Which English wine producers will be around in 20 years?

Some brief thoughts on English Wine Week 2025, plus events this month and one incredible bargain.

English Wine Week starts tomorrow, Saturday 21st June. I'm doing a couple of events in Kent and Sussex:

Sunday 22nd June - 1pm
Talk at Cornucopia Bottleshop & Tasting Room, 90 High Street, Tenterden, Kent TN30 6JB. Call 07720 449035. There will be wine and nibbles.

Saturday 28th June - 1-5pm
I'll be signing books at the Wine Lands festival at Charleston in Lewes. Tickets are free but you do have to book. The books aren't free.

I'm also going to be doing a series of videos on Instagram. To be honest, I find doing these somewhat excruciating, being naturally a shy, retiring type, but now that I am a top influencer, they go with the territory.

My award-winning and much-lauded book on English wine is available. I would say from all good bookshops, but they didn't have it in the Rye Bookshop, a part of England full of vineyards. Please do bother your local bookseller, or it is available from everyone's favourite online behemoth.

Your local vineyard (presuming you are in England, apologies to foreign subscribers) will have events on, so do take this opportunity to visit and taste if you haven't before.

Doom and gloom

It's a very tricky time for the English wine industry. The optimistic and expansionary spirit that I captured in my book is now over (though I did have a prescient chapter called ‘Storm Clouds Ahead’). It seems that hardly a week goes past without news of another producer having financial troubles. High Weald Wines in Sussex has just gone into administration, while I've just heard reports that one of England's oldest and biggest sparkling wine producers, Ridgeview, is in financial trouble and is in the process of being sold. I have contacted them for confirmation but not heard back yet.

This is particularly sad as when I was researching my book, Ridgeview was well-run and profitable. But as with many, they expanded and invested heavily in new facilities, including hospitality, and it seems that hasn't worked as well as hoped. According to the Financial Times, Ridgeview made a loss of £1.5 million in the year to December 2023.

Other producers such as Gusbourne, Rathfinny, Chapel Down and Balfour have all been in the news in the past couple of years with varied sets of, ahem, challenges, financial or otherwise. Meanwhile, Eric Heerema has poured well over £100 million into Nyetimber, and still the business is not profitable, according to a recent interview.

Someone asked me the other day which of the big English wine producers would be around in 20 years' time, and honestly, I could not say. Making sparkling wine requires so much investment to grow; the more successful you are, the more money you need tied up in maturing stocks. The most resilient English producers are probably the smaller, long-established ones who didn't borrow and expand too much during the boom years. People like Biddenden in Kent, who have the benefit of a large local cider business to keep the money flowing in.

I expected more of the champagne houses to join Taittinger and Pommery in English wine, but many of them, such as the biggest of them all, LVMH (which owns Moët and Veuve Clicquot), are also in financial trouble, with rumours that Moët itself might be up for sale!

English wine does not look like a wise investment at the moment. As I've mentioned before here, British consumption has not kept up with increased planting, and export still remains small. Most wineries are overstocked with wine, something not helped by the enormous 2023 vintage. Expect to see mysteriously cheap English fizz at a supermarket near you.

Reasons to be cheerful

Nevertheless, I remain massively optimistic about English wine, mainly because the wines themselves just keep getting better and better. It was great to see The Trouble With Dreams 2009 in magnum from Sugrue South Downs (I interviewed Dermot last year) win 'Best in Show' at this year's Decanter World Wine Awards. And see Nyetimber triumph at the Battle of the Bubbles at the London Wine Fair.

It's not just fizz. I've just filed two pieces: one for The Critic looking at chardonnay from Essex with the release of Californian company Jackson Family's vineyards' first English wine called Marbury. The other which has just gone live on Club Oenologique looks at unexpected varieties in Southern England such as chasselas, gewürztraminer and even albariño. Here’s a little extract:

“Kent Albariño might sound like a hard-boiled New York detective but it’s actually a glimpse into the future of English wine. Believe it or not, there are at least five acres of Galicia’s finest grape variety growing in the Garden of England, plus some at Ancre Hill in South Wales. And it’s not the only exotic vitis vinifera variety lurking in Britain. If you know where to look, you can find Chasselas, Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Gamay, Cabernet Franc, Syrah and more.

In the past, these noble grapes were planted more in hope than expectation but in recent years, growers have been able to produce still wines of quite startling quality.”

Oh, and talking of chardonnay, Majestic are currently selling the superb Nine Oaks 2022 for an absurd £12.99 a bottle when you buy a mixed case of six or more. It was a bargain at £20. Buy all you can!

I'll be recommending more English wines next week and looking at some of the best vineyards to visit. Plus you don't want to miss my influencer face on Instagram.