Why French winemakers are buying up swaths of land in Southern England

The English may titter and the French may shrug but Anglo-French cooperation has been around for centuries, just…not very often.

Surely we all remember the time when the tribes in southern England came into bat for their pals on the other side of La Manche when Julius Caesar decided to invade Gaul?

Granted things went a bit the other way for the next two millennia, but surely you must remember the breakthrough under the English Channel. The handshakes, the cheering, the drinking of Champagne?

An astonishing feat of engineering and a timely reminder that although pounds won’t be euros, bygones can be bygones.

Much of the history between these two nations stems from political change. From the Norman Conquest to the Entente Cordiale, societal factors have thrown France and England together and apart. But the latest example is one that stems from factors outwith political and social control: Climate Change.

Champagne is the creme de la creme and the mousse de la mousse of sparkling wine. It’s an institution that is protected by law and an extremely proud tradition that has centuries of history and culture wrapped up within it. There are a number of factors that influence the product itself but it can most easily be explained by climate and terroir (the untranslatable French word that embodies, amongst other things, the land under which the sacred vitis vinifera vines are planted).

Terroir

Firstly, the Champagne region is about as far north as you can traditionally get when it comes to effective winemaking, the general parameters for which lie between 30 and 50 degrees in both hemispheres. Reims, the capital of the region, lies at 49.15 degrees north. This cold winemaking climate actually works in its favour with sparkling wine as a winemaker needs very high acid in their grapes to create the right structural conditions for traditional method production.

Secondly, the soil in that part of France has a very high chalk make-up, which maintains freshness and minerality which are, again, perfect elements for the production of sparkling wine. Indeed, the top level of Champagne – the Grands Crus – are almost exclusively produced on the sites with the highest chalk content.

Chalk is a genius. It’s brilliant for drainage and yet it also can store moisture when there’s a drought.

Putting these elements together, you have the perfect conditions for growing Champagne. But bring climate change into play, and you have a problem. Grapes are getting more and more ripe, even in comparatively cooler vintages; the south-facing vineyards of the Côte des Blancs are warming up; weather systems are less predictable. Begging the question:

How does one of the most successful industries in the world future-proof itself?

And the answer lies in the land immediately at the other end of that celebrated Channel Tunnel. Kent and the South East of England, where sparkling wine that now gives England and France its latest cordial agreement is produced at a rapidly increasing scale.

Getting better all the time

English sparkling wine is said to be having a renaissance, but it would be more accurate to say that it’s having a naissance. The industry has improved dramatically in the last decade, and with increased production and scalability, the price point has come down to a competitive level while the quality has unquestionably ameliorated.

But what of terroir?

Well, as it happens, the soils in many areas of Kent, Sussex and Surrey, have an equally high chalk content as the soils of the hallowed growing areas of Champagne, and that’s because this area is part of the same Paris Basin that developed thick chalk layers formed by plankton fossils between 60 and 100 million years ago.

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Not only that, but the climate in the south east of England is comparable to that of Champagne 50 years ago, whereas the one degree rise in temperature in north east France has resulted in an alarming proportion of dried out grapes due to excess heat.

It’s this incredibly similar terroir that has attracted one of the biggest players in the world of Sparkling Wine: Champagne Taittinger.

Taittinger investment

The ties between renowned Champagne house Taittinger and this part of Kent are the genesis of an initiative founded on Anglo-French cooperation thanks to a decades-long friendship between Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger and British Master of Wine Patrick McGrath. Taittinger’s father, Jean, was the mayor of Reims – the capital of the champagne region – who twinned the city with Canterbury back in 1962. And it is only a few miles outside of Kent’s cathedral city that the chalk-rich site was discovered with excellent south-facing slopes and a little bit of altitude.

McGrath heads up Hatch Mansfield who have been importing Taittinger into the United Kingdom for decades.

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“Hatch Mansfield and Taittinger have obviously worked together for years and years,” confirms Patrick McGrath’s daughter, India McGrath, Domaine Evremond’s Brand Manager. “They’re going to be our agent distributors which is quite unique because obviously most English wine brands wouldn’t have an agent because they’re not importing any wine. They would just sell the wine direct from the winery. We’re actually going to give ours to Hatch Mansfield who will use their distribution links into the on-trade.”

Although the initial focus is on the UK market, using an already established distribution network is invaluable for export sales and Taittinger have agents all over the globe. This is also, perhaps, the reason why the estate has the confidence to make quite so much wine. McGrath says the aim is to produce around 400,000 bottles.

The Estate

Domaine Evremond sits in the countryside next to the quaint 15th-Century village of Chilham, near Canterbury. At 52.1 degrees north, it is just outside of the historic wine growing parameters but climate change is ripping up the text books. And although the French are possibly the last people that would actually purchase English sparkling wine, they know what it takes to make it, and to keep making it when their traditional region is no longer suitable. Humans being sent to Mars to escape a burning planet is several jumps too far, but you get the point.

The 125 hectare (with almost half of that under vine) estate is named after, and symbolised by, curious 17th century figure Charles St Evremond. The poet, literary critic and soldier found himself unwelcome in this native France, despite his military achievements, after having been somewhat outspoken on his government’s foreign policy after the end of the Franco-Spanish war. He fled to England but, most crucially, brought champagne with him. No surprise, then, that Charles II decided to embrace his residency and offer him a pension.

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He can be found in Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey – where he is the lone Frenchman – and under his marble bust sits his emblem, that of a five-leaved flower, or cinquefoil. This symbol is now used on the estate’s first wine, the Classic Cuvée.

Not released until March 2025, the cuvée has been aged for three years on the lees (dead yeast cells that give sparkling wine toasty, brioche notes) and is a blend of the three traditional grapes used for blending in Champagne: Pinot Noir (55%), Chardonnay (35%) and Pinot Meunier (10%). It will retail for £50 (around €67), and that’s not comparatively cheap.

Grape Expectations?

McGrath admits there is pressure.

“We’ve been a company for 10 years and we haven’t released a wine yet,” she says. “So there’s a lot of expectation about the wine itself, about the quality, from the British consumers and especially from the wine scene here in Kent: Ten years in the making, one cuvée, it had better be good.”

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Evremond had all the major on-trade on trade contacts at their flagship opening, then held a welcome for fine wine merchants, and in January they are hosting a pre-release tasting with key sommeliers. But no-one outside the trade can get even a taster until 2025, so, regrettably, I can neither vouch for nor criticise the wine itself. All the ingredients are there to make an impact, even the exact same winemaking team from Taittinger cross the sea to take the reins.

Another advantage of having the ready-made distribution network is time. With the lion’s share of the sales headaches already taken care of, India and her team have fewer distractions from other key projects.

“We can spend now quite a lot of time about thinking about the visitor experience, how to offer something really premium, how to grow the business, how to be super ESG conscious,” says McGrath.

The space is vast and the view gorgeous, so visitors will certainly want to hang around after a tasting or a tour.

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There are other Anglo-French elements at work to hone the project as a whole. Mark Gaskin, who originally owned the orchards where the company planted the first 20 hectares, continues to work his old land, but he does so in conjunction with crack viticulturalist Christelle Rinville. Her expertise as Taittinger’s Vineyard manager for nearly a decade, coupled with Gaskin’s unique knowledge of the immediate terroir, makes for a fine pairing.

This land is no stranger to horticulture, as evidenced by landscaping guru Marian Boswall’s fascinating explanation of how topography influences not only design but biodiversity. The declining numbers of turtle doves in the UK, for example, have inspired an initiative to bring them back and allow them to thrive in their ideal habitat.

“There’s been amazing work on turtle dove conservation and we’re having beehives put in,” says McGrath, proudly. “And we have a huge number of wildflower meadows that the government pay us subsidies for. We’ve replanted all the hedgerows that were taken out, loads of trees. So a lot of effort has been spent.”

Open chequebook?

Speaking of spent, what exactly is the investment?

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“The investment has been around 17 million,” McGrath confirms. “The original land, we’re very lucky, we bought at quite a good price. The more recent land we’ve bought has been four times as much. The total cost of the winery… we’re still not there. And so we still haven’t got a total figure. They’ve estimated it’s between 17 and 18. I think everyone’s aware it’s going to come out at much more.”

English Sparkling wine, though largely domestic in its sales focus, has made significant forays into global channels. Nyetimber for example is already available in at least 24 countries and their recent showing in Shanghai will extend that footprint further.

Domaine Evremond will need time to establish itself and hone the marketing of its single cuvée, but with the investment, the Taittinger savoir-faire, the distribution network and the invaluable chalk basin, it has certainly been set up to sparkle.