By Christine Bertoli

What a Day in Essex and Suffolk Taught Us About English Wine

When the BBC weather app threatened rain after a torrid summer, I was disappointed. I had been invited to join a group of colleagues on a visit to two Corney & Barrow producers in East Anglia, and I was having none of it. Rain, after all, was hardly part of the plan. A few drops did eventually arrive in the middle of the afternoon. The vineyards barely noticed; nor, as it turned out, did the grapes. But more of that below.

Organised by Rebecca Palmer, Head of Merchant Buying, the trip brought together ten of us from C&B’s buying, sales and marketing teams. We met at Manningtree station, an hour’s train ride from London, where Rebecca and Rob, our chauffeurs for the day, were waiting. Manningtree straddles the Essex-Suffolk border, in the heart of East Anglia, where the two counties feel closely connected yet subtly different.

From there we travelled only a short distance between two estates, Thorrington Mill in north-east Essex and Higham Vineyard across the border in south Suffolk, before ending at Defined Wine’s new contract winery in Suffolk.

I learnt a great deal along the way. Most notably that this corner of East Anglia is emerging as one of the most promising wine regions in Britain. And that Rebecca drives rather fast.

The Outsiders: Essex and Suffolk

While much of the industry’s attention remains concentrated on Sussex and Kent, Essex, and increasingly Suffolk, has become central to the conversation around English still wine. Essex is now the UK’s third-largest grape-growing region, with vineyard hectarage up 60% from 2020. Much of that interest has been concentrated on the Crouch Valley, where estates such as Danbury Ridge have helped put the county firmly on the English wine map.

Yet Essex’s relationship with wine is not as new as it might appear. The county remained largely under the radar for years, discreetly supplying prized grapes to wineries elsewhere in southern England. Long before Essex wine became fashionable in its own right, its vineyards were already helping to establish England’s sparkling wine reputation.

Our trip took us beyond the Crouch Valley into a broader East Anglian landscape where river valleys, estuaries, gravel soils and maritime influence combine with local weather patterns to create a patchwork of distinct terroirs rather than a single regional character. Even over relatively short distances, one site can behave quite differently from the next, as our two vineyard visits would demonstrate.

What these sites share is East Anglia’s magical combination of generous sunshine and relatively low rainfall. But vineyards are shaped by far more than averages. Aspect matters, as do elevation, soil drainage, exposure to spring frost, and crucially, the timing of rainfall. That became clear at our first two stops.

Thorrington Mill

First Stop: Thorrington Mill and the pull of the sea

As we drove to our first rendezvous, the effects of the summer drought were impossible to miss. Dotted between quaint villages, the countryside was looking scorched. Grass verges had faded to straw. Playing fields were tawny and brittle. The ground was so dry that you half expected a giraffe to appear over the next rise.

We turned down a winding lane, one of those typically British roads along which only one car can squeeze through at a time and descended towards Thorrington Mill. The route led us past the original 19^th-century mill at the head of Alresford Creek. Built in 1831 on the site of much earlier mills, it had harnessed the ebb and flow of the tide to grind grain, serving the local community and coastal trade for nearly a century. It ceased operating in 1926 and is now the only surviving tide mill in Essex.

Beyond the mill we reached the vineyard where owners Polly and Mark Baines were waiting to greet us, along with a flock of wild geese.

Would we like to have a tour of the vineyard? Absolutely. It is always heartening when a grower is eager to show you around. You learn a great deal about a vineyard simply by walking it with the person who farms it. Of course, there’s the soil, but that only tells part of the story. There’s also the choice of rootstocks and clones, trellising, aspect, pruning technique — all playing their part in determining what ultimately ends up in the bottle.

Water Without (Much) Rain

Thorrington Mill lies near Brightlingsea in north-east Essex, a few miles from the coast. The vineyard is planted on south-facing slopes where a freshwater stream meets the tidal Alresford Creek, close to the Colne Estuary. Around 22,000 vines of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Bacchus are planted across 4.9 hectares.

Mark and Polly planted the vineyard in 2018 on land belonging to Polly’s family strawberry farm. Their background in landscaping may help explain the practical assurance with which they approach the site. Between the rows you could just about make out the remnants of cover crops that had succumbed to the summer heat. The vines themselves were immaculate, carrying generous bunches shaded by verdant, pert leaves; the berries were pristine, without a trace of disease.

Mark takes care of all the viticultural work, which now extends well beyond their own estate. He manages around 35 hectares across Essex and Suffolk with a small permanent team, giving him a broad view of local conditions. That scale also provides him with the agility to carry out vineyard work when it is needed rather than depending upon the availability of an external contractor.

Polly, meanwhile, has developed the wine tourism side of the business, offering tasting tours and alfresco events during the warmer months.

Walking through the rows, the obvious question was how on earth the grapes had remained so abundant and fresh despite the drought. The answer is unlikely to be down to one thing. The vineyard receives an average of just 435 mm of rainfall annually, making it naturally dry by English standards, yet its position in relation to the water table gives the vines an important advantage in dry years. The vigorous SO4 rootstock may also play its part. The soils combine clay with sand and free-draining gravel: the clay helps retain moisture, while the sand and gravel reduce the risk of waterlogging. Streams, salt marsh, Alresford Creek and the wider Colne Estuary create a landscape shaped by water. Its low-lying position lends the vineyard a distinctly maritime character. Importantly, proximity to water has a tempering effect. Water warms and cools more slowly than land, taking the edge off high daytime temperatures but also reducing extremes during colder periods. The site can therefore enjoy East Anglia’s generous sunshine without being quite so exposed to its heat.

The site’s maritime position is also significant in spring, helping to buffer the vineyard against some of the temperature extremes that can bring frost damage. Mark shared his relief that Thorrington Mill had escaped the serious frost in May. The spring of 2026 had been a particularly difficult test for vineyards across Essex and Suffolk, coming after an unusually early start to the growing season. Mild conditions had encouraged early budburst, leaving young green shoots exposed when temperatures subsequently fell. Across England, many growers reported repeated frost episodes with some losing much or even all their crop.

We tasted some grapes. They were showing nicely ripening fruit with the bright acidity that is a defining characteristic of UK-grown grapes. Maturity was advancing quickly, and Mark anticipated picking dates to be close to three weeks earlier than in 2025, with the hope of achieving sufficient ripeness to produce a Pinot Noir of around 12% ABV. Not bad for a country classified as having a ‘cool climate’. Contemplating a summer harvest felt slightly surreal. English harvest was once an autumn event.

Under the Marquee

We then headed back to Polly for a tasting. Five wines were lined up beneath the marquee on a dry patch of ground between the old mill and the vineyard.
Bacchus is often called England’s answer to Sauvignon Blanc. That comparison may help consumers understand the style, but it risks placing the variety permanently in somebody else’s shadow. The better examples now deserve to be judged on their own terms, as the first wine showed.

True to the variety, their 2023 Bacchus was expressive, with typical notes of elderflower, pear and citrus. There was ripe exotic fruit too, followed by something closer to lime cordial. A small proportion had been fermented in used oak, lending the wine more breadth than might be expected. It would be delightful paired with local oysters.

The Pinot Noir rosé 2025 was quiet on the nose but much more forthcoming on the palate, with strawberries and cream and an attractive softness. Most of the wine was fermented in stainless steel, with a small portion in used barrels, and malolactic fermentation added to its rounded texture. It was mild in the best sense: balanced and easy to return to. As indeed some of us did over the weekend.

The Pinot Noir from 2022 still showed plenty of youthful energy. The grapes were destemmed, cold-soaked and fermented with gentle punch-downs before spending nine months in used oak. Wild strawberry and cherry came through alongside a woodland character and soft tannins. Only 4,000 bottles were produced, and the wine was named best Pinot Noir in the Eastern Region at the Wines of Great Britain Awards [WineGB].

We finished with the sparkling wines, made using the tank method to preserve their fresh and fruity character. The Sparkling Pinot Noir 2022 had a vivid colour reminiscent of Ribena and tasted of cherry Bakewell tart. The Sparkling Chardonnay 2025 was pale yellow with notes of baked apple crumble and citrus blossom.

Thorrington’s wines are made under contract rather than on the estate. Before exploring that question further, however, we had another vineyard to visit. Crossing the Stour into Suffolk, we headed north towards Higham.

Higham Vineyard

Higham: Stoney Croft and Constable Country

Higham Vineyard sits on the northern side of the Stour Valley in a part of Suffolk that seems almost indecently pretty. I knew this was Constable country, but until this visit I had never appreciated quite how lovely it was. One of John Constable’s works depicts Higham village from close to what is now the vineyard. More than two centuries later, the broad sweep of the view remains recognisable.

The vineyard sits 30 to 40 metres above sea level. Its south-facing slopes were traditionally known as Stoney Croft, a name that refers to the abundance of flint and stone in the soil. About three hectares were initially planted to Pinot Noir, followed by a small plot of Chardonnay. The first harvest was in 2021.

Higham is further inland than Thorrington, but it is not wholly removed from the influence of the coast. The Stour Valley opens towards Harwich and the North Sea, creating a route through which maritime air can move inland. The setting was different, yet water and exposure were once again central to the character of the site.

Néo-Vignerons

Because viticulture is still relatively young in Great Britain, many growers are what we might call néo-vignerons, new-generation winegrowers who came to vines by another route. Polly and Mark Baines brought experience in agriculture and landscaping to Thorrington Mill. At Higham, David and Alison Alston appear to have made one of those life-changing decisions that many of us secretly dream about.

David spent much of his working life in furniture manufacturing. The Alston family had been making and selling furniture in Suffolk since the 19th century, and David eventually became Managing Director and later Chairman of the family business. After it was sold in 2015, David began looking for new opportunities. In 2019, he and his family acquired a piece of arable land in the Stour Valley and planted Pinot Noir. His reference points were Provence and Burgundy, where he had spent time and developed a taste for rosé and red Burgundy.

The original idea was modest — an acre or two on the edge of the land — but the site had plenty going for it: rolling slopes with varied aspects, flinty soils, good sunshine and a beautiful view across Constable Country. Before long, the ‘experiment’ had grown into the 3.6-hectare Higham Vineyard.

When we met David and Alison, it was immediately apparent that their estate was no hobby. They take running it very seriously. Higham has a vineyard manager, but David has a distinctly hands-on approach and is closely involved in the practical, seasonal work of growing and harvesting. He was eager to take us around the vines.

Thorrington Mill and Higham Vineyard are dry farmed. Of course they are. We are in England, after all (although Mark had hinted that irrigation might become necessary in the future). Both vineyards had endured the same growing season, yet their vines were at noticeably different stages of maturity. At Higham, the canopy showed moderate water stress and the berries were smaller. Yet the fruit was further advanced, suggesting that the vines had responded to the lack of water by pushing on with ripening. Differences in soil and clonal material were also part of the picture. It was a striking reminder that two vineyards separated by only a few miles can experience the same summer in different ways.

The vineyard had given us plenty to think about. Now it was time to see how those differences translated into the glass.

The Shed

After our walk around the vineyard, we headed to what David calls ‘the shed’. The building is a two-level wooden structure at the edge of the property and considerably smarter than the name suggests. On the ground floor two vintage cars sat immaculately clean and, I suspect, saw little action in the vineyard. Behind them, though, were half a dozen plastic crates, also spotless, presumably awaiting their much more practical role during the upcoming harvest. The rest of the floor was given over to storage.

Upstairs, on the mezzanine, was the tasting room, centred around a strikingly beautiful wooden-and-resin table made by David’s company, laid out ready for our tasting. On the wall hung an original painting by an artist from Grimaud in the south of France, inspired by the iconic photograph of Audrey Hepburn that hung alongside it. The painting came about when David and Alison were looking for an original graphic identity for their rosé; the resulting image now features on the label of Higham Pink.

So it was fitting that the tasting began with Higham Pink 2025, a Pinot Noir rosé. Strawberries and cream came through clearly, along with a savoury note reminiscent of tomato stalk. Full malolactic fermentation contributed to the wine’s creamy texture without obscuring the freshness of the fruit.

There followed two vintages of Stoney Croft Sparkling Brut Rosé, made using the traditional method and aged for two years on the lees before further bottle ageing. Stoney Croft is a lovely example of why the UK has become such a serious player in sparkling wine. The combination of traditional winemaking and England’s climate delivers both depth and freshness, while producing wines that remain unmistakably English.

The 2022 was a blend of 60% Pinot Noir with equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. There was attractive wild strawberry fruit and some brioche, with a slightly medicinal note on the finish. The newly disgorged 2023 had a higher proportion of Pinot Noir at 85%, with Chardonnay making up the rest. It felt more direct at this early stage, with raspberry fruit and a toasty note.

Then came an unexpected treat: a vertical tasting of four red Pinot Noirs from 2025 to 2022, drawn from selected vines in rows 59 to 90. The temptation with any English Pinot Noir tasting is to reach immediately for comparisons. Burgundy and the Pfalz all entered the conversation, prompted not only by the fruit but by differences in weight and texture.

The 2025, with its violet, clove and smoky herbal notes, brought German Spätburgunder to mind. The 2024 was juicy and peppery, with a subtle meaty note alongside raspberry and cassis fruit, evoking Marsannay. The 2023, served chilled (brilliant idea!), was plummy and effortlessly enjoyable, with Volnay-like elegance, soft red fruit and a hint of violets. The 2022 was the fullest-bodied of the four: dark, herbal, meaty and spicy, with an earthy minerality reminiscent of Pommard.

The comparisons were useful shorthand, but what really stood out was the variation between vintages and the sense of a young vineyard beginning to reveal what it can do.

David seemed a little apprehensive at the tasting. He was clearly proud of his wines and wanted us to feel the same. We did.

Like Thorrington Mill, Higham Vineyard does not make its wines on site. Instead, once harvested, their grapes begin a short journey to a specialist contract winery. After the delightful lunch prepared for us by the Alstons, it was time to explore this stage of the process. Contract winemaking can sound impersonal, conjuring visions of a communal tank churning out interchangeable wines stripped of their identity. Our final visit of the day would show just how misleading that perception can be.

Beyond the Vineyard

Contract winemaking has become an increasingly important part of the UK wine industry. It is hardly a uniquely British arrangement: growers across France, Italy, Australia, California and elsewhere have long shared wineries or used cooperatives to turn their grapes into wine.

The numbers in Britain make the logic particularly clear. In 2025 there were around 1,158 vineyards but only 280 wineries, leaving a substantial gap between growing grapes and having the facilities to make wine. Vineyard size, yields and the volume needed to justify the expense of a winery all matter. In a young wine industry where vineyards have multiplied much faster than wineries, contract winemaking offers a practical arrangement. Vineyards like Thorrington Mill and Higham can concentrate on growing the grapes, while specialist winemakers take care of the technical business of turning them into wine.

Defined Wine’s Suffolk site began operating during the 2025 harvest. The facility still has the raw energy of something new. It is the sister operation to the company’s initial and larger winery in Kent and was established to serve growers in East Anglia. The Suffolk site can process around 250 tonnes of grapes, compared with 2,500 tonnes in Kent.

Monty Irish, Defined Wine’s Head of Sales, joined the company in time for the 2025 harvest. He introduced us to winemaker Nora Leitz, who studied viticulture and oenology in Vienna before completing her degree in New Zealand. She subsequently spent five years at contract winery Indevin before joining Defined in 2023.

Inside, the operation is burgeoning but already well equipped with one four-tonne and another two-tonne press, double and triple-stacked ranks of stainless-steel tanks and around 250 barrels stored nearby. Defined currently works with 32 estates, mainly in Essex and Suffolk, although fruit comes from as far away as Shropshire.

Contract winemaking is sometimes treated as a compromise. For a small estate, it may instead be the most sensible route to quality. Establishing a vineyard can cost about £40,000 per hectare before the price of land, according to agribusiness specialists Saffery. The first crop commonly takes about three years, while vines require maintenance throughout the period in which they generate no income. Building and equipping a winery adds another substantial layer of capital expenditure. Producing sparkling wine extends the financial burden further. Once made, the wine may spend years ageing on its lees before release, tying up money in glass, corks and storage.

Against that background, using a specialist winery like Defined Wine allows a small vineyard to avoid the capital outlay, running costs and staffing burden of facilities that its production volumes could not reasonably absorb. However, economics alone would mean little if individuality were lost in the process.

Crucially, the service is bespoke. Defined works with each grower to develop and refine individual wine styles over successive vintages. Thorrington Mill and Higham both use Defined, and there was no suggestion from the wines that we had tasted that either was being pushed towards a standard formula. With that question answered, the conversation turned from how the wines are made to the market awaiting them.

Searching for an Entry Point

Standing between rows of gleaming tanks while discussing one of the ripest harvests on record, it was tempting to think that English wine had finally arrived. The vineyards are thriving. The wines have never been better. Yet as the day progressed, I found myself returning to an uncomfortable question: so why isn’t everyone drinking it?

That question followed us into a tasting of five still wines produced for brands across Defined Wine’s Kent and East Anglia sites. With recommended retail prices starting at £21 a bottle, they were, for the most part, lovely wines. But the tasting raised a broader question: how does English wine reach consumers who are curious but reluctant to begin at £21 a bottle? The high price of English wine reflects the stark reality of production costs and at this level, some growers are doing little more than covering them. But explaining a price is not the same as persuading a customer to pay it.

Seeking to address this issue, Defined established The Vineyards of England Cellar, or VEC, a project created in 2025 to produce English wine at a more accessible price. The model brings together fruit from four family growers across southern England and East Anglia, providing an outlet to manage surplus fruit without undermining the positioning of their estate wines. In a market carrying excess inventory, that flexibility has obvious appeal.

In 2025, VEC produced around 10,000 bottles each of a Bacchus white and rosé. More wines are planned for 2026, including a Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay blend, plus a varietal Chardonnay modelled broadly on the Mâconnais.

Both the 2025 Bacchus and Rosé were sweeter than I would choose for myself, at around four grams of residual sugar per litre. My colleagues assured me that this profile works well in pubs. Perhaps this is the crux of the project. Quality matters, but so does the price of admission.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

While England and Wales remain tiny producers on the global stage, they now have around 4,800 hectares under vine, broadly comparable to renowned appellations such as Chablis or Saint-Émilion. Few wine-producing areas anywhere in the world have experienced such rapid growth in recent decades or earned recognition so swiftly. Vineyard plantings continue to expand, and significant investment continues to flow into the sector. By almost any agricultural measure, English wine is a success story.

But growth creates its own problems.

A bumper harvest is wonderful news if consumers actually buy the wine. Several people we spoke to during the day referred, directly or indirectly, to the same reality: there is currently more wine available than the market is comfortably absorbing. Producers are carrying larger stocks than they would ideally like. Meanwhile new vineyards planted during the industry’s expansion continue to reach productive age. The supply side of the equation has been growing rapidly. Demand has grown too, but not at the same speed.

The present stock pressure can be traced back in part to the 2023 harvest, when a record crop yielded the equivalent of 21.6 million bottles. The much smaller 2024 harvest offered some respite, but another substantial harvest followed in 2025. Meanwhile, vineyard area continued to grow. Those bottles do not all come to market immediately. Sparkling wine may spend years in the cellar, delaying the visible impact of a bumper harvest without removing the underlying supply.

The real constraint on English wine is therefore no longer simply how much can be grown. It is how much can be sold at a viable price.

That is a difficult question in the UK, one of the world’s most open and sophisticated wine markets. English producers are not only competing with one another, they are also competing with every major wine-producing region. A bottle of English still wine might cost £20, £25 or more. For the same price, the consumer can often buy a village Burgundy or a top Côtes de Provence or spend half that amount on a reliable bottle from many long-established regions. The industry needs to be candid about that.

Provenance matters, but enthusiasm for local products does not always translate into regular purchasing behaviour. For many consumers, trying a glass of English wine is a manageable risk and one they may happily repeat. Committing to a whole bottle is a greater stretch. Price and perceived risk of purchase therefore matter as much as appeals to ‘Buy English’.

Part of the challenge may also be perception. Some consumers still have memories of disappointing bottles from earlier generations of English wine and may have never tasted a modern English Pinot Noir or Chardonnay at all. People like the idea of local produce, but they still expect value, and value only makes sense against a relevant benchmark. Higham Pinot Noir, for example, can represent value when judged against refined, oak-aged Pinot Noir from Burgundy. The rosé faces a harder comparison: at a similar price to Sancerre rosé and the premium end of Provence, it sits alongside categories whose value is already familiar to consumers.

Wine tourism may offer part of the answer because it changes the context in which value is judged. WineGB has repeatedly highlighted the growing importance of wine tourism to producer revenues, while visitor numbers continue to rise. Consumers who visit vineyards to meet growers and see the landscape for themselves may be more willing to pay the premium that English wine currently demands.

Ultimately, though, the bigger question is one of identity. Does English wine really need to present itself as a cheaper version of Burgundy or a British answer to Champagne? A stronger case may be that it can offer something consumers cannot find elsewhere: wines distinctive enough to justify their price, and compelling enough to make people buy another bottle. Judging by the wines we tasted today, there is every reason to believe it can.

We left East Anglia with dust on our shoes, several pages of tasting notes and a more complicated view of English wine than the one with which we had arrived.

That felt like a useful result.

Sources

Wines of Great Britain (WineGB), industry statistics and data, accessed August 2026.

Harker, R. and de Greeff, M. (2025), Starting a Vineyard in the UK: Tax and Accounting Considerations, Saffery.