Drinking for England

Ben McFarland meets Frazer Thompson of New Wave English Wines, a company hoping to boost the popularity of the home-grown tipple.

Not a lot of people know this, but in between chopping off the heads of his wives, causing trouble with European neighbours and eating and drinking rather a lot, Henry VIII also found time to put a huge spanner in the works of the English wine industry.

His decision to dissolve the monasteries, as part of his purge of the Catholic Church, signalled the end of a long established wine-making tradition in England.

Five hundred years ago it may be, but it's a setback from which English winemakers have never really managed to recover from.

Efforts to reawaken homegrown wine in the 1960s and then again in the 1980s proved fruitless. Today, English wine commands an absolutely miniscule share of the UK's nine billion litre wine market and it is rare to see any examples on a supermarket shelf or pub or restaurant wine list.

However, there are more than 350 vineyards in England with one or two sited as far north as Lancashire and Yorkshire. While the vast majority - 80 per cent - are small holdings and sell their wines directly from the vineyard or locally, three of the largest English producers - Tenterden, Lamberhurst and Carr-Taylor - are looking to carve a potentially valuable and profitable niche in the UK wine market.

Previously known as English Wines Plc, the joint venture has been relaunched under the moniker of New Wave English Wines (NWEW) and is the latest stage in what is being dubbed an English wine revolution.

The development of new wave wine in England started about 10 years ago under the influence of Australian winemakers who brought in dried yeasts, stainless steel temperature controlled vats, proper winery analysis and a passion for making high quality wines.

NWEW is being spearheaded by managing director Frazer Thompson (pictured)​, a man who has switched from grain to grape having spent 16 years in the beer industry.

Frazer joined the company at the end of last year after 11 years at Whitbread and five at Heineken as the brewer's global marketing director. He has set his sights on doubling the size of English wine within five years and believes this can be achieved by applying the same marketing principles used in the beer industry.

"There's a huge lesson to be learnt from the beer companies," he said. "The same ideals of price, quality, distribution, awareness, image, packaging and innovation can be applied to make English wine work.

"Brewers are great at going on the front foot and always being positive about what they are saying about their business but the English wine trade has always been very apologetic about what it does and that needs to change."

Frazer has kick-started the NWEW crusade by rationalising, repackaging and revamping the portfolio of wines, which now consists of 11 still wines and six sparkling varietals.

Jones Knowles Ritchie, a design company that has worked with Interbrew and Bacardi, was brought in to modernise the labelling while the range has also been extended with the launch of three new blends of white wine called Fumé, Aromatic and Empire Zest.

The sparkling wines have been launched as Chappel Down, while the red and white still wines have all been rebranded under the name Curious Grape - so called because of the unfamiliar grape varieties such as Bacchus (named after the god of drinking), Reichensteiner, Schonburger, Ortega, Dornfelder or Huxelrebe. The Curious Grae range is pictured top.​

"We have deliberately focused attention on our unusual grapes by branding a range with the name Curious Grape. We are proud of the quality that these grapes produce. Early winemakers often planted the wrong varieties and we have learned from their mistakes."

Although the new approach is based on the lessons and techniques of New World wine, Frazer insists that the future of English wine does not lie in trying to copy the styles of other countries.

"English wines have only been around in commercial quantities for 30 years and started off by copying the French or Germans - which didn't get them anywhere.

"We're not apeing French, German, Australian or anybody else's wines. We're making the best wine possible from grapes that grow well in England. We use New World wine techniques alongside traditional techniques. But the result is always different, interesting and delicious," says Frazer.

Frazer is targeting what he calls the ABC group - Anything But Chardonnay. "Pubs are groaning under the pressure of chardonnay and people are beginning to get tired of it - you know things have gone too far when it becomes the name of a footballer's wife!

"We're looking to target the 42 per cent of UK wine drinkers who purport to be 'wine explorers', those drinkers who are looking for something new, different and challenging, and we need to let them know it's right here on their doorstep."

Frazer concedes that there is a lot of work to do in terms of changing consumer perception but he believes that English wine can gain a following in a pub market still gripped by European wines.

"The French have been making wine for a thousand years and still churn out millions of bottles of very poor wine. The bottles find their way onto our shelves because of ludicrous French government subsidies - and a misguided belief that the French can only make good wine.

"Saying all French wine is the best is like saying the English football team is the best just because we invented the game".

In an effort to get people to set their often negative preconceptions to one side and try English wine for the first time, drinkers are being offered their money back if they don't like the new range.

"There's a huge amount of goodwill among wine drinkers and they really want English wine to do well, but there is still an understandable risk factor when it comes to actually parting with their hard-earned cash.

"The challenge for English wine is to take the risk out of the purchase and as an embryonic industry we know we can't afford to make one bad bottle. We can't afford a Gary Neville - each one of them has to be a David Beckham," added Frazer.

With 2002 being the year of the Golden Jubilee and patriotism high in anticipation of the forthcoming World Cup, it is as good a time as any for publicans to experiment with an English varietal on their wine list.

Frazer added: "What better way to celebrate England winning the World Cup than with a bottle of Chappel Down Fizz?"

I'm sure the French will have something to say about that!

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