Chapel Down has credited a “generational shift” towards sparkling wine for strong sales growth last year. Chapel Down’s prices start from £15 for a bottle of still Bacchus, to about £30 for a classic Brut sparkling, and more than £100 for one of the top Coeur de Cuvée sparkling wines. Between 2017 and 2022, England and Wales more than doubled wine production from 5.3m to 12.2m bottles, according to WineGB. It expects wine production to double again to 24.7m bottles by 2032. Pommery and Taittinger, two of France’s best-known champagne houses, both bought land and planted vines in England about a decade ago, while the world’s biggest sparkling wine producer, Germany’s Henkell Freixenet, snapped up the English wine estate Bolney in 2022.