Bolney Wine Estate sold to Freixenet Copestick

Freixenet Copestick (FXC), the biggest sparkling wine company in the world, has purchased the Bolney Wine Estate in Sussex. The deal was closed in January for an undisclosed sum.

Established by Janet and Rodney Pratt in 1972, Bolney was the sixth commercial vineyard to be founded in the UK. The Pratts started out with just three acres and now the estate comprises 36 acres over five vineyard sites just outside the South Downs. They focus on six key varietals: Pinot Noir, Rondo, Dornfelder, Chardonnay, Bacchus and Pinot Gris grown on soil that is mainly comprised of Upper Tunbridge Wells sand.

The head winemaker and managing director at Bolney is Sam Linter, Janet and Rodney’s daughter. Plumpton College-trained Linter has been heading up the business for 26 years.

“We were looking at where we take Bolney next” she said. “As a family, we had come to the end of the road of our ability to invest any further. To carry on growing the brand in the way we wanted, we needed someone else to come in. Otherwise, we would have remained more or less where we are with organic growth and we think Bolney deserves better than that.

“What’s really exciting about being a part of FXC is that there are other European vineyards in the group that we can go and learn from - finding out about what they do and what works for them. And hopefully they can learn from us as well,” said Sam.

Sam and her team found an agent in early 2021 to connect them with potential buyers that would share their aspirations for the brand. Although he passed away in June 2021, Sam’s father Rodney had been deeply involved in the decision making process around the sale. “He started the brand originally and could see the bigger picture,” Sam said. “He wanted Bolney to develop and move on, so he thought it was sensible and beneficial to do what we have done.”

Janet Pratt, a real pioneer of women in the English wine trade, sadly passed away 15 years ago just when the business was really beginning to grow. Sam said: “She worked so hard out in the vineyard every single day to make what we planted work. She learned everything practically by herself and passed that knowledge on to others, including showing me and my brother that if you have a dream you can achieve it by working hard.”

FXC has bought into the family-orientated nature of the business, something that works well within its portfolio. Freixenet itself is still a family-run business, founded in 1861 and now under the control of the fifth generation from founder Francesc Sala Ferrés. Sam Linter’s leadership and experience is part and parcel of the package that FXC have purchased, and she will “make sure Bolney stays Bolney.”

Bolney Wine Estate has already benefitted from significant internal investment in recent years, including a new winery which was completed in 2019. This was part funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development via a grant from Coast to Capital and DEFRA. They produce 250,000-300,000 bottles per year with capacity for 500,000 bottles.

Before Covid-19, the estate secured planning permission for a new shop, café and tasting rooms along with turning the current café into a restaurant with a wine bar and event rooms. Lockdown paused the work, but the new investment and lifting of restrictions will allow these elements to be picked back up. Tens of thousands of visitors already come to the vineyard each year and it is envisioned that the hospitality offer will be greatly improved in the coming years.

FXC’s head of marketing, Lucy Auld said: “We will be very committed to producing a fantastic experience for visitors to the winery and we see DTC (direct to consumer) as a very important side to promoting English wines.”

The sale will also increase opportunities for Bolney to make improvements to the sustainability of the business. Plans are in place to investigate cover crops, recycling waste water and using electrical machinery to save on fuel, including purchasing an electric tractor. Bolney says it is also interested in the work that breweries like Australia’s Young Henrys are doing with climate change scientists to use microalgaes to capture carbon dioxide released during the brewing process and convert it into oxygen rather than being released into the atmosphere.

In terms of product, Bolney’s sale to FXC will open up new markets globally. Bolney has exported its wines for many years already to core markets in China, Japan, Norway, the US and the Netherlands as well as recently starting to explore the marketplace in Singapore and Dubai. FXC is said to be ‘enthusiastic' about the future possibilities for the Bolney brand.

“We would like to see the wines being sold in all sectors but the concentration for us will be on premium retailers, restaurants, e-Commerce and DTC,” said Lucy Auld. “The wines of Bolney already have good distribution but by now being part of Freixenet Copestick there will be a natural lift in sales in all areas. As part of the Henkell Freixenet Group our reach is worldwide and we do see strong potential in the export market for Bolney wines.”

The only thing holding them back initially will be volume, stated FXC. This is a limiting factor for the growth of both English still and sparkling wines on the global stage. Bolney’s heritage is in still wine production. Now in its 50th year, the real success with sparkling wine only started about halfway through their story. Alongside the fizz, Sam sees their red Pinot Noir as a hero wine, but it sells out quickly. Future expansion will help to bring the sparkling wine to additional global markets but there is a potential to see more growth in the export of still wine as capacity grows.

With her WineGB hat on, as chair of the board of directors, Sam hopes that the sale is good news for the market as a whole. “Our industry has come such a long way in the last 20 years, and it has changed even more rapidly in the last five. Somebody like Freixenet Copestick Ltd purchasing an English winery shows the level of interest and confidence the rest of the world now has in English wine. That is testament to the hard work of everyone in the English and Welsh wine industries,” said Sam.