In 2000, a rare sample of English sparkling wine inspired Stephen and Fiona Duckett to produce and share their own.
With a belief that “great wines are made in vineyards, not in wineries,” they began a meticulous three-year search for a plot to cultivate the finest grapes, armed with climate data, and insight from the late Champagne winemaker Dr Michel Salgues.
Today, the Hundred Hills vineyard and winery occupies 42 acres of Oxfordshire countryside and is a thriving family-led business. Having produced its first vintage in 2018, its wines are now listed at exclusive restaurants, including the three Michelin star Fat Duck and the two Michelin star Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons (where chef patron Raymond Blanc is one of their biggest champions).
Here, Stephen explains what he has learned so far, and how his background in farming and technology shaped his next step as an entrepreneur.
What first inspired you to start a vineyard? Was there a eureka moment?
Stephen: When a friend gave us a bottle of English sparkling wine in 2000, we were surprised at how good it was. It was clear there was something interesting going on in winemaking.
The eureka moment was seeing data on how the climate had changed. The temperatures in Oxfordshire now are as warm as the temperatures in the Champagne region in the 1980s and 1990s. Just like Champagne, the chalk soil in southern England is good for growing Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, because it makes the vines struggle, has excellent drainage and captures the heat well.
Vineyards are all about science. There are many very different types of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and the key is to know exactly which will thrive in your climate and soil to make beautiful wines.
How do you build your brand and distribute your wine when you’re competing with larger, more-established wine-producing regions?
Stephen: English wine is still at the awareness stage of marketing. In a restaurant, people still ask “can I have a glass of Champagne?” What I have in my armoury is novelty. A top restaurant pairing wines to a Michelin-starred menu doesn’t want to present wines their diners have tasted a thousand times before.
We focus on “hand-selling” partners who can influence a customer to try our wines, because we’re confident that when they try them, they’ll love them. We build relationships with sommeliers in top restaurants and small wine merchants with a private client base, and they encourage people to experience our wines and even come and visit us in the winery.
How long did it take for Hundred Hills to become a success?
Stephen: It took a good ten years to get there. We released our first, very small runs of wine in 2020, but it was 2022 before we were selling wines in commercial volumes and receiving critical acclaim, not just in the UK, but around the world.
It means that this is a very long-term project – and a deep capital project. If you’re going down this road you have no choice but to build inventories of wine that age over time.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve faced so far?
Stephen: My biggest challenge was to attract somebody who really knows how to run a vineyard day-to-day because if you can’t create beautiful grapes, you can't make beautiful wines. We prune 100,000 vines by hand; it’s a diligent task and I’ve got to trust the team. Of all the hires I've made in the business, Enrico Cassinelli, who grew up on his family vineyards in Piedmont and is passionate about vines, was the most important.
In agriculture, you have good years and bad years, and sometimes you get a run of bad years. Starting out, I was worried that I could be unlucky. Momentum is important for an entrepreneurial business. If you have a run of bad years, your customers can't tell if you have a good product. We were fortunate that 2018 was a fabulous English summer that produced an easy vintage.
What part of the business are you most passionate about?
Stephen: I’m really passionate about producing excellent grapes every year. That’s the cornerstone of this business. I also love the English countryside. I'd like to see it revitalised socio-economically. It should be vibrant, with young people working on the land, not simply somewhere people retire to.
How did your life before Hundred Hills influence you?
Stephen: This is a classic bootstrap startup. The entrepreneurial bias of my first career as a venture capitalist in the technology sector is critical to my second career.
We spent three years searching for a green field anywhere in England. We had big ambitions to grow the best grapes possible, build a vineyard and sell wine. But to understand how to manage capital, cash flow and people, you must grow a business carefully. I learned early in my career how critical people are in startups. If you get the hiring wrong, it can set you back.
What are your plans for the business in the long term?
Stephen: Our goal is to produce some of the best sparkling wines in the world. We’re making good progress, but it's a 25-year plan. There's a reason that some of the best wines are made in family estates. Unlike in venture capital, where timescales are short, you need a long-term horizon. You also need to care about things that aren't easily measurable but still show up in the quality of the wine.
This is an intergenerational business. My eldest daughter works in the business running our corporate hospitality. My youngest daughter has also worked in the vineyards, doing a traditional apprenticeship.
Has your journey taught you any lessons you’d share with other entrepreneurs?
Stephen: I think there’s a myth that entrepreneurship is all about taking on risk. It’s about working out how to mitigate as much risk as you can. How you go about that is to get a good network, including suppliers, partners and financial partners.
It’s imperative your financing is structured to bear any financial risk you can’t diversify away. Financing from Investec gives us flexibility. We know that if we have a bad year, we have financing lines available to take us cleanly through to the next year and the one after that. Without that support, you could be forced into making sub-optimal business decisions.
“Surround yourself with people who know what good looks like. If you haven't seen good, it's very hard to imagine it and deliver against it.”
“Develop a network that supports you through all aspects of the business. We invest a lot of time up front in getting the right people around us.”
“Understand what gives you a real edge. You don't need to address an entire market, but you need to understand why you have an edge in the small niches you’re in. Wine is the most crowded market in the world. The ability to make wines from beautiful grapes in a controlled way, gives us an edge in a new world.”
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