Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine

Britain's Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh (R) and co-founder of Domaine Evremond, Patrick McGrath (L) tour the vineyards of Domaine Evremond in Chilham, in south east England. Photography Ben STANSALL / AFP©

Far from its native Champagne, prestigious French wine house Taittinger on Thursday inaugurated its new vineyard in south-east England, where climate change is making it increasingly easy to grow grapes.

The grand opening of the 60-hectare Domaine Evremond vineyard, situated on a quiet hillside in Kent, received the royal seal of approval, with the Duchess of Edinburgh Sophie in attendance. 

"It's a story of ten years of friendship between two families and two companies," explained Vitalie Taittinger, president of the wine house, whose father co-founded the estate with Patrick McGrath, the boss of its importer in the United Kingdom, Hatch Mansfield. 

McGrath recalled how "10 years ago, we were talking about the rise of English sparkling wine... and Pierre-Emmanuel (Taittinger) said: 'You know, why don't we do a project together?'"

They chose this green and pleasant region often nicknamed the "Garden of England", near the charming village of Chilham. 

The land was purchased in 2015, and the apple trees that grew on these hillsides gave way to vines. 

The first 100,000 bottles of "Domaine Evremond", English sparkling wine, will be sold in the UK in March 2025 for around £50 ($67). 

It will be "very elegant, but with no comparison with champagne", said Vitalie Taittinger. 

It cannot be called a champagne due to strict European Union rules, which limits the name to sparkling wines produced within the Champagne appellation, east of Paris.

Taittinger says it is "the first champagne brand" to take on such a project "from scratch" in the UK, even if the wine house is not the only one to have made moves into the British terroir. 

The Pinglestone estate, which extends over 40 hectares to the north-east of Winchester in Hampshire (southern England), belongs to the champagne house Vranken-Pommery. 

This is where the company produces its "Louis Pommery England", a sparkling white wine that is only available in the United Kingdom, and whose sales increased by 9 percent in 2023. 

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On trend

The soil in Kent is chalky, which promotes water drainage and prevents excessive humidity, making it ideal for growing Pinot Noir, Meunier and Chardonnay grapes. 

It is similar soil to that in Champagne, which makes it easier for French houses to adapt, even if Kent's maritime and windy climate bring more acidity to the wine. 

With the rise in temperatures, vines have been able to flourish in the region, the sunniest in England.

"There is no right side of climate change but you could argue that here we are on the sort of more positive side," said McGrath. 

The harvest should begin in two weeks, with the grape juice then set to ferment in a dozen gleaming stainless steel vats in the basement of the vineyard's modern building. 

On the other side of the Channel, where the harvest is almost complete, French wine production is expected to be down by 18 percent in 2024 due to unfavourable climatic conditions, the Ministry of Agriculture recently said. 

Production at Champagne vineyards is expected to fall by 16 percent. 

"Increasingly intense extreme weather events, such as heat waves or torrential rains, are causing significant damage" and are sparing no French region, the Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) said in a work published in March 2024. 

The popularity of these sparkling wines among the British and also  Scandinavians is whetting appetites of budding vintners. 

Thanks to the work of pioneers thirty years ago, viticulture has taken root in southern England and Wales, which are now home to more than 1,000 vineyards and a wine-growing area that has more than doubled in ten years, now standing at 4,200 hectares. 

Sales of English sparkling wines have jumped 187 percent since 2018, the industry organisation WineGB reported in July. 

"We're feeling very on trend, and it's fantastic to mix the older tradition of champagne with the newer, which is English sparkling," its president, Nicola Bates, told AFP.