Grape Britain: How English Wines are Bubbling to the Top

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A few decades ago the phrase English Wine was an oxymoron, a punchline to English actor Peter Ustinov's joke: "I imagine hell like this - Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine." Today it’s a very different story. English wine has grown up and been through a revolution. Now it regularly wins awards – there were 12 gold medals at the International Wine Challenge (IWC) last year. London will play host to an international wine fair this March, where the English wine industry will be showcasing why their wines are slowly bubbling their reputation to the top tier of wine-producing countries.

There are several factors that have moved England from being just a consumer of wine to a country with a growing popularity for its small, respectable viticulture. English winemakers are heavily investing more into studies and training in viticulture overseas before returning to apply their knowledge to the future of UK vineyards.

Similarly, over the past decade, faith in the English soil to produce premier wines has seen champagne houses enter the fray, buying up land in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. Taittinger is planting an English vineyard in Kent while Pommery is working in partnership with Hattingley Valley. Other Hampshire-based producers such as Hambledon and Exton Park are also under the guidance of French experts.

“The more in-depth knowledge that has come from both overseas experts and the English producers acquiring a higher education of viticulture has resulted in far better quality wines than in the past and consumers are beginning to realise this. Highly acclaimed wine critics and experts are recommending English wines as much as their overseas equivalents in both still and sparkling categories,” said Dorset-based Langham Wine Estate's winemaker Daniel Ham.

Despite the arrival of leading international producers, the English sparkling wine industry still largely comprises of family businesses. Some of the newest vineyards are supported by one or two wealthy investors, drawn by the potential for English sparkling wines. Others rely on crowdfunding and community growing methods, as in the case of The Urban Wine Company’s Chateau Tooting.

Retailers like Majestic Wines, the UK’s largest specialist retailer of wines, and Berry Bros. & Rudd, Britain's oldest wine and spirit merchant, have both found that there has been a sustained growth in interest in English wine. This is despite the past struggles with an inconsistent climate and higher production costs than continental rivals that British producers have faced.

“Customers recognise the quality in English wine, and English sparkling wine in particular which has won numerous accolades. There is also an aspect of a desire to ‘buy British’ that accounts for the increase in sales,” says Master of Wine (MW), Katherine Dart, Wine Buyer at Berry Bros. & Rudd.

English vineyards are specialising increasingly in sparkling wines. They have attracted considerable attention, winning gold medals against reputable French competition over the past decade, with many bottles going for prices on a par with top French champagnes. In a series of highly publicised blind tastings organised by the industry last year, English sparkling wines, Hambledon Classic Cuvée and Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2010, saw off competition from some of the most famous Champagne brands - Pol Roger and Taittinger - to clinch the top two spots.

Despite the critical acclaim, production is still relatively small in international terms. The Champagne region of France alone produces more than 300 million bottles a year, compared with England's total annual wine production of about five million bottles. This is, however, up from the two million average based on 2007 to 2011 figures.

English and Welsh wineries have lofty growth ambitions and major producers have committed to increasing total exports to 2.5 million bottles in 2020. Domestically, supermarket chains will help push the growth on home soil: both Marks and Spencer and Waitrose saw sales grow by 50 per cent year-on-year over the festive season, according to English Wine Producers and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

At present, Tesco and Sainsbury’s stock only two English wines each. Marks and Spencer and Waitrose sell 40 and 87 types of British and Welsh wine respectively but this still only accounts for five to one per cent, respectively, of the wine they stock.

In terms of the restaurant trade, while it’s becoming increasingly common to find an English wine listed in many of the top London restaurants and bars, Lenka Sedlackova MW, Marketing Manager at Field Morris & Verdin, the on-trade branch of Berry Bros. & Rudd, believes the current low levels of production, in comparison to its rivals, aren’t necessarily a bad thing:

“Production is not big so we often sell out and will then have to wait for the next vintage to be released. But sometimes this helps to grow demand because people know it’s limited,” she says.

Another aspect that could help expand the British wine empire is the price of vine land in Britain. While agricultural land values have sprouted upwards because of their success - at £10,000 to £20,000 per hectare, it is still about one per cent or less than the cost of land in France – applications to the HM Revenue and Customs have risen by 40 per cent in the past year. The area of vines planted in England and Wales has increased six-fold from just over 750 hectares in 2004 to almost 5,000 at present. The Food Standards Agency calculates there are now over 500 vineyards with more arriving every season.

At the moment, the British climate is suitable for growing a variety of grapes as far north as Yorkshire. A study conducted by UCL researchers last year into the changing weather patterns in Britain found that by 2100, Britain's wines may be able to compete on the same level as those from famous French regions such as Burgundy and Beaujolais. Professor Mark Maslin, one of the researchers, said: “Climate is critical; this study could signal how we think long-term about British wine production and redraw the future wine map of the world.”

The study said the Severn Pocket, the south-west counties of Devon, Somerset and Gloucester, and South Wales would eventually be perfect for merlot while the Thames Estuary area could produce Malbec. The changing conditions could see the cultivation of several grape varieties in the Black Country such as Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, In the north-east, places like Newcastle and as far north as Edinburgh are predicted to be the best areas for Pinot Grigio.

Warmer temperatures and the chalky, south-facing slopes of rolling Kentish Weald and Sussex downland are ideal locations for a flourishing £100 million industry based on rows and rows of neatly trimmed dark green vines. The Wine Society has almost doubled the number of bottles of English sparkling wine sold in the last six years from 2,808 in 2011 to 4,968 in 2015.

2016 was a particularly strong year for the industry and this year seems to be following suit. Yet another English wine, Gusbourne's Blanc de Blancs 2007, topped the banquet menu for the Colombian President’s important state visit and Chapel Down became the official supplier to Downing Street, as well as replacing Bollinger as the official partner at the Cambridge and Oxford Boat Race next month.

Figures released from the Foreign Office on the government’s wine cellar show that for the third year running, more English wine was drunk at government hospitality events than wine from any other nation. Last year’s figures show that of the 3730 bottles used at such events, 1632 were from English vineyards, an increase of nearly 10 per cent from 2011/2012.

Yet none of the House of Commons-branded wines are from the UK. In November, Neil Parish MP argued in a discussion about the industry that the Government should be doing more to make English wine a big Brexit success story.

At present, it accounts for less than one per cent of total wine sales in the UK, according to the industry body English Wine Producers. Moreover a report conducted by trade magazine The Grocer found that most under 25s were unlikely to buy English wine as it was more expensive than its overseas counterparts.

It is true that English wine is generally a little more expensive. In the UK, as much as 60 per cent of the cost of an average bottle of wine goes on tax. Mr Parish MP has called on the government to amend the tax on English wine to reflect the tax of its rivals which stands at about 21 per cent in France. He believes that the duties on wine are unfair on domestic producers, which will have an impact across the industry from small to large producers.

He said: “Excise duty is too high in this country and punishes domestic wine producers the most, who pay duty even before the wine is sold. At the last budget in March, all other drink sectors received duty freezes, but the wine industry saw a duty rise.”

It’s uncertain what will happen after Brexit to UK imports of prosecco and champagne, but what is clear is that no matter what happens, English sparkling wine is already a viable alternative.

Furthermore, at the end of last year the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) put forward the application for Sussex wine to get PDO status in the European Union’s Geographic Indication scheme, joining Cornwall’s Camel Valley vineyard. It’s a step forward to receiving the recognition the particular association of English sparkling wines as being a high-quality product. If granted it will receive the same privileges as Champagne.

But the industry will still have to market its products fervently if it wants to continue this flourishing expansion. “Michelin restaurants didn’t use to feel obliged to have an English wine but they do now, and that demand is filtering down to the gastropubs. English producers are all trying to work collectively and that’s a good thing – we need to get a wiggle on to build this together,” says Ben Walgate of Gusbourne.

That wiggle is necessary and non-negotiable: there are vast sums of money and a truly world-class reputation at stake which could cement the place of the English wine industry.

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