From first vines in 2004 to a private company in 2025.

Gusbourne is an English wine estate at Appledore in Kent, on the first rise of land above Romney Marsh. The company says it planted its first vines in 2004, and that its aim from the start was to make vintage wines from grapes grown only in its own vineyards. Its founder was Andrew Weeber, an orthopaedic surgeon from Stellenbosch in South Africa who had come to live in Yorkshire, The World of Fine Wine wrote in 2023. The magazine said he had earlier owned half of a wine estate in Robertson, in South Africa, which he sold in 1991, and that he bought the Gusbourne Estate in 2003. The estate grows Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, mostly from Burgundian clones, the company says, and its sparkling wines are made by the traditional method. Gusbourne says its first vintages, a Brut Reserve 2006 and a Blanc de Blancs 2006, were released in 2010.

The business changed shape in 2013. KentOnline reported in September 2013 that Lord Ashcroft had acquired the estate through Shellproof, a company in which he held a majority stake, and that Shellproof would be renamed Gusbourne PLC; Weeber was to stay on as chairman, and Shellproof’s Halnaker vineyard and other sites in West Sussex were to be added to the Kent vineyards. Companies House records the change of name from Shellproof PLC to Gusbourne PLC on 27 September 2013. Company announcements in 2025 still named Lord Ashcroft as the majority shareholder.

A second Gusbourne vineyard therefore sits on the South Downs. The World of Fine Wine reported that the company holds land near Halnaker in West Sussex, much of it bought in 2013 and 2015, and that Sussex fruit went into a deluxe cuvée, Fifty One Degrees North, from the 2014 vintage, with Sussex grapes forming part of the main blend from 2016.

Gusbourne PLC left the stock market in 2025. In July 2024 the company announced a review of strategic options for Lord Ashcroft’s shareholding; on 7 February 2025, according to a company announcement, Lord Ashcroft asked the board to call a general meeting on a resolution to delist from AIM, and the review was ended. Shareholders passed the resolutions, and the company announced that trading on AIM was expected to be cancelled on 19 March 2025. Companies House records Gusbourne’s re-registration as a private limited company, Gusbourne Limited, on 9 April 2025.

Three geese, a medieval name and a Kent marsh.

Gusbourne’s name and emblem are older than its vineyards. The World of Fine Wine, in a 2023 profile by Margaret Rand, recounted that John de Goosebourne acquired the estate at Appledore in 1410 and that the family gave the place its name. Their symbol, three geese argent, appears on a shield in Appledore church, and the magazine noted that the modern Gusbourne estate has taken it up “for its labels and just about anything else it fancies”.

The land itself is described in the same profile. The first vines went onto a south-facing slope, the first escarpment rising off Romney Marsh, on Wealden clay over Tunbridge Wells sand, and the estate bottles some wines from named single vineyards such as Boot Hill and Commanders. The Sussex land, by contrast, gives the company vines on chalk.

The same profile caught the tension in the estate’s heraldic choice. Winemaker Charlie Holland called Gusbourne “totally New World” in outlook, and the magazine noted that the grapes, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier, are Champagne or Burgundy clones, so that the heraldry of an old Kent family sits on bottles made with methods borrowed from France.

Behind the labels, Gusbourne has worked with outside designers. The London branding agency Wondersphere lists among its projects a “Gusbourne Fifty One Degrees North branding journey” and “The Nest at Gusbourne”, the name the company uses for its cellar door at the estate. Gusbourne’s website lists Fifty One Degrees North as a range of its own, alongside its sparkling wines, still wines, limited editions and library wines.

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.

Two counties, one emblem and a private future.

Gusbourne now spans two counties: the home estate at Appledore, which the company says covers 60 hectares of vines, and the vineyard land near Halnaker under the South Downs in West Sussex. Its leadership has been named in its own announcements; the February 2025 notice on the delisting gave Jonathan White as chief executive, and the company’s website names Jon Pollard as chief vineyard manager.

The listing left Gusbourne with a public record: its 2013 arrival on AIM through Lord Ashcroft’s Shellproof, its strategic review in 2024 and its departure from the market in 2025 were all set out in announcements and reported by the press. Through all of that, the three geese and the Goosebourne name stayed the constant.

For a design guide, Gusbourne shows how a new wine estate can take a mark from local heraldry and a name from a medieval family, and pair them with vintage-led labels made for a modern market. Compare it with its Kent neighbour Chapel Down and with Nyetimber in West Sussex. For this guide we use marsh slate, goose grey and Kent green with a classical serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Gusbourne’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.