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English wines toast record Christmas sales at Waitrose

Published:  11 December, 2015

Sales of English wines have rocketed this Christmas, Waitrose has revealed.

Customers are buying 80% more English wine than they did this time last year, and sales of English sparkling wine are up by 188%.

Sales of sparking wine from the Sussex-based Nyetimber winery have increased by 393% year on year.

Pierpaolo Petrassi, MW, Waitrose's head of wine buying, said: "Sales of English sparkling wine at Waitrose are up 188 per cent year on year and we know that our customers will enjoy celebrating this Christmas and New Year with a glass of English sparkling wine. 

"This year we launched the second vintage of our Leckford Estate Brut sparkling wine, made from grapes grown at our own vineyard in Hampshire and we have increased the number of bottles made to meet the growing demand."

Waitrose stocks over 100 English and Welsh wines, and has a 60% market share of English wine sales, compared to an overall market share for wine of 7.7%.

Waitrose recently added dessert wine to complete its English wine range, with the listing of Denbies Harvest Ortega 2014.

Earlier this week, Champagne Taittinger became the first Champagne house to invest in an English vineyard with the purchase of 69 ha in Kent.

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