An award-winning Bromsberrow vineyard has joined five other independent vineyards in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Worcestershire to pool their experience, expertise and reputation for growing great grapes and making excellent wines.
Collectively, Foxbury Fields Vineyard and the other vineyards – to be known together as The Malvern Hills Vineyards – grow 14 grape varieties across more than 68 acres.
Heather Williamson, who co-founded Foxbury Fields Vineyard with her partner Richard Baker and is also Hereford-based Wyevale Nurseries’ Chairman, explains: “We’re delighted to be collaborating with these wonderful vineyards on this joint venture.
“Making excellent wines is going from strength to strength in our area and together we want to capitalise on this and ensure we make our joint name better known national and internationally. We’re working together to raise awareness and interest in our sector and have a wonderful new website where people can find out more www.malvernhillsvineyards.co.uk.
“The wine industry in the UK is experiencing tremendous growth and we’re delighted to be part of this. The Malvern Hills Vineyards group includes us and Three Choirs, Chase End, Bromesberrow Place, Marlbank and Two Beacons.
“The character and story of each vineyard is unique, but what we all have in common is people with a passion for the art and craft of viticulture, and a respect for the soils that nurtures their vines. Winemaking has very deep roots in the Malvern Hills – grapevines were grown in the area back in Roman times.
“We’ve had some great production years recently including 2023, which was pretty near perfect in terms of the weather, the harvest and the number of bottles produced.
“2024 proved a bit challenging with all the wet weather at the start of the year so it’s going to be interesting to see how we all fare in 2025, especially with the drier year we’ve had so far.”
WineGB’s ‘UK Wine Tourism in 2024 Report’ shows that visits to vineyards and wineries have risen by 55% and that vineyards and wineries are now actively involved in wine tourism.
Martin Fowke, Managing Director at Three Choirs says: “We’ve been growing grapes at Three Choirs since 1973, when this was a very innovative thing to do. The terroir has always been good for vines, and the effects of climate change now mean that we regularly have excellent growing conditions.
“In that time, we have seen huge changes in the shape of the market, with food and accommodation complementing the tours and tastings. Today, we are seeing more and more interest and desire to understand how we grow grapes, how we manage sustainably the vineyard and the winemaking, and how the changing climate is affecting quality, choices and practices.”
The youngest vineyard in the Malvern Hills Vineyards collaboration is Marlbank, where Manager Jeremy Macklin has experience working closely with vineyards in France.
He says: “When I moved here in 2020, I discovered the marl soils were very similar to those in Burgundy, which produces excellent pinot noir grapes, so it was a bit of a ‘no-brainer’ to plant 1,500 pinot noir vines in a field where apples and pears used to grow.”
For further details about Malvern Hills Vineyards, please visit www.malvernhillsvineyards.co.uk or call 07442490200. For Foxbury Fields Vineyard, please call 07974793367 or visit www.foxburyfields.co.uk.
