Vines from the late 1970s and a company formed in 2002.

Chapel Down calls Tenterden, in the Kent Weald, its brand home: its 2023 stock-exchange announcement described the winery there as the place where it welcomes visitors for tours and tastings. Vines on the site are older than the company. Rye News reported in 2017 that vines were first planted at Tenterden in the late 1970s, on a site of some 20 acres.

The listed company itself dates from 2002. Companies House records that it was incorporated on 28 January 2002 as English Wines Group PLC, and that it took the name Chapel Down Group PLC on 21 September 2011. D&AD’s archive entry for the brand puts the start of the Chapel Down story a little earlier, at 2001. English Wikipedia says Frazer Thompson led the business for 20 years until he retired as chief executive in November 2021, when Andrew Carter took over.

Chapel Down is best known for sparkling wine made by the traditional method, with a second fermentation in bottle, but it also makes still wines. The weighting shows in the harvest: Just Drinks reported in October 2024 that most of that year’s crop was destined for traditional-method sparkling wine, with quality expected to resemble the 2019 vintage. English Wikipedia says the company launched another crowdfunding campaign in 2021 to expand its vineyards and grow its exports. Its label printer’s case study names an Orange Bacchus and a single-varietal Albariño among them, and the company’s own shop sells a separate Kit’s Coty range. Grocery Gazette described the business in July 2026 as a winemaker with about 1,000 acres of vineyards in Kent.

Beer, gin and a bottle shape borrowed from sparkling wine.

For a decade the company also made beer and spirits under the Chapel Down umbrella. English Wikipedia says it set up Curious Brewery in 2011, later moving it to a site in Ashford, Kent, bought in November 2017 largely with money raised by crowdfunding, and opened a spirits-led bar and restaurant, Gin Works, at King’s Cross in London in January 2019, closing it in February 2020 because of poor footfall despite good reviews. After trade collapsed during the Covid-19 pandemic, the brewery business went into administration in February 2021 and was sold to Risk Capital Partners.

The spirits left a lasting design mark. In 2018 D&AD gave Chapel Down Spirits a Wood Pencil in Packaging Design. D&AD says that to mark its move into spirits the company gave its vodka and gin the silhouette of a champagne bottle, with frosted glass and intricate facets inspired by the brand’s logo; no agency is credited in the entry.

The wine labels have their own credits. A case study published by Multi-Color, the label printer, names Denomination as the designer of Chapel Down’s sparkling and still wine labels, printed flexo with hot foil and embossing, and quotes Chapel Down saying it had made upgrading the look and feel of its packaging a priority. The same case study quotes the company describing its aim as to “surprise and delight.”

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all English sparkling-wine producers: Nyetimber, Chapel Down, Ridgeview, Gusbourne, Hambledon, Camel Valley and Rathfinny. They span several decades of planting. Hambledon, in Hampshire, says Major-General Sir Guy Salisbury-Jones planted its first vines in 1952; English Wikipedia says Stuart and Sandy Moss planted Nyetimber’s first vines in West Sussex in 1988, and that Eric Heerema took the estate over in 2006; Camel Valley says Bob and Annie Lindo planted their first vines in Cornwall in 1989; Ridgeview says Mike and Christine Roberts planted at Ditchling Common, in East Sussex, in 1995; Gusbourne says its first vines went into the ground at Appledore, in Kent, in 2004; and Rathfinny says Mark and Sarah Driver founded their estate near Alfriston, East Sussex, in 2010.

Their ownership varies as widely. Chapel Down, based at Tenterden in Kent, said in October 2024 that it would remain a standalone company listed on London’s AIM market after a strategic review, Just Drinks reported. In November 2023 Hambledon was acquired by Berry Bros & Rudd and Symington Family Estates as a 50:50 joint venture, Food Manufacture reported.

Place is part of the label. In June 2022 Decanter reported that Sussex had been recognised as a Protected Designation of Origin for still and sparkling wine, a campaign begun in 2015 by producers including Rathfinny and Ridgeview. Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — who planted the vines, who owns the estate now and how its labels have been designed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From the Aquis Exchange to AIM, a review and a new chief executive.

Chapel Down is a public company rather than a family estate. It announced on 9 November 2023 that it planned to move its shares from the Aquis Exchange, where it had been quoted for about 20 years, to London’s AIM market, with admission expected on or around 7 December 2023. In June 2024 the board opened a strategic review that could have included a sale of the company; Just Drinks reported on 28 October 2024 that the review had ended with no transaction, leaving Chapel Down as a standalone company on AIM. In July 2024, the same report noted, Treasury Wine Estates had dismissed reports that it was interested in buying the business.

The leadership changed at the same time. Andrew Carter resigned in September 2024 to join the Yorkshire brewer Timothy Taylor, Just Drinks reported, and Chapel Down announced that James Pennefather became chief executive on 1 February 2025. The company said he had spent more than 25 years in premium drinks across the UK, the Middle East, Africa and India, and its chairman, Martin Glenn, praised his “deep experience in building premium drinks brands within emerging categories.” Grocery Gazette reported that he had previously run The Lakes Distillery, steering its 2024 sale to the owner of Nyetimber, after senior roles at William Grant & Sons and Diageo. In its July 2026 half-year results the company reported a partnership with Jackson Family Wines, the American group behind Kendall-Jackson, and a listing in Whole Foods Market stores, Grocery Gazette reported.

For a design guide, Chapel Down shows how an English winemaker can borrow the codes of sparkling wine across categories — even a gin bottle shaped like a champagne bottle — while foil and embossing do the work on its wine labels. Compare Nyetimber, the family-owned Sussex estate, and Gusbourne, another Kent sparkling wine house. For this guide we use Weald green, hop leaf and Kent brick with a grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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