Cheers! The Stratford vineyard aiming to make 10,000 bottles a year

VERY hot weather is not everybody’s idea of good fun – particularly in the age of anxiety about climate change and global warming – but it can bring bumper benefits to English wine producers.

And one such beneficiary of this year’s crop of heatwaves in the UK is the Welcombe Hills Vineyard at Snitterfield, run by the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan and Nichola Kelsey.

Nichola told the Herald that this season’s harvest had resulted in “a particularly generous crop” with an increased yield of around 25 per cent compared to a normal year.

This means that Welcombe Hills Vineyard will be producing a total of around 5,000 bottles of various kinds of wine as a result of the 2025 harvest.

“Although slightly down on the record 2023 vintages the quality this year has made the UK a wine producers’ paradise – our own Grand Vintage,” said Nichola.

“The stand-out story for this year is the quality of the grapes due to the hot sun and the dry weather during the summer. We believe 2025 will be a huge moment in the development and production of still wine in the UK, with grapes producing higher sugars/alcohol whilst returning the perfect acidity needed.”

She added: “We expect to see many vineyards experimenting with different styles of still wines, and that is definitely our focus at Welcombe Hill Vineyard with our first ever still Chardonnay and the return of our gold medal winning Sauvignon Blanc and Bacchus blend.”

The vineyard started in 2001 and Nichola and Jonathan have been running it since 2018. When they moved out of London in 2017 with their young sons – now aged 13 and ten – it just so happened that the house they bought, apart from having a great view, also had a vineyard attached to it. But it was not their original intention to become winemakers themselves. After all, Jonathan already had a job working for an art gallery group (where he still works).

However, they soon changed their minds. “We decided to give it a go – and we’ve loved it ever since,” said Jonathan. “We’ve been very lucky and had some great wines and won awards.”

Welcombe Hills Vineyard doesn’t export its wines. “Our wines are enjoyed almost entirely by local customers,” said Nichola. “Around 90 per cent of our sales are to people in and around Stratford, with a few reaching further afield through word-of-mouth and online orders.

“It’s a joy to see how much local wine lovers appreciate what we do, and this year’s harvest will hopefully mean more bottles to go round!”

Nichola and Jonathan produce a range of red and white wines as well as sparkling wines. The still wines tend to sell for between £15 and £20 a bottle and the sparkling wines cost from £30 to £35.

A lot of their sales are done during specially-organised tours of the vineyard during the summer months. Other sales are online. And an important element in the vineyard’s sales activities involves the distribution of its wines to a select number of restaurants and pubs in the Stratford area.

When Nichola and Jonathan arrived at the vineyard eight years ago there were 2,500 vines. In the past three years or so they’ve planted an additional 3,500. “The idea is to get the yield up to 10,000 bottles over the next three or four years,” said Jonathan.

He added: “It’s a viable business now and turnover has increased rapidly over the past three or four years. But it’s not the cheapest business to run. Labour costs have gone up and machinery costs have gone up.” (The vineyard operates with a mixture of volunteers and paid employees.)

Such is the adventurous ethos at the vineyard that Nichola and Jonathan have teamed up with the Shakespeare Distillery in a project that’s resulted in the vineyard’s Pinot Noir being used in one of the distillery’s gin products.

“We’re hoping to work with them again next year on more projects,” said Nichola.

In some respects the expansion of Welcombe Hills Vineyard should come as no surprise. Wine production is currently the fastest growing sector in the British agriculture industry.

As Jonathan pointed out: “In 2017 there were 430 vineyards in this country. That figure now stands at over 1,100.”

In 2023 Decanter, the house magazine of the wine trade, reported that soaring demand for English and Welsh wine had inspired producers to plant 74 per cent more vines over the previous five years.

Traditionally the wine-producing areas of Britain have been in the southern counties of England such as Kent, Sussex and Berkshire. But now it’s big business in Yorkshire. And even Scotland has its own vineyards.

Wine production has now become a serious growth industry in parts of Europe not traditionally associated with the trade.

If heatwaves continue at the rate they’ve been occurring over recent years we can expect to see wine production increase accordingly – whatever fears the changing climate may cause in other aspects of life.