Is that a statement of fact or a question?
A bit of both. There can be no doubt the increase in the quality of English sparkling wine over the last 20 years has helped transform an industry that had long been making wine, but little of it was renown, or even known, around the world. Now English sparkling wines sit side by side with some of the most famous and glamorous Champagne brands on wine lists in some of the most prestigious restaurants around the globe. Their success has helped not only give the English wine sector a new found confidence it has also brought huge levels of investment with vineyards being planted in every grape growing region of the British Isles. Even famous Champagne houses are buying up chunks of the English countryside to cash in on the English wine revolution.
It all sounds like a much needed good news story?
It does. And is. Particularly when you look at how quickly the English wine industry has grown in recent years and how far it is expected to go in the next 10 years. It is predicted, for example, that the current 4,300 hectares of vines, double the number in 2018, will grow to 7,600 hectares by 2032 and the record 22 million bottles produced in 2023 will be up to at least 29 million bottles by the time 2032 comes along. WineGB claims “wine production is the fastest growing agricultural sector in the UK”.
The challenge, though, is how quickly sales and the market for English wine keeps pace with production and the investment into it. There are real fears that many of those millions of bottles of wine will go unsold unless more is done to widen distribution, soften price points and build more export markets around the world. Despite huge efforts to grow its international sales, WineGB’s 2023 industry report shows only 7% was exported in 2023. It will need to add a fair few percentage points to that figure if it is going to get its way through the near 30 million bottles being produced come 2032.
Why would sales not keep up?
That’s the question everyone wants to answer and only time will tell just how much English wine is bought and drunk in the years ahead. There is also the issue of new competition coming into the “English” market through proposed new rules that will allow producers to import bulk wines from around the world and then blend, carbonate, sweeten or de-alcoholise them in the UK and call them English wine. Billed by the government as a Brexit bonus designed to “put a rocket under our winemakers’ businesses”. Rockets, though, don’t always go in the direction you want and whilst many of the proposals under the new wine reforms have been widely welcomed by UK wine authorities (simplified labelling, introducing more hybrid grape varieties, scrapping use of foil caps in sparkling wine and mushroom-shaped stoppers) we don’t know yet where this rocket is going to have the most impact.
What is it about these still wines that you are so excited about?
You should taste a few and see just how far some producers have gone in producing high quality, gold medal standard still wines. Which should perhaps not come as too much of a surprise considering the level of knowledge there now is in English winemaking about which regions and terroirs are producing the best quality grapes for still wine. Around a third of the total English wine production now goes towards still wine so it can only be good news to see more quality English still wine coming into the market. It opens up the sector to everyday drinking and the mass market. For whilst English sparkling wines do a great job at the top end of the market, they have limited appeal and are not ending up in the average weekly shopping basket, or trolley.
But we don’t want to see mass produced bottles of English still wine fighting it out in the sub £8 price points in the local supermarket?
Calm down chief. No-one is suggesting we are going to see that sort of leap, but getting big quantities of good quality English still wine on sale for somewhere between £12 to £25 can only be good news for a sector that is going to have a whole lot more new wine to sell in the coming years. That’s how you get to be a sustainable industry capable of competing at all the premium and super premium price points. That’s also how you get your wines into the big supermarkets, major pub groups, and casual dining chains that drive so much of off-trade and on-trade sales.
Anything else?
The English wine industry would do well to take lessons from abroad. Look at all the major wine regions and they all have one thing in common. They all have their halo effect at the top with their Grand Cru level wines, but the real hard work goes on below with all the millions of bottles of wine being sold at below £20 that provide the energy, the market, the demand and the cash flow to plough back into making their top wines as good as possible.
Sounds like a topic for a debate.
Funny you should say that. For there is a debate on this very topic on the last day of the London Wine Fair. So if you want to find out if still wines are the future for English wine go to the Centre stage at 11.30am on May 22 to hear from a panel of top English wine folk including: Nicola Bates, chief executive, WineGB; Chris Wilson, owner and winemaker at Gutter & Stars; Fergus Elias, head winemaker, Balfour Winery; Nick Lane, head winemaker, Defined Wine; Simon Huntington, co-founder, Marasby; and Corinne O’Connor, winemaker and owner, Maiden Wine Company.
