English Wine Producers recently exhibited for the first at the huge German trade show, ProWein. Such an initiative would have been unthinkable not that many years ago. It illustrates the length its wines have come from the early days when bored landowners and keen gardeners rolled up their sleeves and gave tending vines and making wine a ‘jolly good go’.

With ever-improving knowledge of viticulture and vinification techniques, swathes of southern England, the north and south downs, comprising all-important chalk and what appears to be a warming climate, England – and Wales – are set to become a significant wine-producing region bearing comparison with German regions, Burgundy and Champagne.

Ah! Champagne. The jewels in the crown of English wines are undoubtedly its sparkling wines, lead by the likes Nyetimber, Ridgeview and Chapel Down. The whites are also good and reds such as Pinot Noir and Dornfelder are coming along nicely. 

They are more expensive for the quality when compared to similar wines from Germany, Chile, Romania, Bulgaria etc. Nevertheless, as the vines mature and the winemakers become more experienced, they will get them right as well.

“English Wine is entering a new era,” says Julia Trustram Eve, marketing director of English Wine Producers, which is responsible for the generic marketing and promotion of English and Welsh wines. There are 22 producers in the EWP from 11 regions – from balmy Cornwall to northerly Leeds. The membership represents more than 80% of the total volume produced in the UK.

Sales of English sparkling wine are buoyant, with producers already reporting record sales for the first two months of 2013, traditionally the quietest in terms of sales. As consumers look for approachable, affordable alternatives to Champagne and drink sparkling wine on more occasions, English wine is becoming a serious player in the market.

Regarding ProWein, Trustram Eve says: “To have our own presence at such a well-established and respected international wine fair sends out a strong message to the international wine world.”

According to the EWP, acreage has nearly doubled in about eight years and most of this is plantings of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier for sparkling wine production. This is the major growth sector and currently sparkling wine has exceeded still in terms of production. There has been marginal growth in plantings of all three varieties in 2012 over 2011, showing that the trend continues. At the time of going to press, the latest figures had not been published.

Nyetimber, arguably England’s foremost sparkler, has just announced that, for its first export market, Japan, importer/distributor Enoteca will be its exclusive distributor from June.

Christian Holthausen, Nyetimber’s marketing & communications manager, said: “We’re delighted to be working with premium fine wine specialist Enoteca because it is the ideal partner to represent our wines. Japan is an extremely discerning wine market and we are looking forward to a very successful future.” 

The announcement was made at a party at the British ambassador’s residence where the 2008 Classic Cuvée was served to approximately 1,000 people. Nyetimber has also been served at receptions by the Queen, and President Obama drank it at 10 Downing Street on his first official visit to the UK in 2009.

Camel Valley in Cornwall already exports to Japan. Winemaker Sam Lindo says: “Our largest export is to Japan. Wine is greatly appreciated in Japan along with products of English provenance, so a great combination. We also export to Singapore and Hong Kong. Around Europe it is mainly direct to restaurants and small shops.

“One of our most important wines we produce is our sparkling rose. It is made in a style that is not achievable in other parts of the world and we have won best rosé sparkling in the world three times, once in the International Wine Challenge.

“We have a reactionary approach to exporting. When people enquire we make a decision based on stocks and ease of shipping/customs etc,” he says.

“Most of our enquiries are as a result of winning major international competitions so it is mainly serious wine people who want to taste the winners. This is normally combined with places that like English things – Japan, Singapore,” he says.

“At the moment we are exporting to easy places where people already want the wine. What is really important is that English wine continues to be compared with Champagne in terms of quality and price. The perception in England is they are a similar price and just as good as Champagne. I believe that we can make not only unique but better sparkling wine than other regions we might compete with, such as Australia, Spain and Italy. This is important as our yields are too low to compete on price,” says Lindo.

Ridgeview in Sussex exports about 20% of its production. The family-run company has won 200 medals and 29 trophies in international competitions. The most important in terms of its export profile was the Decanter World Wine Awards in 2010 when Ridgeview was the first non-Champagne in the history of the awards to win the Best Sparkling Wine Trophy.

Mardi Roberts says: “At Ridgeview we made a positive decision three years ago to develop an export market for our wines which was in part due to the high number of enquiries we were receiving from abroad, but also due to the increasing production of sparkling wines in England, which would begin to hit the domestic market from 2013 onwards. 

“This was despite continuing to receive extremely high demand for our wines domestically. We feel there is a huge marketing benefit to be able to show a healthy export demand for our product.

“We have representation in Australia, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the US (New York),” she says.

“It has been relatively straightforward for us as, in most cases, we have been actively sought out by more than one importer/distributer from each of the above countries and therefore it has just been a case of choosing the partner we felt was right for us, which is extremely important. Some are large players in their market, others more niche. 

“Since we have embarked upon our export sales our wines are now listed in three of the world’s top 50 restaurants (2012 listing). The appetite for English sparking wines abroad is very strong and we have to turn down a high number of enquiries due to limited stocks,” says Roberts.

Nyetimber caused a stir last year when it announced there would be no wine from the 2012 vintage due to the poor harvest.

A hasty announcement from the EWP stated that other producers would be producing wine. Frazer Thompson, chief executive of England’s largest producer, Chapel Down, tells Drinks International it managed to harvest enough good quality fruit to make wine from 2012 grapes.

Chapel Down is probably the most commercially set up of English wine producers and, while its sparklers are vital in providing the necessary halo effect, its still wines – such as Flint Dry, Bacchus, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir – are equally important.

In fact, Thompson, who has a marketing background and was a global brand director at Dutch brewer Heineken is sceptical of what he sees as a “slavish” following of what the Champagnois do. His argument is why try to replicate what the most experienced, most affluent, most branded wine category has been doing for hundreds of years?

He perceives a point of difference, saying that English sparkling wines are “fresher, fruitier and zingier than Champagne”.

The introspection among producers about what he regards as minutiae also frustrates him. “It is all about brands and quality,” he says. To that end all Chapel Down wines have a classy, distinctive black label with an eye-catching red band. The quality is without question.

Thompson quips that beer is a rational, democratic business, whereas wine is irrational and often about a person wanting the romance of growing a vineyard then putting his or her name on the bottle of wine.

Focused on fizz

Ian Kellett is a man who has bought a vineyard, is growing grapes and has built a winery but the wine will not have his name on it. Within minutes of talking to Kellett, who was a senior food and drinks analyst with city investment bank Kleinwort Benson, you realise that Thompson’s epithet does not apply to him. 

Kellett is overseeing a massive investment in Hambledon, which is claimed to be England’s oldest commercial vineyard having been established by Major General Sir Guy-Salisbury-Jones in 1952. In fact, he disagrees with Thompson that English producers are too focused on sparkling wines. Having had 55,000 Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier vines planted in 2011, under the direction of Hervé Jestin, former chef de cave at Champagne house Duval Leroy, he is entirely focused on fizz.

Kellett tells DI: “Two billion bottles of sparkling wine are drunk around the world. The English get their knickers in a twist over to 2-4 million bottles. There is no capacity for export – Nyetimber, one of England’s best known sparkling wines, is only starting to export this year. There is a lot of interest and appetite, but no supply. Companies such as LVMH are planting sparkling wine varieties in India and China.

“At Champagne’s level of quality I think there will be a shortage of good quality sparkling wine. We are talking about decades. The cooler climate in England and a lot of vineyards on chalk give good level of acidity necessary for quality sparkling wine,” he says.

“It takes about 10 years from planting a vineyard, so we are talking about a timescale of 20 to 50 years,” says Kellett.

Hambledon will comprise two brands: Mill Down, a vintage, and Hambledon, which will be a multi-year blend.

The current total area under vine is 60 acres and further expansion is planned. Kellett says the vineyard will produce about 200,000 bottles of wine but the production facilities will gear up to be able to produce approximately 750,000 bottles.

Kellett trained as a chemist and has done an oenology course at the respected Plumpton College in Sussex. He is totally focused on sparkling and export. Asked where he intends to export his wines to, he replies: “China and India but they will not necessarily be the first. But long-term about half the volume. I foresee about 10 markets that are as much cities as nations, such as New York and Paris.”

Kellett has one other string to his bow. Hambledon is known as the cradle of cricket. The Hambledon Cricket club was founded about 1750 and was said to have “raised cricket from a sport to an art”.

The earliest surviving record of cricket at Hambledon dates from 1756, coming from a passage in The Oxford Gazette & Reading Mercury newspaper which advertised the loss of a dog at a cricket match on Broad-Halfpenny Down.

John Nyren, son of legendary Richard, successively landlords of The Bat & Ball and The George Inn, in his ‘The Cricketers of My Time’ (1833) wrote: “No 11 in England could compare with the Hambledon, which met on the first Tuesday in May on Broad-Halfpenny. So renowned a set were the Men of Hambledon, that the whole country round would flock to see on their trial matches.”

Not a bad thing to have when you are selling something to cricket-mad nations such as India, Australia, New Zealand and possibly Pakistan.

“My mission is to make the single best sparkling wine in the UK,” says Kellett. Believe him.

To get another point of view, Drinks International went to Emma Roberts, Laithwaites’ fine wine director. Laithwaites is part of Direct Wines, which has  annual sales in excess of £360 million and has operations in Europe, the US, Hong Kong, Australia, and India, selling wine directly to consumers.

She says: “Sales of English sparkling wine continue to rise in the UK and internationally and Laithwaites wine is going from strength to strength in this category. Laithwaites has seen an uplift of 89% on UK English sparkling wine sales in 2012 from the previous year. The rise is attributed to the excellent quality and growing reputation of English sparkling wine, as well as patriotic events such as the Jubilee and Olympics.

“English sparkling wines are being championed by Laithwaites UK and they represent 3% of the sparkling mix of wines sold at Laithwaites, this up 1% on the previous year, showing steady growth,” says Roberts.

Laithwaites picked up first and second place at a recent blind tasting, amusingly called the Judgement of Parsons Green after the famous Judgement of Paris tasting in 1976 when a Californian wine trounced some of Bordeaux’s finest. 

Wyfold Vineyard Sparkling Wine 2009 was the most highly ranked bottle with Berkshire-grown Laithwaites Theale Vineyard Chardonnay 2007 taking second place. Wyfold happens to be made by Laithwaites co-founder, Barbara Laithwaite. She farms a tiny 1ha in south Oxfordshire with 4,000 vines, along with a friend. It’s a bit like the old days.

So, English wines are no longer a joke. They are serious wines made by serious people who know what they are doing and where they are heading. If you haven’t already, it is time to take stock and try some then list some. 

Seriously.