Wine History of Sussex

Key eras

Roman and medieval vines on the chalk

Wiston Estate's own history dates grape growing on the soft chalk slopes of the South Downs to the Romans, two millennia ago. Nyetimber's record traces its valley, written Nitimbreha, to the Domesday survey of 1086. Neither line of planting survived into the modern era. What Sussex kept from it was the geology: a seam of chalk running the length of the Downs from the Hampshire border to Beachy Head.

Hambledon and the post-war replanting

The modern English industry starts just over the county line. Major-General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones planted a south facing chalk slope at Hambledon in Hampshire in 1952, after a conversation with his stepson the previous summer and with help and advice from friends at the Champagne house Pol Roger. The first commercial English wines followed in 1955. The template, chalk plus Champagne technique, is the one Sussex would later build on.

Vines return to the Sussex Weald, 1972

Rodney and Janet Pratt put vines into a smallholding at Bolney in 1972, on the sandstone of the mid Sussex Weald rather than on chalk. The estate has been planting ever since: it recycled 58 tonnes of old vines in its 2026 replanting project and put 16,000 new vines in the ground that spring.

Peter Hall plants Breaky Bottom, 1974

The Hall family had farmed pigs in a fold of the Downs above Rodmell since 1968 when Peter Hall planted six acres of free draining chalk loam with flint, two miles from the Channel, to Seyval Blanc and Muller-Thurgau in 1974. The still whites built the vineyard's name: the 1990 Seyval Blanc took a gold medal at the 1993 International Wine Challenge.

Organic viticulture arrives, 1979

Roy Cook established Sedlescombe at Cripps Corner in the High Weald in 1979 and farmed it without chemicals from the start. The estate now works 22 acres of vines and says its wines are certified organic or biodynamic by the Biodynamic Association UK. Organic growing in Sussex dates from that planting.

The Champagne varieties reach West Chiltington, 1988

Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier went into the ground at Nyetimber in 1988, on the greensand and chalk in the lee of the South Downs. Eric Heerema became owner in 2006 and Cherie Spriggs and Brad Greatrix joined as winemakers in 2007. Planting all three Champagne varieties together, rather than the German crossings most English growers used, set the pattern the county now follows.

Ridgeview and the Ditchling Common cellars, 1995

Mike and Christine Roberts planted their first vines beneath the South Downs at Ditchling Common in 1995, dug underground wine cellars in 1999 and released a first bottling in 2000 that won English Wine of the Year. Bloomsbury 2002 took the IWSC Best International Sparkling Wine in 2005, Mike Roberts was appointed MBE in 2011, and Simon Roberts took over as head winemaker in 2014.

The switch to traditional method sparkling

Peter Hall made his first sparkling brut from 100 per cent Seyval Blanc in 1995 and released it in 2000 as Millennium Cuvee Maman Mercier, then added the three Champagne varieties in 2002 and 2004. Wiston planted its first chalk vineyard to Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in 2006, with Dermot Sugrue arriving to make the wine in 2007. Within a decade sparkling had become the county's main product.

Plumpton College and the trained generation

The wine division at Plumpton College, under the Downs near Lewes, runs degrees, apprenticeships and short courses for the English trade from a purpose built Wine Centre with a commercial winery, a research winery, laboratories and a sensory evaluation room, alongside a 10 hectare vineyard making 40,000 bottles a year. The college holds the Queen's Anniversary Prize for its work in wine education and marks its centenary in 2026 to 2027.

The Sussex protected designation of origin, 2022

An application lodged on 15 April 2021 was registered on 5 July 2022 as a protected designation of origin for Sussex wine on the UK register. WineGB describes it as the UK's first regional PDO and says it stipulates a minimum of 15 months in bottle, which is why a sparkling wine poured at a Sussex cellar door was picked at least two autumns earlier.

Sussex today

Wine Standards figures quoted by WineGB for 2025 put Sussex at 1,132 hectares of vines, against 4,489 hectares for England as a whole. WineGB calls the county the birthplace of traditional method sparkling made from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, and the independent Sussex Wine Company directory now lists more than thirty producers across the two counties, from Chichester to Winchelsea.

Influences

• Champagne: Pol Roger advised the 1952 Hambledon planting, and the three Champagne varieties now account for most Sussex acreage. Traditional method, not tank, is the county default.
• The South Downs chalk: A free draining chalk seam runs from the Hampshire border to Beachy Head. Wiston, Rathfinny, Ridgeview, Court Garden and Breaky Bottom all sit on or against it.
• The Weald sandstone and greensand: Away from the chalk, the sandy soils around Pulborough, Bolney and East Grinstead carry the still whites: Bacchus, Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Solaris.
• Plumpton College: The college runs wine degrees, apprenticeships and short courses alongside a commercial winery on site, and supplies much of the county's winemaking and vineyard staff.
• Winemakers moving between estates: Dermot Sugrue made the wine at Wiston from 2007 before building Sugrue South Downs across five chalk vineyards, a pattern of shared technique that runs through the county.
• The organic and biodynamic growers: Sedlescombe from 1979, Oxney under Soil Association certification and Tillingham's polyculture farm at Peasmarsh give the eastern Weald a distinct low input character.

Signature innovations

• Underground wine cellars dug at Ridgeview in 1999, cut into the Ditchling Common slope
• A minimum of 15 months in bottle written into the Sussex PDO, registered on 5 July 2022
• Seyval Blanc kept for traditional method sparkling at Breaky Bottom and Oxney while most of the county moved to the Champagne varieties
• Polyculture farming at Tillingham, where 70 acres carry vines alongside fruit trees, ancient woodland and livestock
• Certified organic growing from 1979 at Sedlescombe and across 35 acres at Oxney, where fining, filtration and SO2 are all kept to a minimum
• Vineyard lodges and estate stays, from Tinwood's eight lodges at Halnaker to the Hobbit House at Oastbrook
• Contemporary art hung against the vines at Artelium, and a gin school run alongside the tasting room at Ashling Park