Canterbury Business Park
Canterbury Business Park is the district’s leading rural employment site, with good access off the A2 – and easy connections to Dover and across the English Channel to Europe. It is already home to a range of businesses linked to the agricultural, food and drink sectors.
It ticked all the boxes for Chapel Down as a location, especially given any addition to the wine producer’s vineyard estate is expected to be within the chalk stream in and around Highland Court Farm. The site also allows for future expansion to meet the district’s employment needs.
Partnering for Growth
Defined Wine and Project Expansion
Partnering on the project is Defined Wine, a UK specialist in the production of high-quality wines from across the UK. The contract wine producer is already based at Canterbury Business Park and will be expanding its warehousing operations to meet demand.
Both companies are looking to ride the tremendous growth and investment of recent years in the UK viticulture industry. This boom in English winemaking has been underpinned by climate change, which has led to longer, warmer growing seasons more suitable to commercially desirable grape varieties.
The heart of the English wine industry
Climates to rival the Champagne region of France
This is good news for Canterbury and Kent, more widely thanks to south facing chalky soil and mild climate. Compared to the rest of the UK, Kent provides the suitable conditions for wine growing, on a par with the Champagne region of France. It will put the district as the heart of the English wine industry.
Regional Wine Hub
Producing six-million bottles a year
Chapel Down will be joining existing wine producers harvesting their vines here in the district of Canterbury including Simpsons, Heppington, Gorsley and Terlingham. It’s new £32 million, 128,090 Sq. Ft. (11,900 sqm) regional wine hub will have the capacity to produce at least six-million bottles per year by the end of the next decade.
