Hambledon’s wines now available through Mentzendorff

Hampshire-based wine producer Hambledon has become the first English sparkling wine in Mentzendorff’s portfolio, and is now available for the trade to purchase.

Hambledon was previously working with Fields, Morris & Verdin in the UK. The move to Mentzendorff was announced earlier this year. 

The English wine estate, the UK’s oldest commercial vineyard, is now fully part of the Mentzendorff portfolio, meaning that that the trade can now place orders.

Founded in 1952, Hambledon has recently increased its plantings and now has around 80 hectares under vine.

Ian Kellett and Andrew Hawes

It is also in the middle of building a 1.8 million bottle state-of-the-art underground storage facility. The producer has previously stated that it is aiming to increase production capacity to over 500,000 bottles per year by 2021. This figure will eventually double to one million.

As part of the building project, Hambledon also built a new winery and installed a new disgorgement line. It is now beginning work on a visitor centre and tasting room, capable of welcoming 50,000 visitors per year.

Ian Kellett, managing director of Hambledon Vineyard, commented: “Hambledon has already come a long way, but there remain many opportunities for us ahead and we have a number of new projects in the pipeline.

“We are delighted to be partnering with Mentzendorff, and are looking forward to benefitting from their distribution and in-depth knowledge of the premium sparkling category to continue to develop the presence of our current range and future releases.”

Andrew Hawes, managing director of Mentzendorff, added: “Hambledon Vineyard is a natural addition to our portfolio of family-owned wine companies all of whom represent the very highest quality from their respective regions. We have followed the development of English sparkling wine with great interest and are very excited to be, for the first time, offering our customers a unique complementary portfolio of the highest quality Champagne and sparkling wines – placing Hambledon (where it justifiably belongs within English sparking wine) alongside Champagne Bollinger, Champagne Ayala & Langlois-Chateau Crémant de Loire, in a market for quality sparkling wine that continues to grow and excite huge interest from the trade and consumers.”