As temperatures rise, the British wine industry is booming. The 2023 harvest was record-breaking, producing 21 million bottles, a rise of 77 per cent from 2022.
And now, some are swapping the drudgery of the 9-5 to invest in vineyards and rural life. Here, Chris Reynolds, 38, explains why he has no regrets about relocating to the Wiltshire countryside with his young family.
I enjoy a glass of wine as much as anyone else, but it wasn’t an obsession. I did not grow up going on vineyard holidays in the south of France, and I do not come from an agricultural background, let alone viticulture. Leaving my corporate job and buying a vineyard really came from a desire to do something different with my life. I could have moved from one Big Four consultancy firm to another, but I wanted to do something more tangible.
Life in London was hard. I was working long hours and long days. At its worst, I was waking up at five in the morning, getting a train into central London at five thirty, and not getting home until midnight. Most days, I was on an eight-to-eight kind of schedule. It was intense.
I moved in 2012 and met Louise, my future wife, shortly after. We were both in graduate programmes and building fairly intense careers. At the time, I was a management consultant doing very theoretical, advisory work such as strategy, operations, digital and AI. Over the 12 years we lived in the city, we found ourselves sacrificing more and more. Our list of hobbies outside work gradually dwindled, and we were often arriving late to social plans or cancelling dinners with friends altogether because of work.
That feeling really came to a head during the Covid lockdowns. Ironically, we were busier than ever. There was no furlough or beers in the park for us, just long, isolated days of work. It was exhausting. At that point, we were in our thirties, and we had a bit of a self-imposed intervention. One weekend, we took ourselves glamping in Surrey, and had a proper heart-to-heart. We asked ourselves what we were actually doing with our lives and what we really wanted.
During that weekend, we decided we wanted to move out of London. We have always tended to live below our means: our collective income was much higher than our outgoings, and we were able to build up a bank of savings over the years. So we had a safety net to start thinking about something more risky and ambitious.
As we talked it through, we started thinking about what that next chapter could look like. The idea of running a glamping site came up, and as we drove around the area, we noticed lots of vineyards. That felt interesting. It would be practical, outdoorsy, and ultimately create a lifestyle that would be good for children.
At the same time, we were very aware that viticulture and winemaking in the UK is a growing industry. One of the few silver linings of climate change is that the UK’s climate is now far better suited to growing grapes than it was 10 or 20 years ago. English wine is really thriving, and that made it feel like a viable opportunity. There is also something quite romantic about the idea of planting vines and building something from the ground up. Needless to say, we were very nervous.
The search for the right farm was difficult. We had very strict criteria. While viticulture is now more viable in the UK, site selection is still critical if you want a good chance of success. We needed land suitable for vines, space for glamping (which would make us an immediate income rather than waiting for the vines to mature), and somewhere not too far from London. That combination meant our search was long, about 18 months.
Since moving to the farm in 2023, Chris and Louise have had two sonsWe looked around Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and eventually expanded the search to Hampshire and Wiltshire. After nearly two years, we finally found a farm on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border near Salisbury. It was the first place that genuinely felt right and was even within our budget, so we grabbed it with both hands and were ready to sell our London flat.
There were a couple of others trying to buy the farm, but we offered flexibility, allowing him to continue operating for six to twelve months while he relocated. We didn’t even negotiate much on price. We could afford close to what he wanted, and after such a long search, we did not want to risk losing the place. Even if we might technically have overpaid slightly, it was worth it.
The farm offers perfect conditions for a vineyard. Ideally, you want a south-facing slope, not too high above sea level, and chalky, free-draining soils. The land was a wildflower meadow, which meant it wasn’t full of chemicals. There was also a small woodland perfect for glamping, and crucially, the five-bed farmhouse on the land was in good condition, ready for us to move straight in. We did not want to live on a building site as we had a baby on the way.
During that time, I did some viticulture training and a lot of reading, just to make sure we were not throwing everything away for something I would end up hating. But after a few months, I was convinced.
We completed the purchase in spring 2023. We moved from a poky two-bedroom ex-council flat to a 10-acre smallholding with alpacas, peacocks, chickens, and sheep. By then, we also had a six-month-old son. It was a huge adjustment. Our only continuity, thanks to Covid, was that we were able to keep our London-based jobs, and work primarily from home while we settled in and figured out how to make this new life work. I finally quit a few months ago, but Louise is still working full-time as a civil servant. She was even awarded an MBE for her work in sustainability.
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Although our outgoings are much higher now than they were in London, with a significantly larger mortgage, higher energy bills and nursery fees for our two small boys, we were still able to put some of our income each month into building the business during our evenings, weekends, and holidays. Once the glamping pods arrived and we could see a road to near-term income from the business (albeit expected to be small initially). Since I left work, we have had an income drop but we had spent the past few years planning for this.
There has definitely been stress, but it is a very different kind from what we were used to in our corporate jobs. It is largely stress of our own making, which is strangely reassuring. We are under pressure because we are trying to do a lot in a short period of time, but it is pressure towards things we actually want.
We pushed ourselves to get the vineyard planted as quickly as possible, after getting advice from experienced growers, because it takes a few years to mature.
We pushed to secure planning permission for the glamping site because once that was up and running, it would give us the option to scale back our careers as income started coming in. It was stressful, but it felt constructive.
I took a one-week viticulture course at Plumpton College in Lewes that cost around £1000, which covers site selection and the basics of planting and growing vines. I also did a lot of independent research and volunteered at vineyards, getting advice from vineyard owners. The community has been incredibly supportive and non-competitive. There is a real sense that growing the English wine industry benefits everyone.
At the moment, I do not know how to make wine in practice, only in theory. That is fine for now: vineyards take three years to establish before producing a meaningful crop. We have had two seasons so far, so next year we may get a small harvest.
As of a few months ago, the glamping site is now up and running, but the hardest part of this journey was getting planning permission for the sleep pods. Because the site is a wildlife haven, we needed extensive ecological surveys covering trees, bats, and birds. We are also in a nutrient-neutral river catchment, so we had to offset waste impacts. It was very time-consuming to go through all the bureaucracy and problem-solving.
Now they are finished, the pods are luxurious. They have walk-in showers and each has its own private wood-fired hot tub or outdoor bath, as well as a fire pit for campfires.
Our strategy is to make everything complementary. Guests stay in the pods and buy wine. Visitors come for tours and stay overnight. We also have plans for a farm shop, café, and workshops (we already have a yoga studio!)
We are yet to settle on a wine. We planted 4000 vines on four acres, made up of four disease-resistant hybrid varieties designed for cooler, wetter climates. This means we can experiment with small batches, including red, white, rosé, orange, still, sparkling, pét nat, and col fondo. The full spectrum. They are more resistant to mildew and disease than traditional Pinot Noir or Chardonnay, which allows us to farm organically and biodynamically. This is important because we have children and guests on site.
The main hurdle is that vineyards and wineries require significant upfront investment. Vineyard establishment, with all the equipment, can cost £20,000-25,000 per acre. Winemaking equipment can easily run into tens of thousands. I saw some for sale for over £100,000. We were incredibly lucky to buy a full set of winemaking equipment from a retiring vineyard owner near Southampton. We collected everything within several days for a few thousand pounds.
Overall, though, the biggest challenge has been the adjustment from a predictable job and flat to constantly problem-solving everything ourselves. It is exhausting, but we are living a dream, and we are embracing it fully. So far, with our second child now welcomed to the farm, we have no regrets at all.
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