What is Lark and Folly?

Lark & Folly is the umbrella brand for an ever changing range of small parcels of English traditional method wines that I’ve been discovering as I travel around the country. The tag line is “lost and found fizz”.

Where did the idea for the business come from?

Back in 2020 I was doing the initial detective work for my English pét-nat brand, Lost in a Field. I was travelling around the country looking for the remaining vineyards of German heritage grape varieties, such as Madeline Angevine and Schönburger. Whilst on my travels I came across these parcels of old, often forgotten English traditional method wines, often still sitting on their less, and it was too good an opportunity to pass up. I wanted to find a way to rescue these old parcels and take them to market, and Lark & Folly was born.

What is the inspiration behind the name?

The name is a pun, we’re having a lark with somebody else’s folly. The label of a skylark flying over a folly tower hopefully distracts people from the hidden meaning. When I first moved to London in the mid 90s I lived in Clapham Junction, just around the corner from Philglas & Swiggot, I must have walked past that shop a hundred times before I saw the joke.

How many forgotten wines have you discovered on your business journey so far?

About half a dozen so far, but cash flow is a killer, so we’re just buying two or three parcels at a time. I found an incredible parcel of a thousand bottles of 1996 Somerset Sparkling Pinot Noir, still on its lees. There was a certain amount of bottle variation, but the best bottles were stunning. Unfortunately the owner, who is in his eighties, is holding onto the stock for sentimental reasons. But I’m sure there’s plenty more out there like that.

As a Master of Wine what makes you excited about these wines?

How many times do you discover a whole new corner of the wine world that nobody knows anything about? The story of English sparkling wine is a pretty new and exciting discovery for many people in the wine world outside of the UK, but the Lark & Folly wines are like peeling back another layer of the onion. So you know about English traditional method, how about aged and mature English traditional method? Made from rare heritage grape varieties? The uniqueness is incredibly exciting.

There is also the thrill of the chase, finding these parcels, negotiating the purchase then the winemaking challenge of dosage trials to polish the wines to match their style and age. 

I love the sense of discovery, and then sharing that excitement with other people.

What can these wines tell us about the journey of the English and Welsh wine industry?

The first release of Lark & Folly wines are made from varieties that people may not be that familiar with, Schönburger from Kent and Reichensteiner and Huxelrebe from East Sussex. They show what can be done with these heritage grape varieties planted before the sector became a monolith of the champagne varieties. Until very recently these varieties had a stigma attached to them due to being associated with the amateur period of English wine. I’d like to think that thanks to a renewed interest in them for making contemporary styles such as pét-nat they are having their reputation reappraised, and the Lark & Folly wines are part of that new story.

How do you find these forgotten wines?

So far I’ve discovered most of them whilst travelling the country looking for heritage grape varieties, and these lost parcels of wine are often associated with lost vineyards. As the wines have got out into the market I’ve had some people start to contact me with leads for other parcels, and I hope that continues. 

How do people respond to the wines and their story?

The reception has been fantastic. People love stories, our 2010 and 2011 Lark & Folly Kent Schönburger was discovered in the cobwebbed ballroom of a country house that was part of a deceased estate. The trade also loves wine that will surprise and delight their customers and our 2006 East Sussex Reichensteiner/Huxelrebe that retails at £36 is the oldest English traditional method on the market, and at a price where people can take a risk and try it.

Will the project expand in the future? How?

When I was travelling around the country playing detective work for Lost in a Field, I became aware of the extent of the recent plantings in the UK, and that a colossal overstock was heading our way. For the last ten years there have been four or five million vines a year being planted, and not all, but many of them by people who haven’t the first idea of who they’ll be selling to. Annual production is set to exceed twenty million bottles a year, with projections estimating forty million in less than a decade. After a Covid-19 peak, annual sales are back to around six million. There’s already probably well over 50 million bottles sitting in sheds and warehouses around the county, and that stock is being increased each year to the tune of ten to fifteen million bottles, and growing. The way I explain this to people is that it’s not even mathematics, it’s basic physics, you can’t fit a gallon into a pint pot.

There’s going to be an ocean of overstocks, but unlike most wine lakes, which are often lower grade wine, this will be pretty good quality traditional method sitting on its lees and getting better each year. Of course there’s a limit to how long it can improve, but ten to fifteen years is the sweet spot that we’re interested in. And if we can take that stock off people’s hands at a sharp price, essentially helping them to clear their shed and avoid storage costs for wines that have no home, then we can cover the cost of disgorging, dosing, labelling and packing, and still get the wines on the shelf that will match or beat equivalent current vintage wines that are only three or four years old. And that’s the market opportunity for Lark & Folly. The overstock won’t last forever, but I reckon it could take a good five to ten years to work its way through the system, during which time we’ll help people to offload unwanted inventory, and provide customers with really interesting aged traditional method wines at an affordable price. 

What is your favourite grape variety/wine style? Why?

Because I make pét-nat, in both England and Australia, I drink a lot of pét-nat, not only because I enjoy it, but that’s the only way to learn and keep improving what you do. In terms of grape varieties, for my English pét-nats I love the juiciness and exotic flavours of Madeline Angevine. The pét-nats I make in South Australia use climate appropriate Southern Italian such as Nero d’Avola, Fiano and Zibibbo. They require a lot less water in the vineyard, are heat resistant, drought tolerent and come into the winery with fantastic natural acidity, meaning we can make minimum intervention pét-nats that are fruity and fault free. If I’m honest about what I spend my money on it’s mostly Madiran, Alsace whites and whatever Nebbiolo I can afford.

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