About us

Sandridge Barton Wines

We are incredibly proud of our Sandridge Barton history and as being one of the earliest pioneers of the English wine industry as Sharpham Wine, with a history stretching back over 40 years. We've always strived to produce the best quality wine, from fruit carefully grown in the unqiue climate of the Dart Valley, mixing both modern and traditional techniques. We've had some inspiring people on the team over the years, and are lucky enough to have bought many with us over to our new site at Sandridge Barton. 

Wine Tastings & Tours at Sandridge Barton, South Devon.

We offer many different types of tasting experience, from casual self-guided options for those who want to taste our range at their own leisure, to in-depth guided tastings and tours for those wishing to learn more about the processes we use in the vineyard and winery. Select one of the following options to find out more, make a booking or purchase a gift voucher.

Meetings, Events & Corporate

Whether you're after a meeting venue, a space for team building activity or a private dining experience, our new 'Vine Room' is the best corporate meeting space Devon has to offer. We can also offer our main gallery tasting barn for larger functions and events.

We can cater for small groups in our new conference space, making it perfect for any business meetings, team building exercises, seminars or training days. You can enjoy morning coffees and cake, incorporate wine tasting experiences or book lunch with our restaurant Circa. We offer various packages that are tailor made to suit your needs.

Circa Restaurant at Sandridge Barton

Located inside our old stone milking parlor, a legacy of the dairy farm that was, our restaurant is all about sharing and showcasing the best produce from the estate and local area. A place to relax and unwind, sit back and enjoy some wonderful food paired with a lovely glass of wine, grown only a stone’s throw away. It doesn’t get much better than that.

Whilst focusing on creating the best experience possible we also try to be conscious of our impact with sustainability at the forefront. To us this means:

An ingredient-led approach, reflecting the seasons as nature intended.

Organic where possible but not at the detriment of food miles.

Homemade, buying raw, unprocessed where possible and using everything available, including bi-product from wine-making.

Ethically sourced produce. Day-boat fish landed in the morning a few miles away by our trusted fisherman.

Beef from the herd of South Devons on the estate.

Veg from no-dig, organic farms in the time of plenty.

Come and enjoy our little patch of Devon.

History

The Beginning's - 1980's

Maurice & Ruth Ash purchased the Sharpham Estate in the 1960's and with them, bought their Jersey Cows from Essex on the train. Over time, they developed the idea of making a French-style soft cheese from the milk and planting some trial vines on the sunny south-facing slope in front of Sharpham House over-looking the river Dart.

13 different varieties were first trialled in 1981 and the little known variety Madeleine Angevine seemed to show the most promise. From this, the first vineyard was then established.

The first wines were released in the late 1980's and were well recieved. This made a difference from the more Germanic style of wines crafted by most other UK producers at the time. Sharpham Wine was so well recieved, the Dart Valley Reserve became the first and only English wine to be selected as Co-op's own brand English wine selling over 10,000 bottles.

1990's - 2000's

The Ash's nephew, Mark Sharman, took over the running of the wine and cheese business and the reputation soon grew. As well as the quality of the wine and vineyard planting, more vines were planted in the mid 90's. Some of the new varieties included Pinot Noir, Dornfelder and Phoenix, thus slightly increasing production and the range of wines.

Duncan Schwab, who is still our head winemaker and now CEO, joined the team in 1992 working in the vineyard, but soon moved into the winery as a winemaker. The reputation of the wines grew further again, with the help of Ian A'court and Peter Sudworth managing the vineyards. 

The Final Chapter

English wine was now becoming a little more than a start-up industry with new vineyards popping up every year. Sharpham, being one of the early pioneers was still at the forefront, winning both national and international awards, including three consecutive gold medals at the Sommeliers Choice Awards, and Gold in the Decanter World Wine Awards.

Mark and Duncan were approach by Sandridge Barton in the mid-2000's, who were planting a Dart Valley vineyard themsleves. They wanted to know if Sharpham would be able to further increase their production and buy the fruit from Sandridge Barton. This was a great way to grow whilst still honoring the ethos of wine made with Dart Valley fruit.

Although the original Sharpham vineyard is no longer there, The Sharpham Trust are putting it to great use by re-wilding the site, turning the Sharpham Estate fully organic.

The Move To Sandridge Barton

Our final transition took place with our relocation across the river Dart to our new home on the Sandridge Barton estate near Stoke Gabriel. We built our state of the art winery and completed our first harvest in 2020 with our visitor centre opening its doors in June 2022.

We can't wait to welcome to our new home, where we will continue the legacy built at Sharpham over the past 40 years, and continue to produce excellent wines made with grapes grown in our Dart Valley vineyards. 

Vineyard & Terroir

As Sharpham Wine, we have been carefully nurturing and crafting our English wines from our beautiful Dart Valley vineyards for the past 40 years, and we strive to continue this legacy and tradition in our new home at Sandridge Barton.

The Sandridge Barton vineyard was planted in 2008, 3 kilometres downriver from our original vineyard on the Sharpham Estate, and these vines now produce over 80 tonnes of grapes a year from 32 acres.

With breath-taking views across the river and beyond, the site lies in a south-facing bowl that gently slopes towards the Dart, benefitting from the warming influence of the tidal river as well as the Devon sunshine.

Sandridge Barton Vineyard

Sandridge Barton vineyard was first planted in 2008 and has 32 acres under vine. We grow various varieties including Madeleine Angevine, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Bacchus Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc. 

Stonyfield Vineyard

In May 2021 we planted a new 8 acre vineyard on a raised limestone bed - one of only a few in the UK - with Burgundian and Champagne clones of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier, which thrive in limestone soils. We will most likely harvest our first crop from this site in 2024.

Winemaking & Aging

Our Devon Winery

Our brand new Devon winery is a state-of-the-art project that was completed just in time for the 2020 harvest. Being able to start from scratch enabled us to purpose build it exactly to our specifications, ensuring the best possible space to process our fruit and produce our Dart Valley wines. 

Our new winery and visitor buildings have been designed with sustainability in mind and have solar panels, rainwater harvesting, air source heat pumps, an aerobic digestion waste system and spring water extraction used throughout the site, in order to further reduce our carbon footprint.

Approach

We employ a combination of both modern and traditional approaches in the winery. Our new sorting table allows us to ensure that only the best quality fruit makes it into the press, and our temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks allow us to manage each fermentation in order to enable the fruit to express its true character. We also use French oak barrels to mature our red wines, just as has been done in old-world wineries for centuries.

95% of our fermentations use indigenous yeast so winery hygeine is paramount to ensure healthy ferments. Our aim is to honour the fruit from our beautiful South Devon vineyards and express this climate in each bottle of wine.

At The Winery

Equipment

In addition to the existing press and tanks from our winery at Sharpham, we've invested in a new, larger press and a sorting table as well as more stainless steel tanks ranging from 1,500 - 14,000 litres capacity, giving us plenty of flexibility when it comes to fermenting and blending our wines. We've also purchased some additional French oak barrels and even added two 1000 litre wooden foudre to the range of vessels we have to experiment with. We also now have our own riddling and disgorging line, allowing us to complete the process of sparkling wine production on site from start to finish, and take on contract work for smaller local wineries. 

We have three ranges of wines -

Sharpham range

Sandridge Barton range

Don't Feed the Pony range

Our Wine Club

Soon to open

Press & Awards

Introducing the new ‘Sandridge Barton’ Collection

First wine to be released wins Master Medal at The Global Sparkling Masters 2023

English wine producer, Sandridge Barton, is delighted to unveil its highly anticipated premium range, under the ‘Sandridge Barton’ label. Known for its commitment to producing exceptional English wines, Sandridge Barton, the home of Sharpham Wine, has introduced the first wines under the label of its new location near Stoke Gabriel, in South Devon.

The first wine in the collection to be released, Sandridge Barton ‘Blanc de Noir’, was recently recognised as one of the best Sparkling wines in the world at the Global Sparkling Masters 2023 after being awarded a Master Medal. An award which is only given to wines which are an outstanding example of its type, showing impeccable winemaking. It must demonstrate a wonderful texture, perfect balance and a broad range of delicious, persistent flavours to the panel of expert judges, including Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers.

Duncan Schwab, CEO and Head Winemaker at Sandridge Barton, said: “This bottling run is part of our Sandridge Barton range, for wines we believe are truly unique. Sandridge Barton ‘Blanc de Noir’ is the first to be released and is made with Pinot Noir fruit harvested in 2020 from our vineyards overlooking the river Dart in South Devon. It’s a cracking wine and we are extremely proud to receive a Master Medal and are delighted to introduce it to our range of English wines, which has now grown to over 15 wines.”

At this competition, judges sought out the very best Sparkling wines on the market, judging them blind with no knowledge of their origin. The contest was open to any sparkling or semi-sparkling wine made anywhere in the world. The judges tasted 230 entries from 14 different countries, with seven master medalists in total, including three from Champagne, two from Asti, one from California and one from Sandridge Barton in Devon.

Sandridge Barton ‘Blanc de Noir’ is priced at £45. Golden in colour, inviting rich nose with good autolysis, clean fresh fruit with a lime, gooseberry and raspberry palate and ripe balanced finish.

This is not the only success for Sandridge Barton this month, the WineGB Awards results were announced last week and the Devon-based winery was awarded 7 medals, including a Gold medal for the Sandridge Barton Pinot Noir 2020, four silvers and two bronze medals.

Over the course of the summer, Sandridge Barton will add three more wines to its ‘Sandridge Barton’ label range. A Bacchus, Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir, all of which are still wines will join the ‘Blanc de Noir’. Bottles will vary in price and will be available to buy from Sandridge Barton, from their cellar door and through their website.

With over 40 years of producing award-winning English wines, previously under the Sharpham Wine brand, Sandridge Barton has continued to be at the forefront of crafting exceptional wines that embody the unique marriage of climate, soil and grape varieties in this region of England.

The Global Sparkling Masters took place in London on 10 May. It is one of the 27 Global Wine Masters competitions taking place in 2023, run by industry-leading publication the drinks business.

For more information please visit sandridgebarton.com or to stay up to date like/follow Sandridge Barton Wines on Facebook, Sandridge_Barton on Instagram and @SharphamWines on Twitter.