months were spent getting the site prepared, removing the apple, pear and plum trees that covered most of the site. The first 20 hectares (50 acres) of vines were planted in May 2017, another 8 hectares (20 acres) in 2019, 17 ha (42 acres) in 2020, 4-ha (10-acres) in 2021 and a further 10-ha (25 acres) in 2024, making a total of almost 60-ha (148-acres). More will be planted as land becomes available, some of the land they bought being under a short farming lease (known as an FBT) to the original owners. The first (very small) harvest was taken in October 2018, with 50+ tonnes in 2019 and then an average of 180 tonnes each year since. The first two vintages were made at Simpson’s Wine Estate, but in 2020 a temporary winery was installed in a refurbished steel-framed barn on the farm and the next two vintages were made there. In June 2020, planning permission was granted for a £10 million winery and modest visitor centre and in 2022, after some covid-related delays, work started on a purpose-built semi-underground winery and cellar (costing around £11 mn) with a storage capacity for ageing 1.25 mn bottles. The first vintage was made there in 2024 and in September of the same year the first wine was released.
Following Taittinger, the floodgates hardly opened, but certainly, tongues were set wagging in Reims and Épernay and it wasn’t long before the patter of French vigneron-sized feet were heard in England again, this time in Hampshire. Champagne Vranken-Pommery bought (from the Isaacs family, one of whom was owner of nearby Exton Park Estate, for, it is said, £20,000 an acre) a 40-hectare site near Old Arlesford and planted 19 hectares in 2018, with a further 14 hectares in 2019. In the meantime, they have collaborated with near neighbours Hattingley Valley to produce some English sparkling wines under the Louis Pommery brand name, the same name as they use for their Californian ‘méthode Champenoise’ wine (no doubt they wish they could call it that in Britain). Boutinot, a major British-based wine wholesaler, bought Henners Vineyard in 2015 and the South African Benguela Cove Winery established vineyards in West Sussex in 2016 and 2017.
The latest large-scale overseas-based investor to set up shop in England is Mark Dixon who made his fortune with Regus, the global workspace and serviced offices company, and now owns the 121-ha Château de Berne, a Provencal Rosé producer. In around 2016 he bought Sedlescombe Organic Vineyards, followed shortly afterwards by buying Kingscote Vineyards, East Grinstead (which has now been sold). Following the purchase of these, new vines were planted at both places, plus at Bodiam Vineyard, which Sedlescombe had leased since 1994. Further land was leased from the owners of the Bodiam vineyard, the Sternberg family, at Old Place Farm, Sandhurst, just below Sandhurst Church. Here, around 40 ha (100 acres) of vines were planted in 2019, somewhat perversely (and baffling to local vineyard owners) at an angle across a perfectly fine south-facing slope. Not content with this number and area of vineyards, the already-organic Court Lodge and Brookers farms in the hamlet of Luddesdown near Gravesend were purchased and in 2019 some of the land was planted with 177-ha of Champagne varieties. More land has subsequently been planted here with the planted total now 202-ha (500-acres). In 2020 another new vineyard, this time a mere 38-ha in Essex in the village of Althorne facing onto the River Crouch in the by now much-bevined CM3 postcode. In total, Dixon, trading as MDCV or Silverhand Estate, now has control over 283-ha (700-acres) of vineyards, most of which is either organic, biodynamic or in conversion. Quite what the long-term plan is for all these vineyards is not clear. Both Sedlescombe and Kingscote were put on the market in early 2020 as they ‘didn’t fit in with the business plan going forward’ and Kingscote was eventually sold in 2025. They are currently offering their Charmat method sparkling wine at £13.60 a bottle. It will be interesting to see how this empire of wine develops.
Sparkling wine expands
Other southern French, Italian and even Californian producers have been on reconnaissance missions to look at vineyards in Britain and although they are all surprised at how cheap vineyard land is compared to where they come from, their main discovery is how low yields are. With still wines selling in the £10–15 range and sparkling wines retailing between £16 and £35, can you really make money when you only harvest 5 tonnes-ha (2 tonnes-acre)? Those yields might be okay if you are selling high-priced Champagne, Bordeaux or Burgundy, or New World wines with more than 95 Parker points, but they do not work for relatively modestly priced wines. The latest and perhaps the most important overseas entrant to the GB wine market is Jackson Family Wines, the Californian-based wine company who own or have substantial interests in over 40 wineries and 20,250-ha (50,000-acres) of vines. After several years’ research they have now invested in GB, buying an extremely expensive plot of land in the Crouch Valley and planting 14-ha (35-acres) of Pinot and Chardonnay in 2024. In 2025 they leased land from Wiston Estate in West Sussex and planted a further 9-ha (22-acres) of vines. They also bought finished wine to make a sparkling wine cuvée which is now ageing, and in June 2025 released a 2024 still Chardonnay called ‘Marbury’. With their level of family commitment and world-wide marketing expertise, how they market their wines will be interesting to see.
Sadly, the rapid expansion of vineyards and wine production has led to several casualties. In 2023, Hambledon Vineyards found itself in financial straits and was purchased in its entirety by two industry majors, Berry, Bros & Rudd and Symington Family Estates. In late 2024, Highweald Wines had financial problems and went into administration in April 2025. They have since been refinanced and re-emerged under new management. In 2025 Gusbourne, which was a PLC, was removed from the AIM stock market by its majority shareholder and backer, Lord Michael Ashcroft, and took the decision not to take any crop from the 32-ha of vines it has in West Sussex citing excess stocks as the reason. It is still trading from its Kent site where it has 61-ha of vines. The final casualty, but by no means the least, is Ridgeview which many considered to be one of the best run and best managed wine producers in the country. In October 2025, after reporting a £1.5 mn loss for 2023, they went in administration. They are still trading and hoping to find a buyer for the business.
What’s the future for English sparkling wine?
The future for English sparkling wines is as uncertain as most things these days. There is a current imbalance between demand and supply with large stocks (some say very large) in relation to current sales, and with around 50 per cent of the land currently planted do not yet have wine for sale – either because their vines have not yet started to crop, or the wine they have produced is still maturing. The production of sparkling wine in the last three years (2022-24) has averaged 10 mn bottles a year, whereas sales have average 6 mn bottles a year (2021-23). With 300-350 ha of new plantings coming on-stream every year, and with vineyard plantings showing little sign of stopping, at some point, demand and supply have to reach an equilibrium. Many think that substantial price reductions of both wine and grapes cannot be far away.
[1] This is believed to be the first use of the word sparkling in English in relation to wine or cider.
[2] My book The Knight Who Invented Champagne is all about Digby and his bottle.
[3] A sparkling wine called Moussec, originally made from grape concentrate produced from grapes grown in the Aube region of France, was produced initially in a factory in Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire from the mid-1930s until well into the 1980s. The original label said it was made from ‘Champagne grapes’ and produced by the ‘Champagne method’, but these claims were later dropped. Given that it was made in multiple bottle sizes, including single-serve bottles, it was probably made in the tank method (if not also carbonated). The company was founded by a Monsieur Rivollier from the Aube region who made the concentrate from grapes grown in his region but fell out with the authorities in Champagne and was forced to stop. The company was bought by Reckitt and Coleman (R&C Vintners) who continued production in their winery in Norwich on Carrow Road. For many years the alcohol content was labelled as being ‘21° Proof’, a term usually used for spirits at the time. This level of ‘proof’ is around 10.5% abv.
[4] The story was that he had been advised by the local Wine Standards inspector that he was not allowed to label it with the name of the village where the vineyard was situated, Felsted, as the village didn’t have its own appellation!
[5] My main memory of Tom and his wife’s visit to taste the wine was that he locked his car keys in his Renault and had to wait several hours for the AA to arrive and break into it, which they did in seconds. My offers of smashing the window were soundly refused!
[6] It had originally been called ‘Rock Lodge Imperial’ until Moët & Chandon complained as Impérial was one of their brands.
[7] The 1989 Throwley Chardonnay Sparkling won the IWSC English Wine Trophy in their 1992 competition.
[8] Merrydown was partially owned by Jack Ward who was its MD, as well as being Chairman of the English Vineyards Association. Merrydown owned a small vineyard, Horam Manor, but more importantly operated a co-operative winemaking scheme for British vineyards, where in exchange for a percentage of the grapes delivered, they made your wine.
[9] International Wine and Spirit Competition.
[10] Since then Nyetimber are a bit more selective about which wine competitions and competitive tastings they enter.
[11] Sadly, in September 2025, Ridgeview went into administration and at the time of writing, their future is unknown.
[12] Squerryes Estate subsequently planted up and today have around 21 hectares of vineyards.