Fox & Fox has announced plans to double its capacity as part of a new strategy to focus expressly on "wine making and marketing".
As part of the renewed focus, which follows a six-month business review, the boutique Sussex producer said it has sold its Lakestreet vineyard to High Weald Wines to deliver “substantial capital to fund further development of the company”.
Fox & Fox said it would be doubling the capacity of its remaining vineyard, working in partnership with “carefully selected Sussex growers to source top quality fruit to expand capacity”.
“It is important as a high-end boutique producer to adopt an agile approach to developments in the English wine industry. By making these changes and focussing our efforts on the making and marketing of our wines we are able to build on their increasing popularity in Scandinavia, Hong Kong and other export markets,” said co-owner Gerard Fox.
As such, going forward Fox & Fox had also made the decision not to develop a tourism strand to the business”, he added.
“After 15 years of growing vines and the ownership and development of two vineyard sites we wanted to be clear about what matters to us in the future,” he said.
The review of the business was prompted as it “became obvious that, after 10 very happy years of making award winning wine with our neighbour Davenport Vineyards, we needed more winery capacity in order to meet our ambitions”.
As part of this ambition, Fox & Fox moved its wine making to the new state-of-the-art winery at Bolney Wine Estates last year.
To mark 16 years since Fox & Fox first planted vines, the producer is this year launching a limited edition cuvee.