In June 2023, California wine giant Jackson Family Wines announced a major investment in English wine. The company, which owns over 40 wineries across California, Oregon, Australia, and elsewhere, had poached one of England’s highest-profile winemakers, Charlie Holland, from the acclaimed Gusbourne Estate, and was planting approximately 210 acres of vines around southeast England for two new yet-to-be-named labels, one for traditional-method sparkling wines—and one for still wines.
For those keeping tabs on the explosive growth of U.K. traditional-method sparkling wine over the past decade, it was hardly surprising to learn that yet another global wine company was dipping its feet into English waters. After all, Champagne houses Taittinger and Pommery, as well as Cava behemoth Freixenet, were already there. The unexpected part was that the investment was coming, for the first time, from a company known not for fizz, but for still wines. Its first order of business? To plant 70 acres of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in the Crouch Valley in Essex, all intended for non-sparkling wines, which will comprise between one-third to half of all the wines the company plans to produce.
Jackson Family’s commitment to still wines in England sends an international signal. It’s one that many British wine professionals are only just waking up to themselves: the era of English still wines has arrived.
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A Brief History of English Wine
Until recently, it wasn’t thought possible to make world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in England. But the lack of sunshine and frequent drizzle suited the early-ripening Champagne clones of these varieties, hence England’s now stellar reputation for traditional-method sparklers.
Still wines, however, have always been more difficult for England to produce. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Old Blighty primarily made semi-sweet wines from German crosses that could withstand the cold, overcast British weather but that struggled to ripen and therefore to have much flavor. Ever since American expats Stuart and Sandy Moss stole hearts with their 1992 Nyetimber Blanc de Blancs, England has been on an uphill journey of bubbly success, helped by favorable sites, warming weather, wealth, and talent.
As sparkling’s star rose, still wines’ diminished. The German crosses have largely been ripped out, and many producers turned their backs entirely on still wines. That is, until recently.
A Changing Landscape for Wine
What’s changed? The weather, for one.
“The 10 warmest years in the U.K. have occurred since 2002, which have fundamentally changed the suitability of British land for wine grape growing,” says viticulture climatologist Alistair Nesbitt, Ph.D., the founder of the consultancy firm Vinescapes, and one of the U.K.’s leading experts on the subject. “With the change in climate, we have seen viticulture in the U.K. expand by nearly 400 percent, from 761 to 3,800 hectares between 2004 and 2021.” It’s also getting drier. Less rain means better flowering, fruit set, ripening, and flavor concentration.
Holland has seen the change firsthand. During his decade at Gusbourne, he made some of the U.K.’s most-awarded still Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. Holland notes that Britain went from enjoying just two warm, dry vintages in the first decade of the 20th century to six in the second. “It’s moved so quickly,” he says, noting a Pinot Noir he made from the particularly warm 2022 vintage came in at 14.5% ABV, a figure that would have seemed unimaginable a decade ago.
But climate change isn’t the only factor. English (and, to a much lesser degree, Welsh) winemakers and viticulturists are getting savvier and more experienced, particularly when it comes to understanding how to grow and make still vinifera wines; it’s fueled more creativity, risk-taking, and, ultimately, better wines, which is changing British drinkers’ perceptions.
Wines like Gusbourne’s 2011 Guinevere Chardonnay and Chapel Down’s 2013 Kit’s Coty Chardonnay are now considered game-changers for premium still white wines, drawing ample comparisons to Chablis.
Urban Interest in Still English Wine
There’s another segment of the industry that’s had an outsized impact, particularly on young, city drinkers: Urban wineries have cropped up around Britain, especially in London, in recent years. These wineries not only do robust direct-to-consumer sales, but they also sell to some of the city’s trendiest wine bars and restaurants, and therefore enjoy plenty of buzz on social media channels.
“The cohort of London urban wineries has really helped lead the charge for English still wine,” says Ben Walgate, the founder and winemaker of Walgate Wines, who’s beautifully made, lo-fi still wines enjoy a similar buzz.
One urban winery spearheading the still wine revolution is Blackbook, founded by another American expat, Sergio Verrillo, with his wife Lynsey. Beneath a railway arch in South London’s Battersea, Verrillo makes a range of colorfully labeled, yet serious, single-vineyard Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. Like Walgate, Verrillo takes a lo-fi approach, focusing on quality fruit that he purchases from small growers in the Southeast. The juice is spontaneously fermented with low to no sulfur additions.
The Chardonnays—even from cool, wet vintages like 2021—are complex and concentrated, while the Pinot Noirs show none of the underripe astringency or watered-down fruit characters that plagued English Pinots of the past.
Verrillo’s success with still wine is now helping to shift perceptions, but when he founded Blackbook in 2017, it was a risky endeavor. “The running joke was that the acid was so vicious it would rip the enamel off your teeth,” he says. “In the past five years, I’ve seen an incredible turnaround in both trade and consumer confidence. I believe this is testament to the raised quality of English stills through innovation and better viticultural and winemaking techniques.”
“We’ve seen more producers, including formerly exclusively sparkling wine producers, start to pivot or talk more about their still wines,” Walgate adds.
Still Wine’s Secret Weapon
Blackbook, along with many other wineries, source fruit for still wine primarily from one region: the Crouch Valley in Essex, located east of London. In fact, although few outside the English wine industry have heard of it, Crouch Valley is the most densely planted wine region in all of Britain.
“When you go to parts of it, it’s vineyard, vineyard, vineyard everywhere,” says Holland.
Crouch’s obscurity is likely due to the fact that, despite the presence of a few quality-led wineries (namely New Hall and Danbury Ridge), the region is almost exclusively vineyards, planted in tough, sticky London clay soils that tell a less romantic story than that of the South Downs’ chalky seam, which runs through England’s southern counties to Champagne.
But what it lacks in romance it makes up for in sunshine. Crouch is the driest, sunniest place in Britain thanks to its far eastern location, which protects it from the harsh Atlantic weather that batters the west coast. It has minimal frost threat, and that stick-to-your-boots smectite-based clay (similar to the kind in Pomerol) shrinks and swells. Water is retained in the soils in dry periods but runs off in the wet season, which, unlike other parts of Britain, doesn’t usually happen until after harvest is finished.
“It basically gives you an extra week at the end of the season where you can ripen the grapes,” says Holland. “So it has the same effect as chalk in a very different mechanism.” In wet, cool vintages like 2021, where other parts of the country struggled to ripen even sparkling grapes, Pinot Noir from the Crouch achieved alcohol levels around 13% ABV.
The American Outlook on English Wine
It’s easy, therefore, to understand why the Crouch Valley has become a hot spot for England’s still wines. And even easier to see why Jackson Family Wines snapped up 70 acres of prime vineyard land there, which they began planting in May 2024.
“We plan to be in the wine business for the next 100, 200 years, so we’re always looking at areas which it may seem today are pushing the limits of viticulture, but down the road they may be ideal,” says Barbara Banke, the chairman and cofounder of Jackson Family Wines. “Investing in the English wine industry is an example of that. We’re particularly excited about the potential for still wine.”
It will be awhile, however, before Americans get to taste Jackson Family’s English wines.
“We’ll establish and grow this project in the U.K. market,” says Banke. “I believe that wineries should be successful in their home countries first and we apply that philosophy across all our wineries.” The company plans to eventually “allocate small quantities to other markets like the U.S., Canada, or Japan,” but Banke emphasizes that it will be “just a few pallets going to special places.”
“Our project and English still wines in general will probably take many years to establish a foothold in the U.S., but there’s strong interest and there’s quality so I am very optimistic,” she adds.
Other English still wines, however, are bound to make it to U.S. shores soon as quantities increase. “I’m very interested in finding an importer in the U.S.,” says Walgate.
The same goes for Verrillo. “The States are definitely on my radar and something I’ve been actively pursuing,” he says. “I believe that English still wines will sit nicely amongst the Finger Lakes and Oregon wines both in price point and quality, offering the American consumer first insights into one of the most exciting wine regions in the world.”
Dispatch
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