It’s time for English Sparkling Wine to channel its Agincourt spirit and step out of Champagne’s shadow declares Richard Alleyne, journalist and communications consultant.
Last summer, I attended a 50th wedding anniversary in a Kent country garden – a successful East End entrepreneur and a stylish barrister celebrating half a century together.
The guests were warm, sophisticated and joyfully unbothered by conventions or formality.
Yet, amid this free-thinking revelry, one tradition held firm. The ice-filled wheelbarrow loaded with bottles from guests brimmed exclusively with Grand Marque Champagne.
And that to me sums up the problem for English Sparkling Wine (ESW). We know it is a world class product, but even in its heartland, it was shunned in favour of what Cherie Spriggs at Nyetimber describes as the ‘safer’ option: Champagne.
Champagne knows we are its biggest competition
My first brush with ESW came in 2006 when, as a journalist at
The Daily Telegraph, I interviewed Eric Heerema just after he acquired Nyetimber. The paper headlined my article: Bollinger beware: here comes a Sussex sparkler. Bold claim? Maybe. But years later, while I was involved in the media training of a luxury goods conglomerate’s Champagne Ambassadors, it was asked what they saw as the greatest threat to their dominance. Without hesitation they replied: “English Sparkling Wine.”
Needless to say, this was something they never mentioned in public.
If Big Brand Champagne is scared, ESW must be doing something right. A decade on, having worked with English winemakers, I know for certain: through sheer grit, skill, imitation, climate change, and luck, ESW has climbed to Champagne’s level. And as the wine critic Matthew Jukes puts it: “”The only way is up, they’re just getting better and better.”
ESW isn’t a young pretender to Champagne – it’s the rightful heir
“No wine is promoted more pretentiously or mythologically than Champagne,” wrote Andrew Jefford, in the foreword to the excellent book by Robert Walters entitled Bursting Bubbles.
Big Brand Champagne pulled off one of history’s greatest marketing coups: persuading the world that a mass-produced, highly processed product is still a handcrafted luxury.
The reality? Their narrative is as outdated as Dom Pérignon’s supposed invention of bubbles. Meanwhile, ESW is far closer to what Champagne used to be and still pretends to be. The vast majority of our wines are still made by grower-producers. Our smaller producers literally make their wines by hand. And to me, this loving attention comes across in the taste.
We’ve got the climate, the soil, and the expertise. It’s time to stop doffing our caps to our continental cousins, instil some Agincourt spirit, and start rewriting the script.
A website to hammer home the message: cooler climes make finer wines
Type “Champagne” into Google, and you’ll quickly come across Comité Champagne’s beautifully curated website, dripping with romanticism about terroir and tradition. They claim their 34,000 hectares sit in a goldilocks zone – on the margins, uniquely suited for sparkling wine.
Except… that’s no longer true. Climate change has lobbed a spanner into their carefully crafted myth. Long, gentle, ripening days? That’s now ESW’s advantage. Late harvesting? That’s ESW. A climate ‘on the edge of viability’? You guessed it… ESW.
ESW needs its own website – a hub showcasing our rural revolution. A place that tells the world why our winemakers and our land now hold the magic. How sustainability and localism is built into the DNA of our industry – and not retrofitted like our continental cousins.
And while we’re at it, surely it’s time to rethink our name. The term “English Sparkling Wine” has been described as functional and dull. It also automatically relegates our wine to second fiddle on most wine lists.
“English Fizz” is catching on with the public. It’s not perfect but it’s pithy, distinct, and unmistakably ours. Why not go with the flow? One upmarket pub chain in Kent is doing just that – English Fizz sits in prime position on their menu, with Champagne relegated to the sparkling wine section.
Ditch the fancy French words?
My friends are annoyingly more successful than me. One is a lead writer at the UK’s best-selling quality national newspaper, another is a senior partner at a big City law firm and yet another advises the CEO of a very big oil firm.
They drink a lot of wine, but ask them what Blanc de Noirs, Cuvée, or Brut means, and you’ll get blank stares. So why cling to these terms? In the land of Shakespeare, the King James Bible, and Churchill, we can do better.
The Grange is onto something with “White From Black” and “Rethinking Pink.” Let’s take it further: Single Harvest instead of Vintage. Dry or Super Dry instead of Brut. Clarity shows confidence, let’s strip away the complexity and speak plainly.
Would Rolls-Royce’s Black Badge series be as successful if it was called Insigne Noir?
Shout it from the rooftops
English wine might have a short history, but we have a long tradition of world-class wine writers and tastemakers. The likes of Jancis Robinson, Hugh Johnson, Noble Rot’s Dan Keeling, Jamie Goode and Matthew Jukes are celebrities in the wine world. If they say your wine is great, shout it from the rooftops.
Put glowing reviews front and centre on your website like a blockbuster film poster. National newspaper reviews? They still hold weight. People might not read papers like they used to, but they still trust them. Make them impossible to miss.
And don’t stop at wine influencers. Think about our world beating creative industries too – beauty, fashion, art, music and theatre – they love a little luxury. Send them a bottle, and they might give you a ‘big up’ on their social channels. One of my former clients once gifted a dressing gown to Prince George, and he ended up wearing it to meet Obama. The world’s press took care of the rest.
Put some English personality into your packaging
The French, bless them, are a conservative bunch. And Champagne is very French. It’s no surprise its branding has remained unchanged for over a century.
England? We’re many things, but boring isn’t one of them. So why do so many ESW makers mimic Champagne’s staid labels? Why are they as Henry Jeffreys said, in his book Vines In A Cold Climate, all a bit “branded gilet”. So put some terroir in your trademarks – pop culture into your packaging.
Some of you are already doing it. Hattingley Valley’s The English Gent has the charm of Orin Swift’s cult wines in California. Dermot Sugrue’s witty wine names reflect his Irish literary roots. Chris Wilson, a former music journalist, names his Gutter & Stars wines after pop songs and book titles.
Rathfinny named their 50cl “pint” bottle The Mini – a nod to the iconic British car and the skirts made famous by the Swinging Sixties.
This is the kind of personality ESW needs – branding that’s as fun, vibrant, and fresh as the wine inside the bottle.
Oh, and let’s ditch the foils. Unless you have a genuine vermin problem in your cellars, they look old fashioned, are an unnecessary cost and are terrible for the environment.
Time to lead, not follow
Never forget – it was the British who turned Bordeaux into a global powerhouse. It was the British who first embraced sparkling wine and transformed it into the luxury product it is today. And it was the Brut-ish British who made it dry, when everyone else wanted it to be a dessert wine.
History is on our side. Now it’s time to make the future our own.
As Stephen Skelton recently pointed out, we’ve taken eight million bottles out of Champagne’s sales already. There’s no reason we can’t take another 10 million in the next decade.
And if we do, at my friends’ 60th wedding anniversary, it won’t be Champagne in that wheelbarrow, it’ll be ESW in its rightful place adding fizz to the celebrations.
Richard Alleyne
Richard is a former journalist at The Daily Telegraph, who has worked as a communications consultant for a broad range of clients from Amazon to Royal Artists. He currently works with entrepreneurs in the beauty, television, AI and English wine industries.
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