Cover of Vines in a Cold Climate by Henry Jeffreys, a book on the English wine revolution

Book Notes: Henry Jeffreys – Vines in a Cold Climate (2023)

ByDenys van Kempen
TitleVines in a Cold Climate – The People Behind the English Wine Revolution
AuthorHenry Jeffreys
PublisherAtlantic Books (Allen & Unwin imprint), London
Date3 August 2023 (hardback) · 6 June 2024 (paperback)
ISBN978-1-83895-665-3 (hardback) · 978-1-83895-667-7 (paperback) · 978-1-83895-666-0 (e-book)
Pages304
FormatHardback, paperback, e-book, audiobook (read by the author)
ExcerptGoogle Books
AwardsFortnum & Mason Drink Book of the Year 2024; shortlisted James Beard, Guild of Food Writers 2024; longlisted André Simon 2023; New York Times best wine books of 2023
SynopsisNineteen reported chapters on how England went from hobbyist Müller-Thurgau in the 1970s to a sparkling-wine industry compared with Champagne, told through the people who planted, financed, made and sold it.

About the Author

Henry Jeffreys studied English and Classical Literature at Leeds, worked in the wine trade and in publishing, and was wine critic for The Lady before turning to drinks writing full-time. He was features editor of the Master of Malt blog (2018–2024), is drinks columnist for The Critic, and contributes to the Guardian, Spectator and BBC Good Food. Fortnum & Mason named him Drink Writer of the Year 2022/23. Earlier books: Empire of Booze (2016), The Home Bar (2018), The Cocktail Dictionary (2020). He lives in Faversham, Kent – which puts him a short drive from Domaine Evremond, Simpsons and Chapel Down, and explains the road-trip texture of the book.

On method, Jeffreys has since written that he began the book in 2022 knowing almost none of the producers personally, and that keeping distance from the hospitality is what allows the business chapters to stay unsentimental.

About the Book

Not a guidebook. Skelton, Clarke and Dallimore already cover the where-to-visit format (see Relevant Literature below); Jeffreys writes reportage. Each chapter is built round visits and interviews – Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom, the Mosses who planted Nyetimber, Frazer Thompson fending off bailiffs at Chapel Down, Patrick McGrath on why Taittinger bought land rather than a winery – and the chapters read as standalone essays, which is both the charm and the limitation reviewers noted.

Two threads run through the whole book. First, money: who paid for the vineyards (retired majors, hedge-fund alumni, Dutch and American investors, Champagne houses) and whether any of it has yet earned a return. Second, the argument about what English wine should be – traditional-method sparkling on chalk, or still Chardonnay and Pinot Noir on Essex clay.

Chapter Summary

  1. Introduction. Taittinger planting vines outside Faversham in May 2017, a week after frost took up to 80% of some crops; the “Judgement of Parsons Green” (2011) and the 2016 Paris tasting; how the author came round first to the sparklers, then to the stills.
  2. False starts. Roman and medieval traces, Painshill in the 18th century, and Edward Hyams – historian, novelist, Soil Association founder – who found the Wrotham Pinot growing against a Kent wall.
  3. The bloody awful weather years. Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom (planted 1974), Stephen Skelton on the “crusty major-generals”, and why German crosses (Müller-Thurgau, Seyval Blanc, Reichensteiner) were the only rational choice.
  4. Ambition and money. Stuart and Sandy Moss, Chicago Americans who bought Nyetimber in 1986 and planted only Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier – the decision that set the Champagne model.
  5. Bubbling under. Tony Laithwaite’s Theale vineyard on a rubble heap by the M4; Ridgeview and the Roberts family; the first international trophies.
  6. Not going tits up. Chapel Down from Isle of Wight origins to a £100m AIM-listed company; Frazer Thompson and Owen Elias.
  7. Money men. Eric Heerema’s purchase and rebuilding of Nyetimber; the Wine Garden of England group in Kent; who is actually funding the boom.
  8. Foreign affairs. Pommery’s Louis Pommery England with Hattingley Valley; Taittinger and Hatch Mansfield buying land at Chilham; Didier Pierson beating them all to it in 2005.
  9. Fizz wars. The Charmat controversy – why Charlie Holland at Gusbourne and others think tank-method English fizz could damage the category; a history of how Champagne learned to sparkle.
  10. Big wine. Around 500 growers but only about 100 producers: contract winemaking at Hambledon, Hattingley, Three Choirs and Halfpenny Green.
  11. Small wine. Ben Walgate’s Tillingham – qvevri, flor, sourdough pizza – and what “natural” means in East Sussex.
  12. Organic growth. Will Davenport, one of very few certified organic growers, on mildew, weeds and why organics in a damp climate is science rather than hippiedom.
  13. Grape expectations. Bacchus versus the Burgundy varieties; the case, argued by Sergio Verrillo among others, that the crosses have no future.
  14. Eastern promise. Essex and the Crouch Valley: London clay rather than chalk, the ripest fruit in England, John Atkinson at Danbury Ridge looking for “our Pétrus”.
  15. Urban wineries. Railway arches and the drinks trade; Chris Wilson at Gutters & Stars; Blackbook and other London cellars buying in English fruit.
  16. Tourist attractions. Oastbrook, Tillingham-as-Soho-House, and the shift from vineyard to visitor business.
  17. Reaching the customer. Ruth and Charles Simpson, who priced Central Otago and Margaret River before choosing Kent; distribution, supermarkets, cellar door.
  18. Storm clouds ahead. The 2022 glass shortage after Verallia’s Ukrainian plant closed; Brexit, labour, inflation.
  19. Warming up. Climate change as opportunity and hazard; frost; Bob Lindo of Camel Valley on the “creeping catastrophe”.
  20. Good for England. The sceptics’ case (Alder Yarrow, an unnamed Australian at the London Wine Fair) and Jeffreys’ own verdict on where quality stands.

Reviews

The book was widely reviewed in the UK national press on publication; the publisher collects the quotes. Independent reviews with more to say:

  • Simon Heffer, Literary Review – on the money that has gone into (and out of) English vineyards, and the discovery that north-east Essex is prime terroir
  • Decanter (2024 books round-up) – affable and award-laden, with fair caveats: repetition between essay-chapters, typos, thin wider context
  • Simon J Woolf, The Morning Claret – places the book against the 2019–2023 guidebook cluster (Skelton, Clarke, Dallimore, Moulton & Bell)
  • David Crossley, Wide World of Wine – credits Jeffreys for asking whether every £40–50 English sparkler earns its price

English Wine: The Wider Picture

The book closes its research in 2022. The figures below are the current ones, so the reader can see how far the story has moved in three years.

Key figures

Theme2021 (book era)2025/26What changed
Scalec. 3,800 ha, c. 900 vineyards4,841 ha, 1,158 vineyardsGrowth continues but slower than the 2015–20 planting rush the book describes
Output vs. weather8.95 m bottles; 13.2 m peak (2018)10.7 m (2024) → 16.5 m (2025)Vintage swings of ±50% remain the defining fact; 2025 was the ripest harvest recorded
Sparkling vs. still70 / 3070 / 30Still wine has not gained share, despite the Essex narrative of chapter 13
Market9.3 m bottles sold9.1 m sold (2024); exports 9%Sales flat while output rises — the stock overhang Jeffreys anticipates in “Storm clouds ahead”
Geography & grapesChalk counties; Champagne trio = 71% of plantingsEssex now third county; Chardonnay 33%, Pinot Noir 30%; 99 varietiesClay is winning plantings; the German crosses of chapter 12 are fading

Sources:

Appellations

England has no Champagne-style hierarchy; it has one county PDO and a queue. Sussex entered the UK GI register on 5 July 2022 – the application dated from 2015, was cleared by DEFRA in 2016 and then waited on Brussels until Brexit made it a domestic decision. Sussex sparkling must spend at least 15 months on lees and pass a tasting panel. Jamie Goode argued against it at the time on the grounds that county boundaries are not terroir. The Crouch Valley (Essex) applied for PDO status on 7 March 2023 and, as of January 2026, is still listed as “under consideration” – the regulatory expression of chapter 13. A Natural Wine of Wales PGI application followed in August 2025.

Sources:

The producers, three years on

Several of the book’s cliffhangers have resolved.

Domaine Evremond (Taittinger & Hatch Mansfield), Chilham, Kent

The vines Jeffreys watched being planted in 2017 became a winery, two-thirds underground, opened by the Duchess of Edinburgh on 26 September 2024. Classic Cuvée Edition I (55% Pinot Noir, 35% Chardonnay, 10% Meunier; 2020 base with 2019 reserve; disgorged August 2024) was released in spring 2025 at £50. Edition II followed in 2026.

Gusbourne, Appledore, Kent

Founded 2004 by Andrew Weeber; Lord Ashcroft’s vehicle became majority owner. In 2024 Ashcroft put the company up for sale; no buyer emerged, and Gusbourne delisted from AIM in February 2025 to concentrate on direct-to-consumer sales. Ranked among the top three in the 2026 Top Wineries of Great Britain tasting.

Chapel Down, Tenterden, Kent

England’s largest producer ran a strategic review in June 2024 that included a possible sale; it concluded in October 2024 with the company staying independent on AIM, a weak 2024 harvest warning and a new winery planned for the 2026 vintage.

Nyetimber, West Chiltington, West Sussex

Eric Heerema’s estate (chapter 6) took Champion Sparkling Wine and Sparkling Winemaker of the Year (Cherie Spriggs) at the International Wine Challenge 2025, and placed first in the 2026 Top Wineries of Great Britain blind tasting judged by Anthony Rose, Young Shi and Rosemary George MW.

Essex: Danbury Ridge and the Crouch Valley

Chapter 13’s prediction is holding. Essex is now the third most planted county; Danbury Ridge announced a joint venture with Domaine Duroché of Gevrey-Chambertin in 2026, and Jackson Family Wines’ Essex label Marbury released a first Pinot Noir from the 2024 vintage.

Relevant Literature

The book arrived at the end of a five-year run of English-wine titles. Read together they divide into guidebooks, a coffee-table book, and this one piece of narrative reporting.

Videos & Podcasts

Vines In a Cold Climate: The People Behind the… by Henry Jeffreys · Audiobook preview
  • The Drinking Hour, episode 121 (David Kermode, Club Oenologique, August 2023) – on the “difficult characters” and the 2018 vintage as the arrival of English still wine

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Last updated: September 2026

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