‘Helping with the Domaine Evremond acquisition in 2015 changed my career. Taittinger’s UK importer referenced our company by name in the press release that went out to wine media, and Pierre-Emanuel Taittinger gave a speech at Westminster Abbey where he thanked people important to the deal, including my firm. It created a wave.
‘At the time English wine was still the underdog of the sparkling wine world. People in the know were aware of the quality of the wines, and of the potential. But for a brand like Champagne Taittinger to buy land in the UK was a mass-market news story, a landmark event that cemented in a public way the fact that English wine was very good.
‘The site in Chilham, Kent suited their needs perfectly. They are evangelical about chalk, and it has the right chalky soils. It has high growing-season temperatures, and low rainfall. And it was a freehold acquisition.
‘Until the late 2010s, your typical buyer of an English vineyard had enjoyed a high-paying City career, and wanted to retire to a vineyard in the country, as a passion project. Then in 2018 I noticed the types of buyers were changing.
‘I was selling a vineyard for an English winery, when I was approached by a fund specialising in luxury assets. I realised there was a massive opportunity in English wine and that I needed to upskill. I took myself off to do an MBA, so that I could advise on M&A-format transactions – and it was the best business decision I ever made. These were an emerging market at the time, but are now more common than land and property transactions, and I’m lucky to be in the middle of it all.
‘Any successful M&A deal needs to be a strategic acquisition. The purchaser needs to have something they can bring to enhance the current status of the business. Take the acquisition of Bolney Estate by Freixenet, and that of Hambledon by Berry Bros & Rudd and Symington. In both cases, the purchasers provided fantastic new routes to market.
‘I never predicted that English wine would take off in the way that it has. I originally moved into land management because we have a family estate in Wales. I planned to get the training as a land agent then go home and run the family estate. But I found a job that I was so excited about. I get to work with some of the brightest minds in the City who have moved into viticulture – Richard Balfour Lynn [of Hush Heath Estate], for instance.
‘We’re the only property firm with a dedicated vineyard team. Our main focus at the moment is trying to find good purchasers, to work out what they are looking for – to get under the bonnet of their search criteria – and then to match them with a business that would suit their needs, do the introductions, due diligence etc.
‘One way in which we find purchasers is to ask agents to forward on the details of unsuccessful bidders when a winery sells. There is a gentleman’s agreement between agents that we look after each other. We also have a mailing list detailing opportunities – it’s free to subscribe, but you have to declare whether you’re a wine producer, an enthusiast or a potential investor. We’re about to start a WhatsApp group for potential investors, too.
‘Location is obviously important to purchasers. Some owners don’t want to travel far from home. Others are keen on certain demographics of an area. Surrey, for instance, is a county with a high average household income – wineries here have a ready-made customer base on their doorstep. Others have romantic geological ideals, and want to focus on Sussex or Kent’s North Downs, perhaps. Sometimes people will compromise on location if they love an existing brand.
‘But there are other factors at play too. Some purchasers want to own a winery but not run it, which means focusing on those with a management team in place. Some purchasers want a cellar-door business, others don’t. It’s worth spending the time and money to get the right vineyard in the first place.
‘The main interest will always be in the southeast, and its fairly county agnostic – Kent, Sussex and Hampshire. Kent probably gives the most flexibility of the three, as it’s the driest of the three counties. There’s also interest in Crouch Valley, Essex, because of the interest around Burgundian-style still wine.
‘We acted for the vendor when California’s Jackson Family Wines bought there in 2023, the first US business to enter the English wine industry.
‘I feel like we have reached a plateau in land prices. Between 2018 and 2022, production increased massively, and land prices jumped from £15,000 to £20-22,000 an acre. Now all that fruit is coming onstream in wine. There was a massive crop in 2023, on top of generous vintages in 2018 and 2019. Many wineries are now looking to sell or rent vineyards, and there are good deals to be done renting vines from wineries looking to reduce their production.
‘There’s a current imbalance between overproduction and low sales, and we are helping wine producers to produce video content and embed e-commerce within that. One of the sales channels that is underutilised is e-commerce, and part of my job is to help businesses grow. Selling by e-commerce gives wineries a higher margin, and it’s one example of how the English wine sector is evolving.’
