Grape Britannia, Chesterton Road’s award-winning English and Welsh wine specialist, celebrates its fifth birthday this week.
Owner Matt Hodgson says the business has been boosted by the quality of wines coming through. According to the most recent figures released by Wine GB, the national association for the English and Welsh wine industry, the number of hectares planted with vines in Great Britain has grown by a staggering 74% in 5 years, with almost 4,000 hectares under vine.
There are now an impressive 943 commercial vineyards in England and Wales, with 2023’s bumper yields leading to an estimated production of 20-22 million bottles of wine – smashing the previous annual record set in 2018 of 13 million bottles.
“It’s an exhilarating time for the English and Welsh wine industry,” says Matt. “ Consumers are savouring the world-class quality of UK wines as well as choosing a future with more sustainable locally-sourced product.”
Matt adds: “In some ways it’s been a tricky time to be a new business – Covid hit when we’d been open for under nine months – but with the amazing support of our customers we’re now lucky enough to be established on Mitcham’s Corner and with a fabulous expanded team.”
There are 250 top-quality English and Welsh wines at Grape Britannia, along with a selection of meads, gins and local beers.
“I hope that the long summer evenings ahead of us will encourage people to pick out something new and give English and Welsh wines a try!” said Matt.
Customers visiting the shop between 28-30 June who sign up to the monthly newsletter will be in with the chance to win five bottles of fizz – one for each year the independent wine merchant has been open.
