Duncan Schwab
Sharpham Wine has a new home at Sandridge Barton near Stoke Gabriel. Anita Newcombe drops in to chat to CEO Duncan Schwab at their established vineyard, with its new visitor centre and restaurant.
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often cruise along the Stoke Gabriel Road while out jogging so I’ve been watching the new Sandridge Barton Visitor Centre gradually emerge. Well now it’s open and already offering wine and cheese tastings and tours plus a shop and restaurant. CEO Duncan Schwab tells me that while Sharpham’s original vineyard near Totnes was planted 40 years ago, the owners have grown vines for Sharpham Wine at Sandridge Barton since 2008. Maurice Ash brought his herd of Jersey cows to the Sharpham Estate 40 years ago and planted a vineyard in an early bid to produce English wine. Since then Sharpham has produced some of England’s finest wines, winning many awards along the way. The new site at Sandridge Barton will enable the business to develop further varieties such as Bacchus, Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay as well as the ever-popular Madeleine Angevine white wine grape from the Loire. Duncan tells me that he had been a wine maker for Sharpham Wine for many years prior to becoming its CEO. Born in Kenya and raised in Lebanon (the family had to escape by driving through Syria and Turkey when war started) he’d later been sent to boarding school in Truro while his family remained abroad. Holidays were
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spent in Kuwait or Cyprus with his parents or Cornwall with his grandparents. Retiring in the early 1980s, his father had planted vines in Cornwall at Golant on the River Fowey. Having trained as a land surveyor, Duncan was able to survey the fields for his father’s proposed vineyard. He tells me, “I thought Dad was bonkers – planting vines was a relatively new idea for England.” Nevertheless, Duncan was able to estimate how many vines could be introduced and subsequently helped with the planting. With just three acres, the Schwabs were soon making good wine and their first-ever white wine won a silver award. However the vineyard could not sustain two owners and so Duncan applied to Sharpham in 1992, being taken on as a winemaker, loving the beautiful location. The Sharpham Estate famed for its wine and cheese, had become a charitable trust in 1982. This saved the estate following the death of its owner Maurice Ash and Mark Sharman became its CEO. Duncan explains, “At Sharpham Wine, we became victims of our own success as we were receiving 20,000 visitors a year at a centre which was not really large enough.” Duncan became CEO in 2018 when Mark Sharman
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