English sparkling wine is going global – here’s how to invest

0Josh Donaghay-Spire, the head wine producer at England’s largest winemaker, at the Chapel Down vineyard – Paul Grover for The TelegraphEnglish sparkling wine is no longer the plucky underdog to champagne.

Wine-lovers are flocking from Europe, Japan and North America to the south of England to tour the vineyards of one of the world’s newest wine regions.

Hit by droughts and stiffer competition from the English sparkling wine houses, renowned champagne producers such as Taittinger and Pommery have bought land in the Kent countryside.

Germany’s Henkell Freixenet, the world’s largest sparkling wine producer, purchased the English wine estate Bolney in 2022 as the region’s warmer climates and chalk soils continue to produce award-winning bubbly.

“There’s a spirit of innovation in English wine because we’re not constrained by the centuries of tradition that they are in champagne,” says Josh Donaghay-Spire, the head wine producer at Chapel Down, England’s largest winemaker.

The opportunities to make money from investing in wine are growing as the industry expands.

Zoe Dearsley, of Nyetimber – England’s second-largest sparkling wine producer – says: “We’re starting to see people choosing to invest in English prestige cuvées as collectors’ items. The increasing number of accolades and the ageing ability of these wines has helped to instil trust in their long-term potential.”

Telegraph Money explains how to sort the wheat from the chaff and boost the odds of lucrative returns.

The basic premise of investing in wine is straightforward: buy wine, store it in the right conditions and sell it later when the value has risen.

Wine’s value is not closely linked to traditional economic indicators such as employment and growth. Instead, as a tangible asset much like gold or property, it performs well against inflation, and consequently should be seen as a diversifier in a portfolio.

If stored in the wrong conditions, however, it can spoil and become worthless.

As a result, wine falls under HMRC’s definition of a “wasting asset” – deemed to have a useful life of a maximum 50 years – making it exempt from capital gains tax. Tax also does not apply to most personal possessions worth less than £6,000.

Fine wine merchants such as Corney & Barrow and Berry Bros & Rudd will store buyers’ wine at optimum temperature until it’s ready to drink, or sell on.

English vineyards have produced a plethora of award-winning vintages, with 2009, 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2025 considered to be some of the best of recent years.

Matthew Small, the head of investment at WineFi, says: “Global warming is starting to have an effect, which makes [southern England] over the next 10 to 20 years a very exciting place.”

But selecting which English wines to invest in takes careful consideration.

Prestige cuvées – the highest quality sparkling wine a producer makes – have the greatest chance of ageing well, according to Laura Rhys, a master sommelier. These include Gusbourne’s Fifty One Degrees North 2016, Chapel Down’s Kit’s Coty coeur de cuvée 2016 and Nyetimber’s 1086.

These top-quality wines are still young, however, and it’s too early to know whether they will age well and are worthy of long-term investment.

Small adds: “Fine wine investing is premised on the idea that the wines have the ability to age. We don’t know yet whether these wines have a 30-year age profile like the top champagnes do.”

The alternative is to invest in the wine producers themselves.

Chapel Down is currently the only English producer to be publicly listed on London’s Aim – a stock market dedicated to providing access to shares in smaller companies.

Shares in the Kent-based producer are up 17.1pc so far this year, but are still trading almost 43pc below early 2024. Chapel Down boasts more than 10,000 retail shareholders.

Companies such as Naked Wines also offer retail investors the chance to invest in wine producers across the UK, US and Australia.

Spread over the rolling Kent hills just an hour from London lies Champagne’s new competition.

Chapel Down has been growing grapes in Kent’s chalky terroir since 1977, but the business has boomed in recent years. The vines’ deep roots that burrow into the chalk soil allow grapes to grow even during the driest of summers.

Its vineyards on the outskirts of the leafy town of Tenterden are spread across 1,000 acres of English countryside, and it welcomes visitors for tours and tastings throughout the year.

As England’s largest sparkling wine house, Chapel Down is on a mission to remove champagne from its perch as the go-to bottle when popping a cork.

“Our competition is not Ashling Park [another southern English wine producer],” Donaghay-Spire says. “Our competition, and where we’re taking market share, is champagne.

“Moët is the number one champagne brand leader. As a challenger region, we’ve got to be aiming at the top and be able to unseat our competition.”

At houses such as Chapel Down, tasting rooms and a vineyard shop overlook some of the vines, allowing visitors to inspect future harvests while sipping on previous vintages.

Donaghay-Spire explains that drinkers leave the vineyard thinking, “should I buy a generic champagne which I can’t really connect to, or should I buy an English brand that I know I can visit?”

English sparkling wine has already held its own against some of the very best champagne in blind tastings.

Unlike champagne, however, English sparkling is not as tightly regulated. While champagne must be bottled in green or tinted bottles, English sparkling can use much darker bottles, some of which are a jet or matte black.

According to Donaghay-Spire, this can help to protect flavour and reduce the chance of the wine spoiling.

The range of grapes permitted for English sparkling production is also broader than the pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot meunier mandated for most champagnes.

Despite this, most sparkling wine drinkers in Britain remain loyal to their traditional favourites.

Among consumers of sparkling wine, only 46pc are aware of Chapel Down and 40pc are aware of Nyetimber, compared with 86pc who know Moët, according to Chapel Down’s own research.

Chapel Down still only represents 0.4pc of the total champagne market. But as English wine continues to win awards for its vintages, the region has attracted more international visitors eager to taste the fruits of the South Downs soil.

Viticulture enthusiasts from Europe, the US and Japan have descended on southern England in droves.

“Most of our foreign visitors come from Norway,” says Gail Gardner, the owner of Ashling Park Estate in West Sussex. “They love English sparkling wine.”

Gusbourne – a boutique Kent winery – has increased its wine exports to 40 different countries in the past few years.

Chapel Down, the sparkling wine partner of quintessential English days out, such as England and Wales cricket, Royal Ascot and the Boat Race, has made gains across the pond too.

It is now stocked in 250 Whole Foods stores and across 31 US states, with California, Texas and Florida the biggest drinkers.

For prospective investors hoping to harness this growing international appeal, the limiting factor is the difficulty in selling a bottle bought as an investment.

Small says: “It’s all well and good buying a wine that ages beautifully and tastes great, but if you can’t exit it easily on the secondary market for a profit, you can’t really crystallise those gains.”

That said, wine experts like Andrea Marino, of Cru Wine, are cautiously optimistic about English sparkling’s place in a portfolio.

“As English sparkling wine gains recognition and demand in these markets, the secondary market should improve and the investment case will strengthen considerably,” she says.

Most “alternative” assets account for just a couple of per cent of a broader investment portfolio to provide some inflation-proofing.

Within a larger fine wine collection, Small recommends a 5pc allocation to English sparkling.

“The way we look at fine wine is as your alternative in a portfolio. It’s a chance to take advantage of the diversification and CGT benefits. You’re taking a bet on an up-and-comer,” he says.

Because of their relative novelty, many English sparkling houses offer old-school shareholder benefits such as tastings, tours and discounts, which can provide a tangibility to a speculative investment. So investing in a nearby vineyard can offer more than just financial returns.

Marino adds: “English sparkling is a young category, but many of the characteristics that make it appealing for collecting and reselling in the future are already emerging.”