by “We’ve never had a frost here,” says Adrian Pike, poking across rows of vines just beginning to show signs of tiny buds in the faint Kentish spring sunshine.
Westwell Vineyards is on the site of a former monastery and is situated next to the Pilgrim’s Way on the North Downs, the historic route to Canterbury which runs along the hilltop behind the vineyard.
Pike believes he was “extremely lucky” with the terroir: even after heavy winter rains and “mud everywhere” his fields are not “too bad” due to the drainage of the chalky soil and its protection from severe spring frosts that can freeze grape buds to death.
“It’s about the height, it’s about the trees behind … the Pilgrim’s Way,” he says. “Frost flows a bit like water – it doesn’t hit the ground until it’s gone past us. The soil here is light and fluffy, full of flint and a sun trap.”
Pike, 52, is among a new breed of entrepreneurs who have invested in English vineyards as the climate and vineyards improve as far north as Yorkshire and Scotland.
The climate crisis led to the UK’s second hottest year on record last year, with rising temperatures creating increasingly ideal conditions for growing grapes in Britain. But extreme heat also threatens to wipe out typical wine regions, such as areas in Spain, Italy and southern California, where the harvest is predicted to fall.
“I don’t want to put a positive spin on climate change, because it’s not a positive thing,” says Pike. “For every degree it goes up here the temperature and weather changes elsewhere. People growing in Burgundy are facing things they have never faced before because of the unpredictable weather.”
Pike turned to viticulture after a career in the music industry. In the mid-1990s he was living in Primrose Hill in London and was running between seven gigs a night on a Vespa scooter. He co-founded the record label Moshi Moshi, which released music including Hot Chip and Florence + the Machine, as well as heading music distributor State51 Conspiracy.
“There were a lot of bands and an explosive scene at the time,” he says. “We had Creation [records] just down the road from us and Primal Scream in the pub every weekend. It was a fun time.”
After leaving the music industry, Pike took an interest in English wine, re-elected, and became managing director of Westwell in 2017, which now produces more than 50,000 bottles a year from four different grape varieties : pinot meunier, pinot noir, chardonnay and ortega. “I didn’t think wine would be a career and then it could be,” he says.
It is part of an industry that is booming as the climate crisis and the lure of tax breaks and a new asset class are changing viticulture. Knight Frank, the property agents, call Britain the fastest growing wine region in the world. Vineyards produce England’s fastest growing edible agricultural crop, according to data recently released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, with grapes accounting for 36% of England’s soft fruit production.
There are now 943 vineyards in the UK, almost triple the number 20 years ago, according to a report published in June 2023 by WineGB, the body promoting the growth of the British wine sector.
WineGB reported a 74% increase in vine plantings to 4,000 hectares (9,884 acres) in the previous five years, with plantings expected to reach 7,600 hectares by 2032 leading to a potential 24.7m bottles. Between 2017 and 2022, England and Wales more than doubled wine production from 5.3m to 12.2m bottles, according to WineGB.
England has had vineyards since Roman times and wine has been produced commercially since the 1960s, but it had a dubious reputation because it came mostly from German grape varieties that thrive in cooler climates.
English wine began to shed its bad name in the 1980s when wine producers such as Nyetimber switched from German grapes to plantation varieties such as pinot noir and chardonnay, and English sparkling wine began to win awards.
Ian Sargent, who founded Laurel Vines, a vineyard near Driffield, in East Yorkshire, says that when he started planting in 2011 it was his sixth or seventh vineyard in Yorkshire. God’s own county now has 24. He chairs the Midlands and north region of WineGB, which had 28 members when he took over in 2015 and now has 72 including two in Scotland. He knows one entrepreneur who is planning to plant a vineyard near Inverness this year.
Sargent started with 2,000 vines in 2011 and now has four hectares, with 15,000 vines.
“Climate change is very significant,” he says. “We had German vines in our first planting, but five years ago we could see the temperature changes and we started planting pinot noir and chardonnay. I have set up a wine trail with five other vineyards in Yorkshire. If you had said 10 years ago that we would have a wine trail in Yorkshire, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
The climate is predicted to warm more. A December 2022 University of Reading report found that the impact of climate change means a fifth of the UK could have suitable weather conditions for growing chardonnay grapes for still wines by 2050.
Alex Biss, PhD student who led the project, says good vintage Chardonnay is not reliably available in the UK at the moment “but climate change looks set to change that in the not too distant future in the distance”. He says: “The reality remains that climate change is unlikely to further increase UK viticulture.” The areas most likely to have the best conditions to reliably produce quality Chardonnay wine by 2050 include south-east England, east England and central England.
The research model developed by Biss and Richard Ellis, professor of crop science, identified that 20-25% of UK land could be suitable for chardonnay grapes by 2050. This compares with the current figure of 2% in the model covering the year 2010-2010. 2019 period.
WineGB chief executive Nicola Bates says two-thirds of its membership are smaller producers with fewer than 12,000 bottles. It is estimated that the industry will employ 30,000 people (full time equivalent) by 2040 from around 2,500 now, including from tourism and hospitality.
The demand has led to the appeal of vineyards as a new asset class, aided by tax breaks. In a report last year, property agent Strutt & Parker said inquiries to buy vineyards had tripled in the past year and an estimated £480m had been invested in vineyards and wineries in the past five years.
Nick Watson, head of viticulture at Strutt & Parker, says: “The pace of planting has been dramatic over the last five years and that investment has come in part from people wanting to set up a small vineyard as a hobby or as a small business. for those that you had a successful career elsewhere.”
The value of farmland in the south east of England has increased to around £10,000-£12,000 per acre (0.4 hectare) so land suitable for vines has increased in value and now sells for £16,000 to £20,000 per acre. acres, according to the report. The best vineyards can sell for £35,000 per planted acre, he says.
Peter Harker, partner at consultancy Saffery, says the increase in vineyard investment was coming from two areas: individuals and larger producers.
“We are seeing wealthy private investors from a rural background or those who want to do something different and are attracted to the love of running a vineyard,” he says. “Their main driver is to do something interesting and fun with their money and they’re willing to wait, because returns can be quite slow.”
The financiers of the city were among those who invested. Michael Spencer, the former Conservative party treasurer and founder of financial group Nex, formerly known as Icap, owns almost 30% of Chapel Down, which floated on the Aim stock market last year. Chapel Down owns, leases and sources 414 hectares of vineyards in south-east England. Its biggest competitor, Nyetimber, is owned by Eric Heerema, a former lawyer and asset manager, and sparkling wine maker Coates & Seely was co-founded by ex-banker Nicholas Coates.
US and French producers are also buying land in the southeast. Last year, the California wine company Jackson Family Wines, which owns the Kendall-Jackson brand and has wineries in the United States, Australia and South Africa, acquired 26 hectares of land in Essex, where it plans to plant chardonnay and pinot noir vines to plant.
In 2015, Taittinger Champagne bought land in Kent from which to launch its English sparkling wine Domaine Evremond and is expected to produce its first English-made sparkling wine brand this year. Louis Pommery had already bought land in Alresford, Hampshire, in 2010.
Another factor encouraging the wealthy to invest in vineyards is agricultural property relief (AIB) rules, which allow UK residents to pass on agricultural property, including vineyards and woodland, without paying inheritance tax . The tax laws were designed to ensure families could continue to farm without death duties but were attractive to wealthy investors wanting to pass on their assets.
However, says Peter Harker, partner at Saffery consultants, this is often just one reason for private investors to buy a vineyard. “I would say it’s one factor. It’s a bonus, although that’s not why people do it,” he says.
