The UK's booming wine growing industry has been compared to “California in the 1970s”, where annual production more than doubled to 12 million bottles a year, according to a report.
There has been a boom in small growers driven by the city's financial district workers retiring early to try something new, while famous wine houses from elsewhere in Europe have snapped up English vineyards or plots of land to grow vines, in the company, said Will Banham, partner at Knight. Frank Estate, who is responsible for cultivating the vineyards, said this is part of climate risk mitigation.
The area planted to vines in the UK has risen by 75% over the past five years to nearly 4,047 hectares (10,000 acres) and production has risen by 130% to more than 12 million bottles a year, according to Knight Frank's latest countryside report. .
There are now around 950 vineyards in the UK, more than 100 of which are in Wales, across the south from Kent to Cornwall, and extending into Yorkshire and Scotland.
“They look at the English wine sector now in the same way as California did in the 1970s, just before significant amounts of inward investment,” an American investor recently told Banham, who was looking to buy a UK vineyard site. He came.” And in the western US state, home to the Napa Valley wine region, the thriving industry turned into a world leader with vineyard acreage increasing dramatically in the following decades.
Britain's wine industry is still small and concentrated in southern England, but rising temperatures are creating better conditions for grapes to grow. Meanwhile, grape production in traditionally wine-producing countries such as France, Spain and Portugal is being threatened by extreme heat, drought and wildfires amid the climate crisis. “There are some regions, especially in the French wine world, that have had very poor harvests this year,” Banham said.
Symington Family Estates, one of Portugal's largest wine producers, teamed up with Britain's oldest fine wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd last year to buy Hambledon, England's oldest commercial vineyard, which first planted vines in 1952. They described the acquisition as a landmark Valued at £22 million, it is a 'purchase' of important mitigation against climate change risks.
Pommery and Taittinger, two of France's most famous champagne houses, bought land and planted vines in England about a decade ago, while Germany's Henkel Freixent, the world's largest sparkling wine producer, acquired the English wine estate Polny in 2022. Sparkling wines from Domaine Evremond in Taittinger are on sale next spring.
Knight Frank said debt pressure, due to a prolonged period of high interest rates in the UK, meant there were more potential chrome sellers in the market.
Chapel Down, Britain's largest wine producer, said in June it was considering raising funds and even putting itself up for sale to fund more vineyards and build a new winery in a booming industry transformed by rising temperatures and tax breaks.
New winegrowers are often professionals who have left their city jobs, such as hedge fund managers, lawyers and corporate attorneys, and are purchasing land typically owned by existing small vineyard owners or growers looking to sell excess land.
Arable English vineyard land tends to sell for between £16,000 and £25,000 per acre while it costs £14,000 to £15,000 per acre to plant vines, trellises, fencing and under drainage if necessary. The vineyard typically sells for between £35,000 and £40,000 per acre.
Former office workers “all want to find something new to sink their teeth into,” Banham said. “Most of them are looking for plots of land to buy and farm… in the 10 to 30 acre range.”
They include former hedge fund boss Mark Driver, who with his wife Sarah established Rathfinney Vineyard on a former farm in Sussex in 2010 to produce sparkling wine.
Tom and Elisha Cannon, who work in the city, launched the pink brand Folc in 2020, at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, after studying the idea for several years. “I realized that there could be a huge opportunity to produce high-quality English rosé if we could ripen the grapes enough here in the UK. From there we immersed ourselves in the world of English wine and have not looked back.”
For small growers, selling wine wholesale to supermarkets will be difficult, Banham said, and some are looking to open a café or restaurant in the vineyard, giving tours and selling directly to consumers.
