There are officially over a thousand vineyards in the UK now, according to WineGB, the industry's own trade body. Most people, if you stopped them on the street, could probably name Champagne, could probably name Prosecco, and would struggle to name a single English one. That gap is closing fast, and a lot of the reason why is happening about ten minutes from our farm.
We're writing this from a working farm in the Kent Downs, inside the same Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty as Domaine Evremond, Champagne Taittinger's English estate, which sits close enough that you can walk there from the neighbouring village in twenty minutes. That single fact tells you most of what you need to know about why this corner of Kent matters right now. A Champagne house with the whole world to choose from looked at chalk downland in Kent and decided it had more in common with their own soil back home than most people would ever guess. They weren't the first to notice — Chapel Down and Gusbourne have been quietly building serious reputations here for two decades — but Evremond's arrival is the moment the rest of the world started paying attention too.
This is our map of what's actually here, honestly graded by distance and by what each place is actually like to visit, not a list padded out with anywhere that happens to sell a bottle.
Quick facts for planning:
- Six real stops, all within about half an hour, a couple stretching to just over: Domaine Evremond, Badgers Hill Cidery, Shepherd Neame, Simpsons, Chapel Down, Gusbourne
- Closest: Badgers Hill and Domaine Evremond, both around 11-12 minutes
- Furthest: Gusbourne, Appledore, about 33 minutes
- The one hands-on harvest experience: Gusbourne's September harvest tour — nowhere else on this list offers it
- Booking: varies by venue — see "How Tastings Actually Work" below before you plan your day
The Map: What's Actually Here
Six places, six different characters, and they're worth understanding as a set before you pick where to start.
Domaine Evremond and Badgers Hill Farm & Cidery are the two closest to us, both around eleven to twelve minutes away and both walkable from Chilham village. Shepherd Neame in Faversham, about fifteen minutes out, breaks the wine theme entirely — a brewery, not a vineyard, and Britain's oldest at that. Simpsons' Wine Estate in Barham is twenty-five minutes and deliberately low-key, the kind of place you visit because you already know what you're looking for, not because you stumbled on it. Chapel Down, in Tenterden, and Gusbourne, in Appledore, both sit just over half an hour away and are the two biggest names on this list by reputation — well worth the extra distance, but a full day trip rather than an afternoon detour.
Domaine Evremond: The One Everyone's Talking About
Twelve minutes from the farm, and the reason this whole run of articles exists in the first place. Domaine Evremond is Champagne Taittinger's English estate, opened to the public in 2025 with the kind of press coverage — Decanter, Wallpaper, a royal opening — that most new wine estates can only dream of.
What you actually get: walk-in terrace tastings Wednesday to Sunday, weather-dependent, no booking needed for a glass of their Classic Cuvée; a guided estate tour and tasting from £25; a full food-pairing experience, Flavours of Kent, at £140. We've written a complete guide to visiting — booking, prices, the parking quirk everyone gets caught out by, transport from London — so read that next if Evremond is your main event. It's also, not coincidentally, the estate closest to us.
Simpsons' Wine Estate: The Quiet One
Twenty-five minutes out in Barham, and honestly the least publicised name on this list. Simpsons doesn't run the same visible events calendar as Evremond, and their own website is thin on published prices and tour formats — we've said so plainly in our full write-up rather than guessing at detail they don't publish themselves. What is certain: every visit needs booking in advance, there's no walk-in tasting, and the cellar door handles wine sales and click-and-collect during normal office hours. If you want an estate that isn't full of coach parties, this is the one — you'll just need to plan ahead rather than turning up on a whim.
Chapel Down: The Big Name, A Bit Further
Just over half an hour away in Tenterden, Chapel Down is arguably the best-known English wine brand full stop — the name most likely to turn up on a supermarket shelf or a wedding wine list, if you've encountered English wine at all before reading this.
The estate itself, tucked into the village of Small Hythe just outside Tenterden, is built for a full day out rather than a quick stop: book a guided tour or wander the vineyard yourself on the self-guided trail, work through a flight at the tasting bar, or just sit under their stretch tent with a bottle and take your time. There's the Swan Restaurant on site if you want to make lunch part of the visit, and accommodation if a day trip turns into an overnight one. It's wheelchair accessible throughout except the restaurant, and while it's easiest by car, a taxi from the local train stations gets you there if you're travelling without one. Given the extra distance, this is one to treat as its own outing rather than bolting onto a Chilham afternoon — but for scale and reputation, it's the biggest name within reach of the farm.
Gusbourne: Serious Wine, A Different Kind of Visit
Appledore, about thirty-three minutes out, and the estate on this list with the most serious wine-world credentials — a gold medal at the 2025 Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships for their Blanc de Noirs 2020, and their Fifty One Degrees North 2016 rated 98 points and named second in the world in Wine Enthusiast's Top 100 of 2025. Gusbourne's own site claims a ranking of 28th globally for visitor experience, which for a vineyard in Kent rather than Bordeaux or Napa is a striking claim to be able to make.
Here's the thing that actually sets Gusbourne apart from everywhere else on this list, though: they run a hands-on Harvest Estate Tour with lunch, various dates from the 10th to the 20th of September, weather permitting. You're not watching from a terrace — you're out in the vineyard itself, seeing the grapes hand-picked as it happens. We've been careful throughout this whole cluster not to overclaim what other estates offer, and specifically said in our harvest-season guide that nowhere nearby lets you actually take part in picking. Gusbourne is the exception, and if that's specifically what you're after, it's worth the extra twenty minutes on the drive. Their best-selling Estate Tour with Lunch runs year-round too — five-star rated on Tripadvisor, a seasonal three-course lunch alongside the tour and tasting — or there's a simpler Vineyard Platter for Two with a bottle of Brut Reserve if you'd rather keep it low-key. Don't want to commit to any of that? The Nest, their cellar door, pours wine by the glass or bottle to walk-ins most Friday to Sunday afternoons too — it's worth a quick call ahead to check they've got space.
Why Here, Specifically
It's worth pausing on why this particular patch of Kent, rather than assuming any bit of English countryside would do.
The Kent Downs sit on the same band of chalk that runs under Champagne itself — geologically, the North Downs and the Champagne region are more closely related than most people drinking either wine ever realise. Chalk drains fast, forces vine roots down deep for water and minerals, and reflects heat back up into the fruit — all things that matter enormously for growing the same grape varieties, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir chief among them, that go into serious sparkling wine. It's not a coincidence that Taittinger, a Champagne house that could have planted anywhere on earth, sent people to survey exactly this stretch of Kent before choosing it. Gusbourne and Chapel Down worked this out two decades ago; Evremond's arrival is just the moment everyone else noticed.
We're not neutral about this, and we won't pretend to be — we farm this same chalk, close enough to Evremond to walk there, and we've watched "English wine" go from a slightly apologetic phrase to something people specifically travel for. That shift is happening here as much as anywhere in the country. It's a good reason to visit even if you think you already know what you like.
How Tastings Actually Work
Across six venues, the booking patterns actually differ quite a bit, and getting this wrong is the easiest way to turn up somewhere and be disappointed.
Domaine Evremond, Badgers Hill, Chapel Down and Gusbourne all let you turn up without planning much, though the ease varies. Evremond's terrace takes walk-ins weather allowing, Wednesday to Sunday, and Badgers Hill is a working farm café and shop with no booking system at all. Chapel Down runs a genuine Walk-In Wine Flight at its tasting bar — no booking, just turn up in opening hours — plus a self-guided vineyard trail. Gusbourne pours wine by the glass or bottle for walk-ins too, most Friday to Sunday, though they'd rather you called ahead to confirm space. Shepherd Neame and Simpsons are the two genuine book-ahead-or-don't-bother venues on this list — no walk-in tasting at either, only shop browsing without a booking. Wherever you go, the guided tours, masterclasses and sit-down experiences need booking regardless; it's specifically the casual glass-of-wine option that splits the group this way.
The practical upshot: if you're planning a day around a specific tour, ring or book online before you leave rather than assuming you'll sort it on arrival. If you'd rather keep the day loose, build it around Evremond's terrace, Badgers Hill, Chapel Down's tasting bar or Gusbourne's cellar door, where showing up gets you a glass even without a booking.
When to Visit
We've written a full seasonal guide, but the short version: English Wine Week runs annually in June (organised nationwide by WineGB, exact dates shift slightly year to year), and harvest runs September into October — later than most of Europe, which is part of what gives English sparkling wine its characteristic sharpness. Terrace-based visits are at their best May to September; the tours and cellar doors run year-round regardless of weather. If you specifically want to see grapes being picked rather than just vines changing colour, Gusbourne's September harvest tour, above, is the one place on this list that actually offers it.
Building Your Own Wine Weekend
However you want to spend your time, the pieces are all here, and we've written about most of them in more depth elsewhere.
Staying with us puts you eleven to thirty-three minutes from every estate on this page, with one cottage and two glamping stays, each with its own private hot tub, as the base to come back to. If you're travelling without a car, we've mapped out exactly how a car-free weekend from London works, including the one taxi leg you can't avoid. If Chilham itself is your focus rather than any single estate, our village guide covers the castle and the cidery, and our walking guide covers the footpath route out to Evremond and the longer North Downs Way beyond it. And if beer and cider matter as much as wine to your group, our roundup of everything within thirty minutes covers Shepherd Neame and Badgers Hill alongside the wine estates here.
Pick two venues at most for any single day — a rushed tasting is a wasted one, whichever estate you're at — and build the rest of your stay around walking, the village, and the farm itself.
Three ways we'd actually plan a weekend, depending on what you're after. The local weekend: arrive Friday evening, Saturday morning walk to Chilham and on to Evremond's terrace, afternoon in the village itself, Sunday morning at Badgers Hill before heading home — everything on foot, nothing more than twelve minutes from the farm even if you do drive. The wine-lover's weekend: Evremond on the Saturday, Gusbourne or Chapel Down as a dedicated Sunday outing — book the Gusbourne harvest tour specifically if you're travelling in September and want the one experience nowhere else offers. The mixed-drinks weekend: Shepherd Neame's brewery tour Saturday morning, lunch in Faversham, Evremond or Badgers Hill on the way back, cider or a second glass depending on the mood of the group.
None of these need booking more than a week or two ahead outside of the busiest summer weekends, when it's worth giving any of the book-ahead venues more notice than you'd first assume. Everything else has more give in it than people expect.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many vineyards are actually near Canterbury?
We've covered four wine estates within about half an hour to forty minutes of our farm near Canterbury — Domaine Evremond, Simpsons, Chapel Down and Gusbourne — plus Badgers Hill for cider and Shepherd Neame for beer if you want to broaden the day beyond wine specifically.
Which one should I visit if I only have time for one?
Domaine Evremond, without much hesitation — it's the closest, the newest, and the one with a genuine walk-in option if you don't want to commit to booking ahead.
Do I need to book everywhere, or can I turn up?
Evremond's terrace, Badgers Hill, Chapel Down's tasting bar and Gusbourne's cellar door all take walk-ins for a casual glass. Shepherd Neame and Simpsons are the two that genuinely need advance booking for any visit at all — everywhere else, it's just the guided tours and sit-down experiences that require it.
Which is best for a special occasion?
Gusbourne's Estate Tour with Lunch or Evremond's Flavours of Kent pairing both work well when there's something specific to mark — Gusbourne for the wine-world pedigree, Evremond for the closer, more local feel.
Is there anywhere I can watch the actual harvest?
Yes — Gusbourne runs a hands-on Harvest Estate Tour in September, various dates, weather permitting. It's the only venue on this list offering an actual in-vineyard harvest experience.
Can I visit more than one estate in a weekend?
Easily, if you pick sensibly. Evremond and Badgers Hill pair naturally since both sit near Chilham. Chapel Down and Gusbourne, being further out and bigger experiences in their own right, are each worth a dedicated day rather than combining with something else.
Where should I stay to see all of this?
With us, honestly — we're positioned roughly in the middle of everything on this page, eleven minutes from the closest and just over half an hour from the furthest, with a private hot tub waiting at the end of whichever direction you choose.
Your Base for All of It
Six real places, one farm in the middle of them. Explore the Kent Downs from Landews Meadow — book direct for the guaranteed best price, and start wherever on this map interests you most.
