Why are major Champagne houses, like Taittinger and Pommery, spending millions on English vineyards?

Natalie MacLean
Apr30th

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Introduction

Why are major Champagne houses, like Taittinger and Pommery, spending millions of dollars to buy and plant vineyards in England? How did Brexit reshape the English wine industry, from barrels to picking grapes? Why does visiting the English wine country feel like uncovering a hidden secret?

In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with Henry Jeffreys, author of Vines in a Cold Climate.

You can find the wines we discussed here.

 

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Highlights

  • Is England’s greatest wine yet to be discovered?
  • What makes Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom such a memorable and inspirational person?
  • What is it like to visit English wine regions as a tourist?
  • How can you make the most out of a trip to London as a wine lover?
  • What was the most surprising historical tidbit about English wine that Henry uncovered while researching?
  • Which significant milestones have signalled the improved quality of English wine in the past 20 years?
  • What makes English winemakers different from those from other regions?
  • If English wine is such a precarious venture, why have champagne houses like Tattinger and Pommery chosen to plant in England?
  • How did Brexit impact English winemakers?
  • What’s the biggest risk to the English wine industry?

 

Key Takeaways

  • Why are major Champagne houses, like Taittinger and Pommery, spending millions of dollars to buy and plant vineyards in England?
    • Henry observes that Champagne is warming up and the concern is that eventually the grapes might not have enough acidity, so they’re hedging their bets. He also thinks they are entrepreneurial. Taittinger has Domaine Carneros in California, Moet has wineries around the world, and Domain Chandon in Argentina. Roederer used to make wine in Tasmania. And the land prices are a lot cheaper. If you could bring your expertise and get it to work and make a great, great wine – which is what they’re interested in – then, why not?
  • How did Brexit reshape the English wine industry, from barrels to picking grapes?
    • Henry explains that Brexit had a big impact. All the equipment comes from France, so rather than being able to import direct, you then had all these customs forms. That made it very complicated. It wasn’t so bad for the bigger wineries, because they could employ somebody to take care of the bureaucracy. But for the little people who used to just ship them over, suddenly, it was like, I need to fill in all this paperwork. Also the grape pickers, because they all came from Romania and Bulgaria, grape-growing countries. They used to start in Spain, and pick in Spain in July and August, through France and end up in England. Suddenly they couldn’t do that. They had some crazy stuff. Like one grower was importing grape pickers from Indonesia, flying them in cheaply. So I think there was a hell of a lot of upheaval, but I think generally the industry has adjusted and worked out how they can bring things in. The cost, obviously, has gone into the wines, and we probably have to pay more. But I think all the problems have already been dealt with. It’s all kind of factored in.
  • Why does visiting the English wine country feel like uncovering a hidden secret?
    • Southern England, especially in the spring and summer, Henry says, is breathtakingly beautiful in a way that no other country is. There are beautiful little villages and hills and churches. It can be quite incongruous sometimes seeing the vines, especially if on a cold day when you’d expect to see horses and apple trees. Wine tourism is quite in its infancy at the moment, but it’s coming on strongly. A lot of wineries have realized that you can sell tourists wine without anyone taking a cut. So they’re beginning to take it a lot more seriously… have restaurants on site, really good tour guides. The potential is massive because most of the vineyards are within an hour and a half of London.

 

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Winemakers are always practical, but perhaps because the climate is so challenging, there’s less room for idealism among English winemakers. - Henry Jeffreys Henry Jeffreys Click to tweet

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England is probably the second-best place on earth to make sparkling wine. - Henry Jeffreys Henry Jeffreys Click to tweet

 

About Henry Jeffreys

Henry Jeffreys worked in the wine trade and publishing before becoming a writer. He’s a contributor to Good Food, The Guardian, Harpers Wine & Spirit, and The Spectator, wine columnist for The Critic magazine, and has appeared on radio, TV, and The Rest is History podcast. He won Fortnum & Mason Drink Writer of the Year in 2022 and is the author of four books, including Empire of Booze and Vines in a Cold Climate, which was shortlisted for the James Beard awards and won Fortnum & Mason drink book of the year. Along with Tom Parker Bowles, he hosts the Intoxicating History podcast. He lives in Faversham, Kent, with his wife and two daughters.

 

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Transcript

Natalie MacLean 00:00:00 Why are major champagne houses like Taittinger and Pommery spending millions of dollars to buy and plant vineyards in England? How did Brexit reshape the English wine industry from barrels to picking grapes? And why does visiting English wine country feel like uncovering a hidden secret? In today’s episode, you’ll hear the stories and tips that answer those questions in part two of our chat with Henry Jeffreys. You don’t need to have listened to part one first, but if you missed it, go back to it after you finish listening to this one. By the end of our conversation, you’ll also discover whether England’s greatest wine is yet to be discovered. What makes English winemakers different from those in other regions? What makes Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom Winery such a memorable person and an icon in the industry? How to make the most of a trip to London as a wine lover. The most surprising historical tidbit about English wine that Henry discovered significant milestones that have signaled the improving quality of English wine in the past 20 years, and the biggest risk to the future of the English wine industry.

Natalie MacLean 00:01:20 Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places, and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie MacLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle, please, and let’s get started. Welcome to episode 335. Now, if you’re listening to this on the day it’s published, it’s the final deadline to submit your tax return. Why am I bringing up such a cheerless topic on a happy podcast about wine? Because naturally, I found a way to rope the two topics together. With tongue firmly in cheek. Thusly, I will share my picks of wines to return to. At this time of the year. Most of us need some liquid assets, so pairing the right wine with your tax return should not be taken at face value as well as Venus savvy.

Natalie MacLean 00:02:39 You’ll also need some financial acumen to calibrate the wine to your T4, regardless of which ones you choose. You can’t go wrong, as about 65% of the price of wine is tax, so you’ll get to contribute one way or the other after filing your return. It’s time to eat repentant Bologna sandwiches for six weeks. If you. Oh, it’s off to the bargain wine basement. You go. But that doesn’t mean your wines have to be a write off. There are many wines with excellent p multiples that’s priced to enjoyment from lesser known regions, countries with aggressive export strategies and those with a weak currency. Think Chile, Argentina and South Africa, just for starters. For wines that make tinned and frozen foods taste better, try some top notch rieslings from Canada or Germany. Those researching chapter 11 will want to guzzle park bench favorites like, well, like I’m not going to name names here because I don’t need the lawsuits, but I’m sure you can think of a few wine brands that would qualify here if it’s a break even year when you neither have saved or spent too much.

Natalie MacLean 00:03:46 Go for wines that are balanced. Try Pinot Noir from Canada or New Zealand. Even though you’re not in the red, you may still want to drink red. Then there are the happy few walking around with that refund smirk. Really, you shouldn’t gloat. Maturity is a concept that applies not only to your well-stocked cellar and investment portfolio, but also to sharing that windfall with your taxpaying brethren. A public offering, or even a private placement of some of your wines with your employees is the very least you can do. Your personal trainer will enjoy a muscular bottle of Super Tuscan wine from Italy, while your M&A lawyer is more likely to prefer a complex Bordeaux. Of course, if you’re buying these wines for yourself, it’s simply to replace the 20 tens that you’re taking out of your cellar to drink now. Why not show some irrational exuberance with vintage champagne, their capital choices that go well with your foie gras, caviar and paté? Or if Jeeves has the weekend off Stilton and mixed nuts. Then there are those who actually drink for a living, and for whom all wine should be deductible.

Natalie MacLean 00:04:54 Try having that discussion with the tax folks. I have. The problem is that when your only assets are liquid, you can easily become insolvent. Alas, no apologies for all those financial puns. I got to relive the glory days of my MBA. All right, back to today’s guest. You can win one of three copies of the award winning book, vines in a Cold Climate by today’s guest, Henry Jeffreys. I’m thrilled to announce two winners of Sally Evan’s inspiring, witty new memoir, Make the Midlife Move A Practical Guide to Flourishing After 50. They are Helen Funnell of Toronto and Susan Berkowitz of New York City. I still have one copy of Sally’s book to give away, and one left of Fiona morrison’s beautiful book, The Ten Great Wine Families of Europe. It has gorgeous full color photos of landscapes, vineyards and the amazing architecture of these wineries across Europe. Beautiful coffee table book. Ashwin Sharma of London, England, has won Adam Rogers book on the science of colour. So now, if you’d like to win any of these five books up for grabs this week, don’t grab them though.

Natalie MacLean 00:06:09 Please email me and let me know you’d like to win. It doesn’t matter where you live. I’ll find you if you’re in the Arctic. No problem. I’ll choose five winners randomly from those who contact me at Natalie at Natalie MacLean. Com. In other bookish news, if you’re reading the paperback or e-book or listening to the audiobook of my memoir wine, which on fire rising from the Ashes of Divorce, defamation and Drinking Too Much, a national bestseller and one of Amazon’s best books of the year. I’d love to hear from you and Natalie at Natalie MacLean dot com. I’d be happy to send you beautifully designed, personally signed book plates for the copies you buy or give as gifts. I’ll put a link in the show notes to all retailers worldwide at Natalie MacLean 335. The paperback usually arrives within a day or two of ordering. The book and audiobook are instantly available. Technology. Gee whiz. Okay, on with the show. So John Atkinson of Danbury Ridge Winery said, quote, somewhere out there in the uneventful countryside between Colchester, Epping and Burnham hides our Petrus.

Natalie MacLean 00:07:20 Do you agree that England’s greatest wine regions have yet to be discovered?

Henry Jeffreys 00:07:25 No, not necessarily regions. But I think the exact combination of this slope and these grapes not necessarily varieties, but perhaps clones, rootstocks, all the kind of things that the French have been doing for years. The land, the exact place, the exact vine. Then what you do with that, how you process it, how you ferment it, how you age it. That’s still all being worked out. So it’s still kind of everything to play for. I don’t think anyone has got it 100. Well, maybe, maybe a couple of people. Yeah, maybe. Yeah, there’s a couple of people who’ve probably got it absolutely right.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:04 And who would they be?

Henry Jeffreys 00:08:05 I mean, we are very, very good. And I’m not saying their wines aren’t wonderful, but even John Wood would admit that they’re still working everything out. And I think the wines are great. There’s a producer in Sussex called Peter Hall, and he has this vineyard called Breaky Bottom, and it’s like, feels like you’re in the middle of nowhere.

Henry Jeffreys 00:08:22 It’s a tiny little valley. And he’s been growing grapes there since 1976. He has champagne varieties and he has sable blanc, and he has been making sparkling wines since 95. I think pretty much all on his own. And you try his Sable Blanc and it’s just sensational. I had the 2016 recently and he just think he’s got it. He’s got the exact right vineyard, the right variety knows exactly what he’s doing with it, and he’s got all those years of experience that go into his wine. So I think he’s someone who has done it.

Natalie MacLean 00:08:56 And he’s quite a character, if I understand from your book, you know, smoking his rolled up cigarettes. Tell me more about him. The man.

Henry Jeffreys 00:09:03 Oh, he’s so funny. He looks like a kind of cross between. He looks like an old rock star. He smokes a lot. And he just tells all these. All these kind of bizarre stories. Apparently, he was a shepherd, and then he just was on this. He was a tenant farmer, and he thought, you know, I’m going to try growing grapes.

Henry Jeffreys 00:09:20 And he had all these other problems, like he had like a flood three years in a row. His grapes were eaten by a plague of pheasants, one year pheasants.

Natalie MacLean 00:09:28 That’s different.

Henry Jeffreys 00:09:30 Yeah. Sort of biblical time out there. It’s really funny where he is because he’s not far from Brighton, which is, you know, quite a big town, but you kind of you turn off the main road and you go over this dirt track and it just goes on for miles and miles and you think this isn’t right. You know, the road almost feels like it’s going to come to an end. And then you get to the top of this ridge. You look down, there’s this beautiful tiny vineyard with vines growing up the hills, and it’s a sort of place of pilgrimage for everyone in English wine. So anyone who’s anyone will have gone there. So most people will have done a harvest there. They would have talked to Peter just to kind of learn from him. And I went along and he just, you know, it’s quite hard to follow him most of the time because he was just sort of smoking and sort of she speaks in French because his mother’s French.

Henry Jeffreys 00:10:14 And he told me this story. You don’t know whether he’s joking or not either. So he told me this story about how people sometimes put a spoon in a bottle of champagne to keep the fizz in. And he goes, that story is put about by the powerful spoon lobby. And then kind of, you know, watch out for the spoon lobby. He’s a real inspiration.

Natalie MacLean 00:10:35 Wow. Okay, cool. And what are some of the most unexpected areas where vineyards have been planted, like anything unusual that you’ve come across during your research?

Henry Jeffreys 00:10:45 There’s obviously the, you know, the teal one, which was in a sort of industrial estate near London. So that was pretty strange. There is actually one in London, geographically in a suburb called Enfield, and it’s called 40 Hall and it’s an organic vineyard, actually in London. I mean, you probably think in London it’s going to be like on Oxford Street or something. It’s in suburban London, so it’s quite far out, but it’s still technically London.

Henry Jeffreys 00:11:09 So that’s quite unusual.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:11 Is that the one that had the railway ties or something. Railway arches.

Henry Jeffreys 00:11:15 There’s quite a lot of urban wineries now in London. So there’s one called Black Book and it’s under a railway arch. So you kind of you’re they’re tasting the wine and then the trains go above and everything, everything rocks. Perhaps that’s part of the terroir as well. You know, when the barrels are aging, the movement of the trains. Yeah. Just adds to the ageing process.

Natalie MacLean 00:11:36 And so what is it like to visit the English countryside just as a tourist, not as a wine writer? Like, is it like you go to winery tasting rooms and have samples? Is there something different to do? What makes the experience different from other wine regions.

Henry Jeffreys 00:11:51 Well, first of all, if you’re in England, southern England, especially in the spring and summer, is Sussex and Kent are just kind of breathtakingly beautiful in a way that no other country is. Not that other countries aren’t beautiful, but the kind of the look of England is unique and I think very, very beautiful little villages and hills and churches and things like that.

Henry Jeffreys 00:12:09 It can be quite incongruous sometimes seeing the vines, especially if on a kind of cold day and you’ll just be like in a mud sort of a field that looks like it should have horses in it and apple trees or something. And then there’s vines. So there is that incongruity which people might notice. Tourism is sort of quite in its infancy at the moment, but is coming on strongly. I think a lot of people, a lot of wineries have realised that that’s the way you get people in, and also you can then sell them wine without anyone taking a cut. So people are now beginning to take a lot more seriously. Have restaurants on site have really good tour guides? We’re still learning, and a lot we’re learning from, you know, the Californians who are obviously very, very good at that, or the South Africans and Australians, New Zealanders, that kind of stuff. I think we’re still kind of finding the way to make it work. The potential is massive because most of the vineyards are within an hour, hour and a half of London.

Henry Jeffreys 00:13:07 You can get a train to some of them. So it really should be a lot bigger than it is, but it’s getting there.

Natalie MacLean 00:13:13 And what would be your top tip or two for people who are planning to visit the wine region, like how to get the most out of your trip? Is it anything come to mind in particular?

Henry Jeffreys 00:13:23 Try lots of stuff. Don’t just visit one winery, get you know, try lots of wine. Get to know lots of go to a wine bar. I mean, there’s quite a lot of English wine bars now. There’s one down the road from me in Chillum. There’s one in Canterbury. So Canterbury is a very ancient city, so it gets lots and lots of visitors. So maybe go to the wine bar there. Taste, taste, taste, taste and then think, oh, I’d like to visit that one. And then they’re all within, you know, an hour, two hours drive or something. And you could do that in London. There’s English wine bars in London.

Henry Jeffreys 00:13:53 So yeah, that’s probably a good place to start. And you might not like them. You might just be like, oh, I’ll have a glass of port or something instead.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:00 Yeah. Might not be to everyone’s stylistic preference, but you could find some wines to pair with Chaucer or something while you’re at it.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:07 Well, exactly. In Canterbury, you know, there’s nothing better.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:11 Yeah, yeah. There is so much to do in London. Yeah, it would be, I think, perfect for wine lovers to do all the museums and usual London activity, but then tack on the vineyard visits if they’re aware of it.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:23 So I don’t think people are. I mean, I think that’s the next stage. Maybe I should do it, like organise tours, you know, collect all those American tourists staying at the Stafford or something and then take them out into Kent bespoke like.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:36 what is it, Savile Row suits like? You could be that for wine tours.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:41 Exactly. Yeah.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:42 I’ve writing down all these ideas now.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:44 Yeah, there’ll.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:45 Be a recording.

Henry Jeffreys 00:14:45 Don’t worry.

Natalie MacLean 00:14:46 There’s So many people assume that English wine is a modern development. But you discuss the historical viticulture dating back to the Cistercian monks in the 13th century. What was the most surprising historical tidbit you uncovered?

Henry Jeffreys 00:15:00 I mentioned before, I can go a bit more detail. There was a vineyard in Surrey called Payne’s Hill, and it was started by this kind of louche aristocrat who was, you know, had lots of kind of gambling, just basically like spending money. And he had a winemaker. He planted certain French grapes, which I think were probably Pinot. They’re not quite sure, probably sort of Burgundian champagne type type grapes. They tried to make a red wine and it was absolutely revolting. But then they made some white wines and he writes about how they creamed in the glass, they foamed in the glass. So someone was getting very close to what, an English. In inverted commas. Champagne in the 18th century. And if he hadn’t basically spent all his money on kind of gambling debts and courtesans and stuff.

Henry Jeffreys 00:15:49 That could have been the kind of English, I don’t know, Vegas, Sicilia or something, or the English beyond Asante, you know, sort of a pioneer that had kept going. But obviously he was a dissolute aristocrat, so he didn’t manage that. I think that’s the most fascinating thing. There were all these or there was a similar thing where there was a vineyard in Wales in the late 19th century, and there’s mentions of in certain vintages that they tasted like champagne. And then it was like, oh, they were nearly there.

Henry Jeffreys 00:16:19 Right, right.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:20 Absolutely. And just while we’re on history, that you have a fascinating bit about Winston Churchill’s preference for champagne. I think he was pretty prodigious drinker, but what was his preference for champagne and the format, etc.?

Henry Jeffreys 00:16:34 He was a big Paul Roger drinker, and apparently he liked it in a pint bottle. So. But this was pre-European union and you could bottle it in anything you liked, really. I think it was in what’s known as an Imperial pint, which I think is slightly different to an American pint.

Natalie MacLean 00:16:49 It’s like a large, stubby beer bottle or.

Henry Jeffreys 00:16:52 Well, I think it would just look a bit like a small champagne bottle. You got half bottles of champagne. This would be slightly bigger. You know, it would have been sort of 60cm or approximately 568ml, I think. And then there was this sort of thing where this English producer called Rath Fini campaigned after he left the European Union to allow pint bottles again. And there was all kinds of hoo ha about it. It was a good publicity stunt. But anyway, he’s now bottled them, though they’re actually not in pint bottles. They’re half liter bottles, which is pretty close. And then the idea is that it’s a good size for two people that you share that.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:27 Right. Or one Winston Churchill.

Henry Jeffreys 00:17:29 Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I think Winston Churchill probably had a pint to himself. And then then he hit the brandy.

Natalie MacLean 00:17:36 Was there one moment in the last 20 years that you see as pivotal for English wine in terms of where it turned the corner in terms of quality?

Henry Jeffreys 00:17:45 I think there have been so many moments, like milestones.

Henry Jeffreys 00:17:49 So obviously the release of timber, which was a bit more than that. Chapel down launched a Chardonnay called Kingscote from this one vineyard, which is up in the north of Kent. First vintage of that was 2011 and I tasted that and it’s still excellent. So I think the launch of that was really, really important. I’d say like 2018, just the whole vintage where it was this beautiful, warm, vintage, huge and a huge crop as well. And people were saying, oh, we can make some red wine. And I think that was a game changer. People just sort of going, oh, a lot of people have been making tiny bits of red wine. Then they were like, oh, you know, this is actually quite right. This isn’t like a sort of barely there rosé type red. This is a it’s a red wine. So I think 2018 was hugely important. And then 2022 is a similar one where I just feel like those two vintages, 203 actually 2018, 2020 and 2022 was when the whole quality level just shifted.

Henry Jeffreys 00:18:56 Like I try 2020 sparkling wines, which have just come on the market and they’re just a level of fruit and ripeness is so astonishing. I mean, that’s the amazing thing about being involved in English wine. You can see the progression in real time. It’s like being in the Medoc or something when they drained it and, you know, they first planted. That’s what it’s like being an English wine at the moment. The progression you can just see from vintage to vintage.

Natalie MacLean 00:19:23 That’s very exciting. You know, you’ve spent so much time with English winemakers. Is there a certain mindset, I guess you’ve gotten at this, how open they are, how they’re different from a lot of winemakers in other regions. Is there anything else in terms of their philosophy or their approach that you see that really stands out as differentiating them from other regions.

Henry Jeffreys 00:19:43 They tend to be just incredibly practical. I mean, winemakers are always practical. Perhaps because the climate’s so difficult, there’s a lot less room for idealism in sort of France and stuff.

Henry Jeffreys 00:19:53 You have lots of people are very into organics and and things like that, and they take it very seriously. And they’d just be like, you know, some vintages will have a much lower crop. In England that’s such a risk, especially with fungus. So most people, even the ones who are very low intervention, don’t use herbicides, don’t use pesticides, they don’t use synthetic fertiliser, anything like that. A lot of them will at last resort use synthetic fungicide just because the only other option is either losing your crop or putting so much copper sulfate on that that’s basically going to poison the grapes and the soil. I’d say it’s just a kind of absolute pragmatism, because they’re doing something that’s pretty hard work, and there’s no room for being precious, right?

Natalie MacLean 00:20:38 Especially given the climate. You note that winemakers in China have to bury their vines in winter. Do English winemakers have to do that? And are there any other sort of extreme measures or different measures they have to take to protect vines, or in the winemaking process because of the climate?

Henry Jeffreys 00:20:54 No, I mean, actually, I mean, the book is a bit of a misnomer because compared to China, I mean, England really isn’t that cold at all, and suddenly it’s actually very balmy.

Henry Jeffreys 00:21:01 You know, it very rarely gets below about sort of -two degrees Celsius in southern England. So it’s not an extreme climate at all. It’s very, very mild. The dangerous thing is frost. But then you get frost in, you know, Burgundy, the Rhone, southern France, I mean southern France has had terrible problems with frost. So actually, once you’ve got over the dampness, the dampness is the big problem. The actual climate, the temperatures aren’t that bad. It’s actually more vines in a cool climate rather than vines in a cold climate.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:35 Yeah. That would be the title today. An increasingly warm climate.

Henry Jeffreys 00:21:40 Exactly.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:40 Cool.

Henry Jeffreys 00:21:41 Climate change could be like finding a really quite warm climate.

Natalie MacLean 00:21:45 Yeah. Getting warmer. Getting warmer. So your book opens with Taittinger, the famous champagne maker planting in Kent during a freezing 2017 storm. Tell us about that.

Henry Jeffreys 00:21:58 Yeah, that’s the opening of the book. And it was just one of those days where you think growing grapes in England is not a very good idea.

Henry Jeffreys 00:22:03 So this was in May, which is meant to be getting on for summer. And there was horizontal rain. Like if you go to the Isle of Skye, it was so windy you couldn’t hear a word that anyone said. And this was the planting party. Press launch for for Taittinger. So it was very inauspicious. But actually they’re releasing their first wine in about three weeks time. I taste it, it’s very, very good.

Natalie MacLean 00:22:27 What’s it called?

Henry Jeffreys 00:22:28 It’s called Domaine Evermore. And evermore was a French ambassador to the court of Charles II. And he was a bit of a kind of louche aristocrat. You know, I for the ladies and stuff. But he also apparently introduced champagne to the English court. So he’s a sort of a champagne ambassador. He’s a hero of Pierre Emanuel Taittinger, who is another great character. You can look him up online. He’s in quite a few interesting tabloid stories about him.

Natalie MacLean 00:22:58 So this cast of characters. Yes.

Henry Jeffreys 00:23:02 I won’t go into, but it’s inspired by everyone.

Henry Jeffreys 00:23:05 Mr. French, sort of ambassador to the English throne. Who introduced champagne,

Natalie MacLean 00:23:10 So if English wine is such a precarious venture, why do you think champagne houses like Taittinger and also Pomeroy chose to plant? You know, you’ve got Brexit, chaos and frost damaged crops, and they’re investing millions. Is it just because they see the future as being in England with climate change, or what’s going on there?

Henry Jeffreys 00:23:31 I think there is some of that. So champagne is warming up. There’s the worry that the grapes might not have enough acidity. So they’re hedging their bets. But also I think it’s that they’re just, you know, they are entrepreneurial, you know, like like some of the champagne houses have what Taittinger have Domaine Carneros in.

Natalie MacLean 00:23:48 Yes in California. Yeah. That’s right.

Henry Jeffreys 00:23:50 Moet has them all around the world in Shandong in Argentina. I think Roederer used to make wine in Tasmania or something. So I think it’s that kind of like we’re really good at making sparkling wine here is a brilliant place. Like probably the second best place on Earth to make sparkling wine.

Henry Jeffreys 00:24:07 We’d be mad not to give it a go. And the land prices are an awful lot cheaper. And if you can bring your expertise and get it to work and make a great wine, which is what they’re interested in, then you know why not?

Natalie MacLean 00:24:19 Do you think there’s any risk of English sparkling wine getting corporatized by champagne or losing its identity? Or do you see what they’ve done so far as really still trying to express the unique terroir of England?

Henry Jeffreys 00:24:33 The English sparkling wine is, from the outside, already quite corporate. You’ve got sort of quite heavily branded. It produces like sort of Nike timber and stuff. They have that like Nightmare Bus and stuff. England is very, very inspired by champagne, so we basically taken everything that champagne has to give, not just the grapes and the expertise and the techniques, but also the image and the marketing and stuff. So actually, I don’t really think that champagne could be any more champagne than some English producers. Yeah. I don’t yeah, that. Yeah.

Henry Jeffreys 00:25:06 That’s all I have to say about that.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:08 I meant to ask this earlier, but what percentage of English wine is sparkling? Is it like 80, 90% or.

Henry Jeffreys 00:25:15 I think it’s about 70%. I think it’s like 1730.

Natalie MacLean 00:25:18 Okay. Distill wine. All right. How did Brexit impact English winemakers like were there labour shortages, supply chain issues? I mean what happened during Brexit? Was it a big impact for the English wine industry?

Henry Jeffreys 00:25:33 It was a big impact, yes, because all the equipment comes from France. So rather than being able to import direct, you then had to have all these kind of customs forms and all this sort of stuff. So that made it very, very complicated. Well, it wasn’t so bad for the bigger people because they could then employ somebody to take care of the bureaucracy. But for the little people who just used to phone up Jean Pierre or something and say, you know, I need a couple of barrels. And they used to just ship them over. Suddenly it was like, I need to fill in all this paperwork.

Henry Jeffreys 00:26:02 And then when you were moving the wine around, if you wanted to send it to Scandinavian countries quite big on English wine, that made it really complicated. But then also the grape pickers, because they all came from Romania and Bulgaria, grape growing countries, and they used to sort of start in Spain and then pick in Spain in July and August through France and end up in England. And suddenly they couldn’t do that. And he had some crazy stuff, like one grower was like importing great pickers from Indonesia or something like flying them in cheaply, which just obviously is completely barking. dark. So I think there was a hell of a lot of upheaval. But I think generally the industry has adjusted and worked out how they can bring things in. The cost obviously has gone into the wine, so we probably have to pay more. But I think all the kind of problems have already been dealt with. It’s all kind of factored in.

Natalie MacLean 00:26:57 Right. And now with the Ukraine war, there are glass shortages.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:01 Is there any other impact from what’s going on with the Ukraine?

Henry Jeffreys 00:27:05 Energy prices are a lot higher. Glass shortages. That’s about it. Because I think one of the biggest glass factories is in Ukraine. So I think it may have got up and running again. I’m not quite sure. I think it’s like an outpost of a big French company.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:19 Okay. So have you discovered anything new since you wrote the book that you would add to an updated edition or a second book?

Henry Jeffreys 00:27:26 Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, just every day I try new stuff, or I have producers, like, there’s one producer down in Hampshire called Black Chalk, and I didn’t put them in. And not only are the wines just sensational, but the people who work there are so interesting. Zoe and Jacob, the two winemakers, they’re just like real characters. I can’t believe I didn’t put these people in. So almost every week I’ll taste something, meet somebody. But it’s changing so fast. You know, the book is hopelessly out of date already.

Natalie MacLean 00:27:58 What year was it published? Was it 2023?

Henry Jeffreys 00:28:01 2023?

Natalie MacLean 00:28:02 Oh, well, it’s not that long ago.

Henry Jeffreys 00:28:04 No, not at all. But it’s just new producers, new wines. It’s, you know, it’s very exciting.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:09 Yeah. So do you think you will write an updated edition?

Henry Jeffreys 00:28:12 Yeah. Maybe in about, you know, 5 or 10 years, something like that. I think you need to kind of give it to me. And I think it would have to be like, all new. But yeah, if someone paid me to do it, I probably do it.

Natalie MacLean 00:28:24 What’s the biggest risk, do you think, to wines in England, to the industry?

Henry Jeffreys 00:28:29 It’s overproduction, I’m afraid. There’s been so much planting in the last few years. There was some statistic like planting was going up by like 30% every year, and then consumption was going up by 7%. I know that a lot of producers are still sitting on lots of 2018, and they’ll be sitting on top to 2020.

Henry Jeffreys 00:28:50 So I think there’s going to be a lot of consolidation, lots of people kind of struggling. They’ve got all this wine and they don’t quite know how to sell it. I think there’s going to be like a bit of a bust, not like a collapse, because I think the industry is too well entrenched. I mean, there’s quite a few big producers who are on the market, not officially on the market. There’s no for sale sign outside the vineyard. But you know that if someone came along with a with a cheque book, they would sell up tomorrow.

Natalie MacLean 00:29:19 Interesting. Do you think someday, or by the next edition, we’ll see. Wineries in Scotland? Maybe they’re already are up there.

Henry Jeffreys 00:29:27 No, I think there’s one. I don’t know, I think it’ll take a long time, but the quality wine is creeping up and creeping up and up. So the sort of Midlands. There’s some quite nice ones. I deliberately did not deliberately didn’t do the North of England. I just, I thought to myself, I can either write a mediocre book and do the whole country, or I can concentrate on the absolute heartland.

Henry Jeffreys 00:29:48 It’s a bit like doing a book about American wine, and just by concentrating on California and Oregon, that’s basically the equivalent or a Canadian one, and just doing like Nova Scotia and British Columbia and kind of ignoring everything else. But that’s pretty. That’s what I did. But it is changing. And better wines are coming from further north.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:07 Interesting. So if you could share a bottle of wine with anyone living or dead outside the wine industry, who would that be?

Henry Jeffreys 00:30:14 You’d be my wife, of course.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:16 Okay.

Henry Jeffreys 00:30:17 Do you want to know the wine?

Natalie MacLean 00:30:19 Yes, please.

Henry Jeffreys 00:30:19 It would probably be a bottle of Breaky Bottom, Peter Hall’s wine. The 2010 save LeBlanc is absolutely out of this world. It has this sort of, like, almond croissant sort of spice thing. You know, it’s just. Yeah, it would be probably a bottle of Breaky Bottom with my wife.

Natalie MacLean 00:30:37 Lovely. And what would you pair with it?

Henry Jeffreys 00:30:39 I’m not a big kind of pairing. I mean, I just thought of whatever we fancied.

Henry Jeffreys 00:30:43 Really? You know, maybe some crisps, some salty snacks, that kind of stuff. It would go wonderfully with fish. It’d be really nice with some prawns or something, you know, maybe some kind of grilled prawns or something. You know, just sort of tap assy type stuff would be great.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:00 Sounds good. And if you could put up a billboard in downtown London, what would it say?

Henry Jeffreys 00:31:06 Oh, I don’t know. Drink more English wine or by my book. Yeah. Just look at them. Yeah, it’d be like one of those real estate things you get in America. Be my face. And then, like, by my by my book.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:19 Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you’d like to mention before we wrap up?

Henry Jeffreys 00:31:24 No, I think that’s it. you know, you you mentioned to bring some bottles along, so.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:29 Oh, yes. Do you want to show what you have there? If you have them?

Henry Jeffreys 00:31:32 I’ve got two, which I think are the kind of old and new of English wine, and both are very good.

Henry Jeffreys 00:31:37 So we’ve got Brendan Ortega, like, look at that old fashioned label. And that was planted by a kind of farming family in the 60s. And Ortega is a German grape. It’s a kind of Riesling cross.

Natalie MacLean 00:31:49 They grow it in Nova Scotia as well.

Henry Jeffreys 00:31:51 It’s really, really good, especially in kind of very cool climates. It makes wonderful wines and this is like an off dry 8g/l really Appley taste kind of sort of lower shenan or something. And it just shows how not doing the French model, not doing the champagne model, not having a lot of money, being a farming family, they’ve done it for, you know, over 40 years, 45 years, and they’re still making wonderful wines. So bidden are the kind of old school making wonderful wines. So that’s that one. And I’ve got this one which I don’t know very much about, but it’s a Chardonnay from Cornwall. The label is really stupid because it’s just raised with no words. You can’t no color on it. But it’s Trevor and Mill right down in Cornwall, far southwest.

Henry Jeffreys 00:32:41 It’s a still Chardonnay from 2023, aged in French oak. And it’s just really, really nutty. Full acidity, but beautiful ripeness, lovely fruit, that kind of Chablis style, but with a bit more oak on it. And just, you know, if you told me that you could get Cornish Chardonnay ten, 20 years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. So it just shows how good, you know, parts of the country that are a bit damper can be.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:07 Wow. Fascinating. Very different. What a range. Where can people find you in your book online?

Henry Jeffreys 00:33:13 Henry I think it’s available from Amazon.com. I don’t know if you can. What Canadians can they see?

Natalie MacLean 00:33:20 Yeah, absolutely.

Henry Jeffreys 00:33:21 You’re still allowed to buy things from America. That hasn’t been.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:24 Yeah. We just do it with a surly face.

Henry Jeffreys 00:33:26 That’s the best way to do it. and and then I’m on Instagram, Henry G. Jefferies and Twitter, Henry G. Jefferies and all kinds of places. Oh, I have a Substack.

Henry Jeffreys 00:33:39 It’s called Drinking Culture, which is basically where I put most of my stuff now because it’s quite fun. And then I do this podcast as well, which you mentioned as well with Tom Parker-Bowles called Intoxicating History.

Natalie MacLean 00:33:51 That’s great. We’ll put links to all of that in the show notes, so that if people are scrambling to write those down, they can find the links and find you. Henry. This has been delightful. Thank you so much for joining us. The stories, the people and the wines are intriguing, so thank you for sharing all of that with us.

Henry Jeffreys 00:34:08 Oh, thank you so much. It’s been honestly, it’s been so much fun. I really enjoyed sharing stories. And also it’s been brilliantly organized as well. You know, I felt like you had a kind of you knew exactly where the conversation was going. So thank you.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:20 A little bit of OCD, but that’s okay. Sometimes it helps. I will say goodbye for now, and I look forward to perhaps sharing a maybe a glass of Nova Scotia wine and a glass of English wine with you some day in person.

Henry Jeffreys 00:34:32 Like I kind of. Kind of, meets England.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:35 Exactly. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Henry Jeffreys 00:34:37 That would be huge fun.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:39 All right. Cheers for now, Henry.

Henry Jeffreys 00:34:41 Okay. Cheers.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:42 Thank you.

Natalie MacLean 00:34:42 Okay. Bye bye. Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Henry. Here are my takeaways. Why are the major champagne houses like Taittinger and Pomeroy spending millions of dollars to buy and plant vineyards in England? Henry observes that champagne is warming up, and the concern is that eventually the grapes might not have enough acidity. So these winemakers are hedging their bets. He also thinks they’re entrepreneurial. Taittinger has Domaine Carneros in California, Moet has wineries around the world, as well as Domaine Chandel in Argentina. Roederer used to make wine in Tasmania, and the land prices he observes are a lot cheaper. So if you could bring your expertise and get it to work and make great wine, which is what they want to do, then why not? Number two, how did Brexit reshape the English wine industry from barrels to picking grapes? Henry explains that Brexit had a huge impact.

Natalie MacLean 00:35:47 All the equipment had come from France, so rather than being able to just import simply and directly, they then had all these custom forms that they had to fill out and that made it complicated. It wasn’t as much of an impediment for bigger wineries, because they had someone on staff to take care of the bureaucracy, but for smaller folks, littler wineries that used to just ship over whatever they needed, suddenly they had to go through all this red tape. Also, the grape pickers traditionally came from Romania and Bulgaria, also grape growing countries. So these pickers and harvesters would start in Spain like in July or August, and then they’d move to France as the harvest moved and then finally end up in England, where, of course they have to leave the grapes on longer to ripen, but now they can’t do that. So growers were doing things like flying over grape pickers from Indonesia. Henry observes there was a lot of upheaval, but generally the industry has adjusted and worked out how to cope with the new situation.

Natalie MacLean 00:36:49 He says the cost has gone into the wines, but the problems have been ironed out. And number three, why does visiting the English wine countryside feel like uncovering a hidden secret? Southern England, especially in the spring and summer, Henry says, is breathtakingly beautiful in a way that no other country is, and I can say amen to that. Having studied at Oxford, it was just remarkable, like the cherry blossoms and the spring and summer just came alive. There are beautiful little villages and hills and churches, he says, and it can be quite incongruous sometimes to see vines, especially if you’re there on a cold day where you’d expect to see maybe horses or apple trees. Wine tourism is quite in its infancy currently, but it’s coming on strongly. Henry says a lot of wineries have realized that you can sell tourists wine without anyone taking a cut. So they’re beginning to take it a lot more seriously. There are restaurants on site, really good tour guides. And there’s massive potential because most of the vineyards are within an hour and a half of London, and you can just take a train.

Natalie MacLean 00:37:59 In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Henry, links to his website and books the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live, and where you can order my book online now, no matter where you live. If you missed episode 210, go back and take a listen. I chat about British bubbly glassware and why it’s worth paying more for wine with the author of the Wine Bible, Karen McNeil. I’ll share a short clip with you now to whet your appetite.

Karen MacNeil 00:38:28 You cannot simultaneously want to drink super inexpensively and want your wine to be organic, maybe biodynamic, as natural as it can be. That just doesn’t compute, because the least expensive wines tend to be the most manipulated wines. That’s how they get to be drinkable for only $5 a bottle.

Natalie MacLean 00:38:56 You’ve mentioned that these cheaper wines are often stripped down, like they’ve been neutered, because the base grapes are not that great, and then they’ve been rebuilt back up with oak chips, or they’re adding dyes or whatever they put back in, but it’s all to keep the cost down.

Karen MacNeil 00:39:14 Yeah, as long as you know that, then you’re an informed consumer.

Natalie MacLean 00:39:24 You won’t want to miss next week when we chat with Rasmus Berg and Jens Honoré, the author and photographer respectively, who have published the Rose Revolution. Rasmus will join us from his home in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Jens from Northport, New York. If you like this episode or learned even one thing from it, please email or tell one friend about the podcast this week, especially someone you know who’d be interested in learning more about English wines. It’s easy to find the podcast, just tell them to search for Natalie MacLean Wine on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, their favorite podcast app, or they can listen to the show on my website at Natalie MacLean. Podcast. Email me if you have a SIP tip question, or if you’d like to win one of five copies of the books by Henry, Sally or Fiona. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on this episode, or if you’ve read my book or are listening to it. Email me at Nathalie at Natalie MacLean.

Natalie MacLean 00:40:18 Com in the show notes, you’ll find a link to take a free online food and wine pairing class with me called the five Wine and Food pairing mistakes that can ruin your dinner and how to fix them forever at Natalie MacLean. And that is all in the show notes at Natalie MacLean 335. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your class this week. Perhaps an English rosé to bridge this episode with the next one? You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially the secret full bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at Natalie MacLean. Meet me here next week.

Natalie MacLean 00:41:13 Cheers!

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