Defined Wine, the contract-only winemaker, held its first London tasting for its clients in June. Defined Wine’s CEO, Henry Sugden said “We do not want to be seen as ‘just Kent’. We cover from Dorset to Suffolk. This is a ‘value-added’ service for our clients”.
Held at the Cavalry & Guards Club on Piccadilly, the tasting comprised 19 growers presenting their wines, with four not present but their wines there for tasting. Last year, Kent-based Defined Wines made wines for more than 30 clients. Sugden said that the reason for holding a tasting in London was to attract wine buyers, journalists, and specifiers, who are likely to be either London-based, or for whom travelling to London is convenient. Expecting about 80 to attend, attendees included English wine champion Matthew Jukes, Anthony Rose, Margaret Rand, and Oz Clarke, who recently published a revised version of his directory of English wine. At least two major wine suppliers, Corney & Barrow and Berkmann also attended.
Asked if he thought, going forward, that there could be a glut – an English wine lake, he said: “We only produce about 1% of all the wine drunk in the UK. Even if we got up to 2% or 3%, there is still room for more.” Asked what he would expect from a grower who approaches them about taking their grapes, Sugden replied: “To understand what style of wine the grower wants made, or whether they want to sell their grapes, what varieties and clones they have planted; remember to plant what people want, not what will be easy to grow.”
The minimum drop for a bespoke wine is 1.5 tonnes, although its minimum client volume is five tonnes. It is the growers’ responsibility to deliver the grapes to the winery and to collect the finished wine.
Asked whether Sugden and his head winemaker Nick Lane (ex-Moët, Dom Perignon, and Cloudy Bay) gives advice, he said: “We just make wine, but we understand that you need good grapes to make good wine and however good the wine is, it is worthless if you can’t sell it. So we provide some viticulture and marketing support but can’t offer detailed advice, that would down to the grower’s agronomists and others”.
What advice would he give to a grower who is thinking of planting vines?
“Work back from what wine you want to produce. Who will drink it? What are your routes to market? Get the site professionally assessed for viticulture and only plant if the results are positive,” said Sugden.