As English wine grows in popularity, some farmers are now looking to transform their land into vineyards. Charlie Evans, from Strutt & Parker’s Estates and Farms department takes a closer look.

Bubbles rise to the top

The figures say it all – in the past decade, the space occupied by vineyards in England has more than doubled from 2,000 to 4,500 acres today. In 2014, applications to start vineyards grew by 40% from 46 applications in 2013 to 65 last year. This created 470 commercial vineyards and 135 wine producers in the UK in 2014.

In fact, 2014 was a record year for English wine with around 6.3 million bottles produced. This smashed 2013’s previous record of 4.3 million bottles. Of the 2014 haul, around 4m bottles were sparkling. While these figures are encouraging, when put into context there’s still a distance to go before British fizz over takes Champagne – we imported 32.7 million bottles of it last year.

But the demand is clearly there – Waitrose reported a sales rise of 85% for English wines and this year overall UK sales are predicted to top the £100m mark.

What are we growing and where?

The focus of wine production in the UK has changed dramatically over the last 10 to 20 years, says Andy Brown, CEO of Hampshire-based Hattingley Valley Wines.

There has been a significant shift to plantings of Chardonnay (around 347 hectares), Pinot Noir (323 hectares) and other classic sparkling varieties like Pinot Meunier. This is due to our cool climate - with just enough sunshine hours to ripen the grapes - and the chalky soil at the best sites delivering grapes ideal for sparkling wine.

Other longer established white varieties like Bacchus, Seyval Blanc, Reichensteiner and Muller-Thurgau account for just under a quarter of the total production.

The South East is a popular area with around 908 hectares in Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Surrey, Kent, and Sussex. The South West is also a good region with 221 hectares across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset Wiltshire and Gloucestershire.

How do you go about setting up a vineyard?

Vines are an attractive alternative diversification crop to the more traditional arable farm crops, says Andy Brown. But there is a large initial infrastructure commitment to be made. Using old farm buildings for the vineyard equipment also means investing in them and making them secure.

Vineyards are labour and management intensive, requiring a high degree of expertise to produce a clean crop. Vines are usually planted by specialist contractors and need to be securely fenced and trellised. Their effective management also requires specialised viticulture tractors and equipment.

While most farmers have the practical experience to undertake some of the work required, even the most knowledgeable tend to take on a consultant to oversee the vintage. And depending on the size of the planting, a vineyard worker will be employed to cope with the intensive nature of the work.

Some of this investment in both capital and personnel can be reduced by using a contract winemaking company.

Another challenge in England is that our climate is marginal for grape growing, which can lead to challenging years where yields are significantly down – 2012 being an example of this. That said, the last three harvests have all been of a good to excellent quantity and quality.

When can you expect to see results?

The reason for the increase in vineyard plantings is that expectations are the market is likely to continue to grow as new vines reach maturity. But the vineyards are expensive to operate and many producers are only just now breaking even.

Some vineyard owners estimate it costs at over £100,000 a hectare for the first 3 years before you see a single harvestable grape. And that’s without building your own winery.

The first harvest is generally taken in the third autumn after planting. But unless the site is ideal, the first crop isn’t likely to be useful. The quantity will increase while the vines mature until the yield plateaus when the vines are 7 to 10 years old.

The commercial age of a vine is 25 to 30 years after which the productivity of the vines will drop away. It is generally agreed the quality improves and quantity increases as the vines mature, but there are examples of exceptional wines being made from fairly young vines if the site and vintage conditions are ideal.

For sparkling wine it’s then likely to be a further 3 years at least before a finished bottle of wine is released – so minimum of 6 years between planting and producing a bottle of wine.

And once you’ve sorted the actual planting of the vines and the growing and harvesting of the grapes, you’re then into the making of the wine, which in itself has a further set of costs and decisions to be made, such as whether to use barrels or not.

The use of barrels in the UK wine industry is not that common but at Hattingley Valley, Andy Browns says around 25% to 30% of their wine is fermented and aged in barrel. This does add to the cost but he believes it adds balance and complexity to the finished wines.