Examination of Witnesses (Questions 553
- 559)
WEDNESDAY 21 MARCH 2007
MR ROBERT BEARDSMORE, MR ROBERT LINDO, MR MICHAEL
ROBERTS AND MR OWEN ELIAS
Q553 Chairman:
Good morning and welcome. Thank you all very much for finding
the time to come along and help us with our inquiry. It is really
nice to know that we have UK vineyards and that it is not quite
the esoteric foreign adventure that perhaps a few years ago it
would have seemed. Could I ask you to introduce yourselves, who
you are and whom you represent. Particularly, it would be useful
to know the extent to which you represent the UK vineyards, whether
there are groups that fall outwith your organisation?
Mr Lindo: I am Robert Lindo, Chairman of the
United Kingdom Vineyards Association, and I am a grower and a
producer as well. I produce about 200,000 bottles of English wine
a year.
Mr Beardsmore: Robert Beardsmore. I was the
General Secretary of the UK Vineyards Association until the end
of last month but, as I have been involved in the process, I have
come along today rather than my successor, who is sitting behind
me, taking on something only three weeks in. So I have been General
Secretary for two years, up to the end of last month.
Mr Elias: I am Owen Elias. I am a winemaker
for English wines. Our brand is Chapel Down and we are the biggest
commercial makers of wine in the country; we do about 500,000
bottles a year, and growing.
Mr Roberts: I am Michael Roberts. I am a grower
and a producer of sparkling wine and a consultant to people who
want to plant new vineyards. I am also Chairman of the English
Wine Producers, which is a grouping of commercial vineyards; it
is a marketing-orientated organisation.
Q554 Chairman:
Are there significant vineyards that fall outwith your organisation?
Mr Roberts: As far as we are aware, inside the
UK Vineyards Association, inside the English wine producers, the
majority of the production of the wine in England falls. There
is a lack of registration knowledge—the statistics are not
total—but we can see from what the Wine Standards Board
does collect that in fact we certainly control the majority—control
is not the right word, actually, they are members.
Q555 Chairman:
The other thing I ought to do is to point out that this is a public
session and that it is webcast, so there is a faint possibility
that someone out there may be listening! We have not had any evidence
that that has ever occurred, but it is formally possible! What
we will do, if you do not mind, is have a question and answer
session. To put this in context, we are coming towards the end
of our inquiry now. We have had a number of evidence sessions
here and in Brussels, trying to cover producers, the trade in
its various guises, consumers and the interests of Member States,
as well taking direct evidence from the Commission and the European
Parliament. We were very keen to have your view, not only because
of the UK dimension, but because you operate effectively outside
any constraints that the EU presently impose.
Mr Lindo: We wish!
Q556 Chairman:
You are not involved in anything like the same degree of regulation.
So can I start off. Can you give us an idea of where the UK industry
is and could you give us a brief sketch of the UK industry, the
extent of production and, I suppose, almost the velocity of growth,
because I understand that has been fairly good. A technical point—is
how long does it take to get from planting, a farmer making the
decision to go down the route of having vines to actually producing
stuff that is drinkable?
Mr Roberts: If I could go back to 2004, which
is the set of official statistics I started with on this? I am
not sure whether you would prefer us to talk in hectares or acres,
to be honest with you—perhaps I will use a mixture of the
two until you get bored. 1880 acres were planted at the end of
2004, producing somewhere in the region of 1.9 million bottles.
That is spread amongst 330 vineyards, so by definition the majority
of those are very small vineyards—many are hobbyist. The
commercial vineyards, if I take the representation of my own body,
which is the English Wine Producers, which is a marketing body,
comprise probably 20 or 25 really truly commercial vineyards.
Others are selling wines, yes, of course; but the ones really
where the livings of many people derive from it probably represents
about 25. Since 2004 there has been a very significant growth
in planting of the three varieties that represent champagne—that
is Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. Because of the success
of two or three vineyards in England who have won some very significant
prizes, including Best Wine in the International Wine Trophy—which
is the best wine in the world—three times in eight years,
it is becoming significantly known as a producer of sparkling
wine. Because of the financial model that goes along with sparkling
wine as well, which shows it to be truly sustainable—it
is a very high added—value product and can be made at a
profit and produce good returns for changing the agriculture scene.
We have seen significant plantings, so much so that in fact in
the years 2005, 2006 and what is scheduled to go in in about six
weeks' time, for 2007, we have increased the acreage by about
a third—about another 600 acres—and so we will have
got up to 1000 hectares. We have added to the production, and
nearly all of this increase, say 90% odd, is for the making of
sparkling wine, and that will have increased the volume up by
about one and a half million bottles, making the total volume
of bottles produced in the UK about 3.3 million. Prior to the
planting of these three years of grapes the predominant wine in
the UK was still wine. Probably out of the 1.9 million bottles,
perhaps only about 350,000 was sparkling wine. As I say, data
have not been collected nationally on the differentiation of sparking
and still wine, but our best estimates would be putting it around
the 300,000 bottle mark of the 1.9 million. So that will have
grown, by the plantings that we put in, to just under 2 million
bottles, and there is (probably a conservative) forecast now,
going to 2015, that by that time we will be producing about 5.6
million bottles of wine.
Q557 Lord Cameron of Dillington:
Can you translate the bottles into hectolitres, please, because
that is where the boundaries are?
Mr Roberts: 3.3 million bottles, is what we
are at with the current plantings, that happened in 2005 and 2006.
Those current plantings, when they come into full production,
will produce 3.3 million bottles, which happens to equate almost
exactly to two and a half million litres (or 25,000 hectolitres).
So we are at that level. But, of course, to answer the last part
of your question—how long does it take—the planting
of grapes in 2005 will start to produce a proportion of their
crop in 2007 and a full crop in 2008. So the planting that has
gone on in 2006 and 2007 will not be in full production until
2010, at which time we will certainly be at that limit that is
imposed, where we are considered to be a wine producing country.
Q558 Lord Plumb:
My Lord Chairman, could we know how far north you go and where
there are plantings?
Mr Roberts: There are vineyards in Leeds, but
the majority, if you look at a pin map of every location, are
concentrated probably within 60 or 70 miles of the south coast,
going along the whole of the south coast from Cornwall to Kent.
If there was a heavier concentration anywhere, it would be in
Hampshire, Sussex and Kent rather than anywhere else; but it is
fairly heavily spread through those counties in the south.
Chairman: Lord Palmer.
Q559 Lord Palmer:
How many people are employed in the UK wine industry altogether?
Mr Roberts: I wish I could answer that question;
I really cannot answer that question.
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