Episode 72: Michael Kennedy, CEO Roebuck Estates

Joining me on today’s episode of The English Wine Diaries is Michael Kennedy, Chief Executive Officer of Roebuck Estates – who make premium sparkling wine from their multi-vineyard estates in Sussex.

Following university, Michael joined the Graduate Management Scheme of Marks and Spencer, and became the first trainee manager to be appointed to an overseas position in Paris. After a period as a buyer, he moved to Mars Confectionery where he worked as a National Sales Manager in the UK.

What followed was years in the drinks industry working predominantly in premium branded spirits – he joined the Drambuie Liqueur Company in 2002, became CEO in 2011 and after a successful turnaround of the iconic Scottish brand, led the subsequent sale to William Grants & Son in 2014.

His most recent role, prior to joining Roebuck Estates, was with Stock Spirits Group, one of the largest manufacturers and marketers of alcoholic beverages in Europe, where he ran the Italian and international arm of the business and headed up the Mergers & Acquisitions department. 

During his comparatively short time at Roebuck Estates, which was established in 2013, the brand has won numerous trophies and awards at global wine competitions, launched a new tasting area at its flagship Petworth vineyard and become the first exclusive English sparkling wine partner at RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival.

You can find out more about Roebuck Estates by following them @roebuckestates on Instagram and facebook. 

With thanks to our series sponsor, Wickhams, The Great British Wine Merchant. Visit wickhamwine.co.uk to see their award-winning range of English wine with free delivery on orders over £40. The English Wine Diaries listeners can also get 10% discount on their first purchase by entering the code TEWD10. Please drink responsibly.

Thanks for listening to The English Wine Diaries. If you enjoyed the podcast then please leave a rating or review, it helps boost our ratings and makes it easier for other people to find us. To find out who will be joining me next on the English Wine Diaries, follow @theenglishwinediaries on Instagram and for more regular English wine news and reviews, sign up to our newsletter at thesouthernquarter.co.uk.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the English Wine Diaries. Thanks for tuning in. For those of you who don't know me, I'm your host, Rebecca Pitcahann, a journalist and founder of the Southern Quarter,
an online magazine all about English wine. This podcast is all about the people behind the industry and their incredible stories, which I can't wait to share with you.
So join me as I sit down with sommeliers, vignard owners, winemakers and some rather familiar faces too, and discover how a love of wine, particularly that made on British soil,
has helped shape their lives and careers. Welcome to the English Wine Diaries. The English Wine Diaries is kindly sponsored by Wickham's Wine Merchant.
Alongside our world -beating sparklers, England also produces some stunning steel wines. Yes, the grape variety, location and winemaking matter, but Wickham's expertly curated selection and 100 % satisfaction guarantee is a great way to explore this burgeoning category.
Some of my favourites are Lyme Bay's 2021 chardonnay, Biddonen's 2022 Game and Huxbear's 22 orange bear, which is made from chardonnay,
not oranges. Visit wick and wine .com .uk .org and get 10 % off using the code, T -E -W -D -10. That's T -E -W -D -10.
Always remember to drink responsibly. Joining me on today's episode of the English Wine Diaries is Michael Kennedy,
chief executive officer of Roebuck Estates, who make premium sparkling wine from their multi -vignard estates in Sussex. Following university, Michael joined the graduate management scheme of Marks and Spencer and became the first trainee manager to be appointed to an overseas position in Paris.
After a period as a buyer, he moved to Mars Confectionary, where he worked as a national sales manager in the UK. What followed was years in the drinks industry, working predominantly in premium branded spirits.
He joined the Dramboury Liquor Company in 2002, became CEO in 2011, and after a successful turnaround of the iconic Scottish brand, led the subsequent sale to William Grants and Son in 2014.
His most recent role, prior to joining Roebuck, was with Stock Spirits Group, one of the largest manufacturers and marketers of alcoholic beverages in Europe, where he ran the Italian and international arm of the business and headed up the mergers and acquisitions department.
During his comparatively short time at Roebuck Estates, which was established in 2013, the brand has won numerous trophies and awards at global wine competitions, launched a new tasting area at its flagship Petworth Vineyard and has became the first exclusive English sparkling wine partner at RHS Hampton Court Garden Festival.
Michael, thank you so much for joining me today. Quite the CV there. Thank you very much for having me today. Rebecca, it's really nice to be here. Yeah, gosh, that sounded quite a lot, actually. It's amazing how quickly time flies by as well when you listen to it.
but yeah I do feel like I'm a bit of a newbie however when it comes to the wine industry so lots and spirits in the drinks industry for a long time but as you said very much spirits focused a few little cameos in wine over the time so I was in the wine buying department in M &S in let me see 97 for about six months.
And I was kind of looking after all the European stores when I was there. And when I was out in Italy, we bought, as part of Stock Spirits Group,
we bought a graph of business, which actually came with a French court of sparkling. So there's been a few little cameos in wine up until now, up until my Roebuck Estates time.
A few little cameos, but you know, your time here has been short so far. However, you've joined at a really exciting time for the English wine industry. I want to talk about what I mentioned there just at the end of the intro and the partnership with the Hampton Court Garden Festival because that was something that was sort of unprecedented,
wasn't it? So you were, that Roebuck was the first ever exclusive sparkling wine partner for the festival. So tell us a bit about what that actually meant.
Yeah, sure. So yeah, that was a really, I mean, that's been a really exciting thing for us to get involved in. I think, you know, as you said, you know,
we are in a really exciting period now for English wine. And I think one of the things you notice as well, or I've certainly noticed there's still lots and lots and lots and lots of British consumers who don't actually know English or,
you know, don't necessarily drink it. So we were looking for something where we can really try and engage with a number of consumers. And the RHS is someone that we've wanted to work with for some time.
Sort of in terms of, if you look at us as a business, we focus a lot on the viticulture side. The vineyards are a huge part of what we do. So that whole piece about growing fit it really well with the RHS and what they do.
And so when we started talking to them, we said, I think they were interested, but very much from a sort of commercial relationship. So when we said,
no, we want to be the only sparkling wine here, nothing else, no champagne, no Prosecco, hang on a minute, surely we've got to offer this. We said, no, we don't think we do. We think we can actually offer your consumers exactly what they're looking for.
So that started that conversation and it was, yeah, a fantastic relationship with them. We had a very exciting and tiring week I think we probably,
I think, you know, we, we, I think we, we think we, we think we, we think we talk to about about 10 ,000 new consumers overall over that week, which is great, you know, and I was there quite a lot of it,
as were a lot of the team. So we were talking directly ourselves to, to a lot of these consumers. And it was amazing, yeah, how many people might have heard of English, but hadn't actually tried English,
but actually when they tried and sat down and were drinking, absolutely loved it. So, yeah, really successful for us. So we absolutely loved it, yeah. Well, I popped down,
and it's such a sort of quintessential kind of English thing to do, isn't it? So to have English sparkling there, you know, is such a great match. Before we talk more about what's sort of happening with Roebuck Estates now,
can we go back to the beginning and how it all started? And for those who maybe don't know the history of Roebuck, how the vineyards were established. Yeah, sure. So we started in 2013.
So we're two founders, not from the wine industry, but both who were originally from Sussex and who,
you know, huge, you know, lovers of wine. and I guess if you look at 2013 in I suppose if you think 2012 was the bad year,
I think, for English wine. I think that I can't remember the figures, but there was very little wine produced in 2012. So Mike and John, who set the business up, they said, okay, we want to focus purely on vintage wine.
So vintage sparkling. We want to be 100 % focused on sparkling. We want to be focused on premier, very high quality sparkling. And we want to produce a really good vintage every single year.
So to do that, especially on the back of that sort of 2012, they're like, okay, what we need to do, therefore, we need to establish a kind of multi -suit, we need to take a multi -site approach. So they then set out to sort of identify vineyards and to identify land to plant for vineyards.
So they bought their first site, which was an established site already, what we call Ruman Village, built it up to five different sites,
four in West Sussex, one in East Sussex. And then in 2022, we planted another site across in Kent, so not far from Ashford in Kent.
So we now have six sites. We won't actually take a crop from the Kent site this year, but we will expect to take a crop next year. So at the minute we've got five producing sites,
splits across, say, three quite close to Petworth, or home site, it should say, Tillington and Petworth. So three quite close to there,
one near Horsham, and then one across Buell Water in East Sussex. And I guess their idea always was that,
you know, with the way English wine was developing and with the wine, you know, we are still a maritime climate. After all, there is still huge variability from year to year, as we can see this year and last year in 2022 and all of that.
Then their idea was, okay, well, we need, you know, what we want is something individual from each site, but we want to make sure that, you know, when we get to the blending table, we have real kind of depth in terms of the base wines that we've got.
So those six sites are broken up into 84 different blocks. Of the five sites that are producing, that's 67 different blocks,
which we treat pretty much separately. And then we try and vinify those sites, sorry, those blocks, I should say, almost individually. So that when it comes to the blending table,
we have something, we can have something around 60 different base wines with which to blend. So that gives us great sort of breads and depth in our in our blendings, which is,
which is great. I do joke with them a little bit, which is that it's fantastic that we've set up this model in terms of the quality of the wine that we can make. But it does add quite a lot of complexity to the business at the same at the same time.
But it's fantastic just to see how each site develops in each year, what we get out of each site and each year, how even some of the blocks are differ year on year.
And we're still learning about how that's really all coming together, which is nice. Yeah, because I mean, logistically, there must be some challenges there. Yeah, there are. I mean,
if you look at From west to east, if we put the, if we put the Kinnit site to one side, if you look at it from west to east, then it's about 70 miles of difference.
And that's actually not a quick 70 miles. That's about an hour and 50 minutes driving. So, yeah, it does add complexity. We have an excellent viticulture team led by Jitwicks and we split that viticulture team between west and east so some of them we have based across in Orbule Waterside and some we have over west so yeah I mean when it comes to harvest then there's a huge amount of logistics that go on and there's
quite a lot of yeah a lot of complexity that goes on but then again as to say you If it's sort of when you're sitting at the blending table, then you sort of, it feels worth it, I suppose, is what I'm saying.
But that must take a really long time as well because, I mean, the number of potential combinations is huge. Yeah, no, it is. Absolutely. It does.
Yeah. It's, and I've got to say, not being in the wine industry or not coming from the wine industry, then it's an area that is both like hugely interesting,
but you realize just how difficult it is as well in terms of going through it. So, yeah, I mean, we will, when we set up for blending, we will split it into different sessions. And when we set up for blending,
we will effectively, I say blind taste, but it's not like you're necessarily blind tasting, but you're actually going through each individual base wine separately and individually,
we'll score that. We generally have about five to six people at each blending session.
So it's quite a big team as well that's doing that. So we will score them in each individually. And then we will start looking at the blends and looking at which ones we think we're going to make the best wines that fit in with our range in our portfolio.
So Yeah, it's long. And we will do that over a couple of days as the first set of blending. And then we will come back again generally sort of two weeks later to make sure that we think we still got it right,
that first time round. So it's quite a long process. It's a fun. It's a fun process. It's hard work, but it's a fun process. And those, you use the sort of best of the best for the blends for your portfolio of the main wines that you bring out.
but you've also recently just started releasing some sort of rare... So each of the wines that we bring out,
these are all small -backed wines, but each of the wines we bring out will have a specific number. And 19 relates to the block that the grapes are from for that wine,
which is Block 19, which is in Ruman Villa, which is, so it's 100 % Pinot Noir. It's a Burgundian clone 667, and that is from our 15 harvest.
So we, that's had, I should remember this. Actually, that has 84 months on these. So fantastic white, two and a half size of bottles. And so then,
and we will bring out one to two wines per year under that rare expressions. And we talk about them being an expression of time or place.
So was that when it was very much about the place being that, you know, block 19, fantastic little block. It's where we get our ripest Pinot Noir from.
And so that's very much that. Whereas the next one coming up will be more about time, actually, in terms of how many months it's that's been on the Lees.
So once again, another fantastic wine, but a slightly different take on it. And the idea is just that, you know, we want to sort of showcase some of the very special wines that we do.
And I think that's the beauty as well about English wine at the moment. It's, I think, you know, it's open to, you know, opening up some of these, you know, slightly more different,
you know, different wines and very special wines to the consumer as well. So that's, yeah, it's, it's new territory for us, I should say, you know, rare expressions. It's not that long out, but very exciting.
And is that something that was sort of part of the plan initially, do you think, or is that something that's kind of come about organically? No, so the plan, the plan has always been to focus purely on sparkling wine and to make really high quality wine and to make wines that are very interesting for the consumer as well.
I mean, as you know, when you when you do this, you know, we have a number of wines that were laid down like this quite some time ago. And so we will look at the wines and we will taste the wines and we'll decide whether we think they are right or not right to bring out.
So there was always, always the ambition, if you like, to bring out this top tier of wine. So there was always the ambition there. But until you're actually tasting the wine and you're never 100 % sure,
you know, that's the beauty of wine as well, isn't it? That, you know, once we go to, you know, as we're talking about blending, once we go to blending and it's bottled, then it gets locked up under lock and key and you leave it alone for a period of time.
to look at how, you know, to sort of showcase what we could do. The plan had always been to really focus very heavily on the vineyard viticulture side.
You know, as you know, there's just saying in wine, you know, you can't put flavour, you can't put flavour into the grapes. You know, the flavour has to develop in the grapes. And the plan had always been to focus very heavily on this pretty complex model,
but this model to produce really fantastic fruit and then see what we could do with it and how we develop it and bring it out in fantastic wines. So yeah,
yeah, very exciting. As you say, growing in the viticultural side of things, that is really at the heart of the business. And sustainability is a huge part of that too. I thought it was amazing when I came down to your main vineyard just outside Petworth seeing the bunny all the wildlife that was there was just amazing I said to you didn't I you know seeing the bunnies hop across and you even said to me that you
have had deer sort of come up to the tasting tent can you tell us a bit more about what you guys are doing from the sustainability side of things and how you go about growing your grapes yeah so so the sort So this idea about being your custodians of the local environment has always been really important when the business was set up.
In fact, the reason we're called Rubach is because, you know, the founders wanted a name that reflected the local environment. So that's always been key. We,
you know, all of this is like using a cliche, but it's a journey, isn't it, in terms of sustainability? And we've been really focusing hard on this journey. So we,
you know, we work in a regenerative viticulture way. So we went 100 % herbicide free last year of all our vineyards,
which was a big step. We, you know, we use We use things like cover crops in place. We also have sheep that come into the vineyard over the winter.
None of that is new. Lots of people do that. We employed an ecologist Matt last year as part of the viticulture team, but very much with a remit in terms of,
okay, if we take the viewpoint that the grapes and the fruit will evolve in the best way possible,
within the vineyard as well. So we brought Matt in, he's an ecologist. Since that time, we've added a huge number of bat boxes, bird boxes, hybridaculars,
which are amphibian hotels. We have also,
we brought bees into the vineyard as well. we have, you know, a huge amount of local... species or that species.
He's like, look, don't think about it as trying to attract species. Think about it as trying to effectively make the environment as natural as possible, and then everything will come. And so,
you know, and it's been some amazing things. You know, he planted a wildflower garden last year for us. And, you know, that was sort of a bit of scrubland that we weren't really using.
And it was easily the most photographed thing we had for visitors coming up to the vineyard. It was beautiful and amazing. And then it also kind of gives you the opportunity to talk about what we're doing and the journey that we're on.
So, yeah, I mean, I just think that the vineyards are kind of without sounding overly enthusiastic. I think they're just magical,
actually. When you're in the vineyard and the sun is shining and the rabbits are hopping around. It does feel like it's a magical place actually and they're sort of full of life which is really,
really exciting. It's a lovely place to be and you sort of mentioned there, obviously, when visitors come and I wanted to talk a bit about the visitor experience because you opened your sort that,
I think. Yeah, last year, yeah, we did it. Yeah, yeah, last year we did it as a bit of a trial. I think once again on the sort of viticulture piece, that's really important to us.
So we wanted to do a couple of things. We wanted to bring people into the vineyard. We looked down over the South Island, so it's a kind of magical view. But we also wanted to use it as an opportunity to tell people what we do.
So when we do tours and tastings, we will you know we will use one of our viticulture team to do the tour or mat or ecologist to do the tour so that we can really kind of help people understand what we're what we're trying to do and and then you know when we you know one of the things we run at the minute as well and with the with some of our trade partners is the rhubac viticulture academy where you know
three days over the course of the of the season, we bring in a number of our trade partners to kind of learn a little bit about what they're doing. So we bring them in a pruning. We bring them in.
In fact, it will be coming up soon. We bring them in during the growing seasons, look at canopy management, and then we bring them in a harvest. And we give them a bay of vines to work on.
So, and then they spend time with, with Jake or head of viticulture, kind of in the classroom, understanding what we do and why we do it, and then getting out there and doing the practical piece. So we kind of love that,
that side of it about bringing people in and trying to help. And it's, of course, there's a quid pro quo in it. You know, it's, we want to then obviously build our relationships with or trade partners to help,
you know, for, you know, us to help them, you know, sell more for wine. So, you know, It's a kind of virtual circle when it comes down to it. But,
I mean, imparting that knowledge and the sort of understanding to others is a huge part, I think, of wine and this sense of place and the storytelling that really, you know,
makes us enjoy wine even more. The consumer would enjoy it even more. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I'm still amiss that, you know, let's say we've been, we've been,
well, we've owned that site, and just like, say, Tillington, just had Petworth since 2013, sorry, 2014. And there,
you know, we had a kind of local event when we launched the, um, the Ruvac View last year. And we invited lots of people out from local businesses.
and it was amazing how many people who were very local we didn't realize this place existed and then it happened to be a really like beautiful night it was in June and it happened to be we'd be kind of worried about whether it's going to rain and the run up to it and actually it turned out to be about 28 degrees at 7 o 'clock on a Friday night and we were wondering whether we're going to start like passing around
sun cream or whatever to people But it was meeting it and sitting there and a number of people going, my God, I never thought this place kind of existed. And God, it's amazing. This is, I could be sitting in Provence at the moment.
I mean, it is amazing. But I think that sense of, you know, provenance and where you're from and environment, I think it's really strong and it's really important in English wine at this point in time.
What else do you think the industry as a whole needs to sort of do to get the word out there about English one. Because as you've sort of said, you know, you spoke to people at the flower festival garden show.
And lots of people had heard of English wine, but didn't sort of hadn't tried it. Or what do you think we're perhaps not yet doing the best we could do to get the message out there?
Is there any more we could be doing? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, it's tricky because, you know, the industry still, you know, lots of businesses who are growing up and, you know, we don't necessarily all,
you know, have the marketing budgets that you'd like to have at times to kind of get the message out. I think it is definitely moving a lot. So I think, you know,
I think we are, it sort of feels to me like in terms of the industry, we're still, you know, still in the early stages of like a pre -tipping point or something like that.
You know, we still, there's still lots and lots of growth to be had there. There's still lots of, as I said, lots of people who don't know about English wine, but the more we can do to kind of like things like Hampton Court and bring that message across.
And, you know, some other, you know, if you look, you know, this year, Night Timber sponsored Henley. I mean, that's a fantastic thing that actually it's,
you know, it's no longer a champagne that's doing it and it's an English wine that's doing it. So I think there's a, there's real progress happening there. But,
you know, fundamentally, a lot of this still comes down to budgets and we're still quite a new industry in that respect. I think YNGB are very clear in terms of what they want to do to help grow the industry,
which is good. But once again, it will come down to, you know, just how much money can get behind it. But I think, you know, when you look at the industry overall,
there's a lot of really exciting things happening out there. There's a lot of different wine styles coming through. There's a lot of different, you know, it's an increasing number of businesses. You know, we were at, you know, we were at Provine this year.
And, you know, there were, what's it, there was 14 English wines companies that approved wine this year. You know, last year it was, I think it was nine.
So, you know, you can see real progress in that respect as well. So it does take time and it will take time. But provided that we're delivering good quality,
you know, wines that consumers like and want, then, you know, I still think there's plenty of room to champion the category.
I still think if you stand and you look at the shelves of, you know, if you look at the shelves of a big retailer, I still think English is pretty much underrepresented.
So I do think there's a lot more that can be done there still as a category. You know, I still think it's a little bit like that, you know, the point I made about Hampton Court,
that, you know, we can, you know, as an industry and as a category, you know, we can meet lots and lots of different types of demand from the consumer,
whether, you know, so, and different price points, etc. So I think it's important that perhaps, you know, I think there's an opportunity for the category to be developed as well within many, many retailers.
And I'm sure that that will come. I mean, you know, there's still, there's, you know, there's still a lot of awareness that is still, you know, got to be, you know,
it's got to be built. But in some of that you can force and some of that, it just takes time for it to, for it to come. But if you look at, I mean, what, you know, the figures, you know,
we generally what we, you know, in the UK, we consume about 29 bottle, 29 million bottles of champagne and about 130 million bottles of other types of sparkling.
So one of the big benefits we have as an industry is, you know, we are big consumers of fees at the end of the day. And therefore, there's a big consumer base there. So, I mean,
that's what makes me very hopeful about the industry as well. That, you know, before you even start talking about export, there is still a huge opportunity, you know, on our doorstep,
which is, you know, really exciting. Yeah, we've still only really scratched the surface, haven't we? Yeah, I think so. From your own personal perspective, can you remember the first time that you tried English wine?
Yes, I can. Would you like to tell me about that? No, no, no, no, no, no, it's not all very positive. I was just thinking about it.
And the reason why I said I can and slightly hesitate it there was because it was, actually it wasn't actually that long ago.
I think it was maybe New Year's Eve, something like 2018. And we were at a friend's house. And there was various bottles of sparkling being drunk and night timber is one of them and actually I hadn't I wasn't particularly familiar with with night timber at the time so that was that was the first time I really good really enjoyed it and I remember there was a little bit of discussion about about English wine at that
point in time it was New Year's Eve so lots of other things were discussed as well so but that was the first time that I can definitely say for definite that I drank and remembered having an English wine.
I have had lots of English wine since then, I must point out, but that was the first time that I can certainly put a date to it. And can you remember what you thought at the time? Yeah, no, I enjoyed it,
absolutely. I really enjoyed it. So to be fair, we were enjoying a lot that night. But I did, yeah, no, I did really enjoy it. You know,
I was, it was an industry that I was, I was aware of. You know, there's an industry that I was, yeah, I was aware of English wine, but didn't really know in detail. I mean,
it's, I mean, it's interesting because it was probably, and I need to get my dates right, but it was, it was that acquisition of French Quarter, which was actually 2019 that kind of really opened my eyes to other traditional method styles of sparkling wines and high quality styles of sparkling wine.
And that was what I guess probably like piqued my interest really at that point in terms of, let's say, style and that sort of, you know, growing interest in quality,
you know, traditional original method wines. I know, as you've said, you've not been in the English wine industry for that long, but do you have a sort of memory, or is there a point over the past couple of years where you've thought,
wow, just a really special moment in your time working in the industry? I guess a few things kind of stick up, because it has been a relatively short short period with Rubach,
but it feels like an awful lot has happened in that period as well. I mean, I remember, certainly I remember First Harvest in 2022.
So I joined in May 2022. And obviously, 2022 was a really hot year, really good summer. And I just couldn't understand when every time I talked to,
you know, our head of viticulture about or estimates for harvest that he kept saying to me, you know, there's lots can change between now and then.
You know, we're going to be harvesting in like four weeks time. You know, surely not that much can change between none. We can. So then to actually get out in the first harvest and sort of see what happens and understand the logistics of it and also,
you know, to see the sort of the size and the scale of the operation, I think, was really memorable. The other thing, I remember when we put the, you know,
when we put the stretch tent in, the Rubach view for consumers, and we sort of stood there going, yeah, it sort of feels a little bit underwhelming when we put it in to begin with.
And it was, you know, kind of, and then, you know, and then we had, you know, two weeks later we had our first event and we had you know whatever it was 70 people and it was as I said like you know 28 degrees at 7 o 'clock on a on a Friday night in June and looking down over the stage and that that was a big moment as well because he just kind of sort of like you know built the sort of the buzz and the
energy and and realized that how much people were appreciating coming into the vigniards seeing and that that was that was a big part as well. I really enjoyed that. What was it like when you first tried Robux Wines?
Yeah, no, I was really impressed. As I say, I'd kind of gotten into the whole sort of French quarter scene through that.
And then when I tried Roebuck, so I, you know, because I basically came came out my previous company I was really interested in English because I could see how you can see how the industry was developing talked to the guys at Rubach and then ordered a few wines from the website to try at home and yeah absolutely blown away so no absolutely absolutely loved them I think the I think what was a bit surprising,
so I've got, I've got three kids, and they, everybody absolutely loved the Blanc de Noir, so we tried them together. I say kids, they're quite old kids,
so I should point out, but everybody absolutely loved the Blanc de Noir, so it was quite nice as well, just from a sort of family point of view, slightly worrying that,
you know, my 18 -year -old was sort of getting expensive tastes, a bit of a young age, to like the Blanc -Noir, but, It does.
I mean, the Blanc de Noir is absolutely fantastic wine. But the Rouseé de Noir from 2018, I just absolutely love it. And I sort of feel torn between the two.
But no, the ruse I really like. And we had some friends around last weekend. And, yeah, the rusee noir went down really,
really well. So it's a fantastic wine. Did well this year as well, picked up a gold medal under cancer. So, you know, we're really pleased with that. We just, we just launched out in Norway on the 1st of July with it as well.
So, so, yeah, no, the Ruza Noir has done, done. It's beautiful wine. Absolutely love it. It's probably a bit too early to tell with Norway, but from other wines and sort of initial tastings that you've done with that market.
It's been good. You've said that that's one of your strongest markets from the point of international. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, Norway's a, I don't know if it still is or not, but Norway was the biggest export market for English wine for quite some time.
And when you look at some of the stats, I mean, I think it's something like, of the top 10 premium sparkling wines in Norway, I think five of them are English, which is amazing. so yeah so we about,
you know, we're talking about, you know, how many consumers in the UK still don't know about English wine. I think that's a percentage if you looked at Norway, and I don't know this, so I'm kind of like guessing at this,
but as I understand it, if you looked in Norway, you would find that more consumers would reference English wine in Norway, that as a percentage than they would in the UK,
which is, I mean, which is both positive and negative, isn't it? It's great that it's kind of had that impact and it just shows how much that kind of opportunity there is as well in the UK. An opportunity for us where you were sort of talking about going to other places and yeah we're we're in about 12 export markets now so we just ship this week to Japan for the first time which is great we shipped last week to
the US so we have been in Massachusetts for a couple of years. And then we went into Connecticut at the beginning of this year. And actually we're adding about four other states.
I've coming to the shipment just went out last week. We're in Hong Kong, Singapore. We went into Canada at the beginning of this year. We went into Malta at the back end of last year.
Italy, Germany this year as well. Sweden, we will be shipping out to Sweden properly for the first time next month.
So, yeah, in terms of export, it still feels to me that English as a category is still kind of very much scratching the surface of export. But it does feel like there's starting to be a lot more interest and a lot more knowledge and understanding or awareness,
I guess, of English wine as well. So, yeah, so that's, yeah, that's another kind of exciting part of what we're doing is, is getting out on the, on the export side.
And what about back home? What's, what's sort of next for Roebuck Estates? Well, we are, we are hoping to, we're actually hoping to build a visitor center at one of the vineyards.
So that's, we're in planning at this point in time. We are obviously, you know, on a day -to -day basis, we are clearly monitoring the vineyards at this point in time.
But we're also, you know, we've got lots of kind of plans in the UK trade as well. So we're looking to open up and do more on that. So we're pretty active as well at the moment in terms of developing,
you know, certain relationships with certain trade partners as well. So we've got some quite exciting things going on. You know, we work really well with them hocks and hotels,
just like Seabird. We've got some exciting things going on with them at the moment. We went into, we started we were go out to restaurants recently and we like to we like to work closely with partners like that in terms of how we try and you know bring the brand to life at the same time and bring the wines to life as well so so there's lots going on on that side um as well so yeah it's uh yeah it's an exciting
time um the you know we we are you know we we love absolutely love doing um um and court. So we are hoping to do some other activities this year as well that we're just kind of working on at the moment,
kind of get out there and, you know, try and really engage with some new and hopefully existing consumers as well. So yes, there's lots. It's a dynamic exciting time at this point.
Exciting time. Now, Michael, I always end the podcast with a bit of a quick fire round. So I'm just going to ask you a few questions and we'll try and keep it quick, although it doesn't always happen that way,
but that's fine. Where's your favourite place to drink wine? It could be a restaurant, it could be in the vineyard. So I would love to say it's in the vineyard,
but as I live in London and the vineyards in West Sussex, then I'm always driving. To be honest, I mean, I love sharing the wine at home,
so I don't want to make that sound a bit of cliche. But, yeah, I love it at home. I think you mentioned before that I used to work for Drambouy, Scotch Whiskey liqueur.
That's not necessarily a drink that we shared as a family all the time. Whereas Rubik Estates, yeah, then it's fantastic, you know, getting a birthday or whatever with the family at home with that.
So yeah. Being able to do that's really special. What's your favourite food and wine combo? I'm a big sushi fan and sparkling goes really,
really well with sushi. So actually sushi and, yeah, sushi and Rubik is hard to beat, so I absolutely love that. If you could share a bottle of Robuck Estates with anybody dead or alive,
with Brian O'Driscoll, former Ireland rugby captain, captain and probably the finest rugby player of all time. That would be fantastic. Fabulous answer.
Finally, if there was one wine you couldn't live without, what would it be in why? It's really, I do think that it's a very difficult question to answer because wine is obviously a very personal thing.
And at different times, different wines. And, you know, is it terrible if I keep saying Rubac and all of these answers?
But, you know, I think, you know, despite what I said about the Rousé noir, I think if I was picking one wine that I think it was my desert island wine and I would have to drink it all of the time,
or want to drink it all the time, it would be the Blondeur Longtonoit. I think it would have to be that. So that would be it, yeah. And I think, as you say, because you've had that experience with having it with your family and it being their favourite too,
it's kind of a very personal thing there as well. Yeah, it is. Absolutely. It is. Well, Michael, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure to chat to you.
And good luck with everything that's really exciting times at Roebuck. Good luck with it all, and I look forward to seeing them at more events and seeing what else you guys get up to. Fantastic. Thanks very much for having me.
It's been a real pleasure talking to you, Rebecca. Thanks a lot. That was Michael Kennedy, CEO of Roebuck Estates, which, as you heard,
is not only producing delicious English sparkling, but doing a lot to help educate both the trade and consumer markets about this exciting drink sector. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the English Wine Diaries,
which is kindly sponsored by Wickham Wines. If you've enjoyed this episode or others, I'd so love it if you'd like, subscribe and leave a rating as it helps other people find us.
You can catch up with more English Wine News over on my Instagram at the English Wine Diaries. I'll be back next week with our final episode of the series. Until then, cheers.