Tucked away in a valley between the Alfriston village and the East Sussex coast rests one of England’s newest and largest vineyards, the Rathfinny Wine Estate. Rathfinny produces fine vintage sparkling wine, including its popular Sussex Sparkling wines, and to mark its 10-year anniversary has applied for B Corporation certification. The assessment score was 99.4 and certification is due in May. At the company’s core is the importance of sustainability: Rathfinny aims to set a new global standard for sustainable winemaking.
To learn more about what sustainable practices the Rathfinny estate has put into place as well as how the winery was first established, I recently talked with its founders, Mark and Sarah Driver, and the company’s vineyard manager, Cameron Roucher.
Since planting their very first vines across 50 acres of their land, and bottling their first 11,000 bottles of sparkling wine, the Drivers have grown the Rathfinny estate into more than just a farm. It has also become a tourist destination with tours, rooms and two restaurants, and a manufacturing company in that every stage of the winemaking process is on site. Located in a part of the world that is now hailed as an up-and-coming region for world-class wines, Rathfinny has taught the Drivers one important business lesson: It’s easier to start a company with the goal to be sustainable rather than retroactively fix the company’s core structures and policies.
Location and Climate Made for Winemaking
The Rathfinny vineyards overlook the English coast on a south-facing slope just three miles from the sea, which is the perfect location to plant a vineyard according to the ancient Romans. The estate was established in 2010 after husband and wife Mark and Sarah Driver — a former hedge fund owner and former lawyer retired from the corporate world, respectively — purchased 600 acres of arable farmland with one goal in mind: to produce fine wines.