English sparkling wine soaring at Waitrose

Sales of English sparkling wine are up by an impressive 188% at Waitrose, with homegrown fizz set to be the celebratory tipple of choice in the UK this Christmas.

Vineyards at the Gusbourne winery

English sparkling wine is due to have it’s biggest year yet at Waitrose, with one in 50 Brits choosing to buy English fizz over Champagne or other sparklers this festive season.

Year on year sales of west Sussex-based sparkler Nyetimber are up by a staggering 393% at Waitrose, which stocks over 100 English and Welsh wines at its stores – the widest range available in the world.

“We know that our customers will enjoy celebrating this Christmas and New Year with a glass of English sparkling wine,” said Pierpaolo Petrassi MW, head of wine buying at Waitrose.

“This year we launched the second vintage of our Leckford Estate Brut, made from grapes grown at our own vineyard in Hampshire, and we have increased the number of bottles made to meet the growing demand,” he added.

The news comes as Champagne Taittinger announced that it was to enter the English sparkling wine arena with a 69-hectare estate near Cantebury in Kent called Domaine Evremond.

Around 40 hectares of the land will be planted on a former apple and plum orchard with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in 2017, with some 25,000 cases expected to be initially produced.

“We have dreamt for a number of years of working with our dear friends in the UK to create a special Franco/British project. We are very excited that this dream is now becoming a reality,” Taittinger president Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger said.

“We’re doing it in a spirit of great friendship and because we believe we can produce a great sparkling wine in your great country,” he added.

Land prices are considerably cheaper in the UK than in Champagne, with an unplanted hectare in Kent costing £10,000 to £15,000 and rising when under vine. A top Champagne vineyard can cost between €1-2 million per hectare.

The rising quality of English wine is being continually praised. A blind tasting in October saw sparklers from Nyetimber and Hambledon coming top in a contest featuring Champagne big guns Veuve Clicquot, Pol Roger and Taittinger.