If you’re anything like me, then seeing in the New Year with a glass of sparkling is a must. So it’s fitting that today’s interview is with Trevor Clough aka one half of the dynamic duo behind Digby Fine English sparkling wines.
Digby’s wines are truly ground-breaking, blending fun, heritage and a little bit of anarchy in their mission to bring English sparkling wine worldwide fame.
Their pride and passion for cultivating excellence in their wine is epitomised in Digby’s Leander Pink NV Brut, a fun pink fizz which earns kudos for its support of young aspiring Olympians.
If you’re curious about what makes Digby’s English sparkling wines so special then this one is for you.
Enjoy, and a Happy New Year to you.
Can you tell me something that’s part of your daily routine as the owner of a prestigious English wine brand?
Every morning on my way to the kitchen I walk by a 10ft tall picture of our namesake, Sir Kenelm Digby, that hangs in our living room. He looks down at me and says, “You’ve got my name on your bottle, boys. Make sure you don’t mess it up.” I have to look at him and give him a wink to say, don’t worry, we won’t.
Can you sum up your wine in three words?
Confident, authentic, English.
If you could associate your wine brand with a favourite fairy tale, which would you choose?
The story I would choose is David and Goliath. You’re talking about someone who’s got to use their wits and creativity to upset the big guy. Because we’re taking on such an incumbent category of sparkling that’s been doing it for 200 years, it can be a daunting adversary. But then you remember sometimes it’s just about having fun and going for it.
If you could be the founder of any other wine in existence, what would it be?
I would love to see Romans lounging in their togas and drinking wine as it was enjoyed in that time. We know that wine has been enjoyed for millennia but I would love to see if it plays such a joyous, life-affirming role in such a different society. I have this hunch that just like today it would bring people together and soften inhibitions to get people thinking and really connecting.
How did the idea of starting an English sparkling wine company first come to mind?
My husband Jason and I were living in London and fighting the good fight in the corporate world. We loved our jobs but we had the entrepreneurship bug. We went on a road trip to the US and were on the driveway of a winery south of Seattle in this slightly bonkers fake French chateau with palm trees and vines. And then the lightning bolt: English sparkling wine.
What’s the biggest challenge you face as the owner of an English sparkling wine brand?
You’ve got to get through the idea of quality, both at home and abroad. Then you’ve got to get through an English take and a Digby take on romance and naughtiness and cheekiness and fun. It seems like an uphill battle sometimes but on the other hand, it’s a battle of surprise and delight, which is a lot of fun.
I can imagine you wanting to surprise people with a taste of Digby Fine English without necessarily saying that it’s an English brand. Is that something you do?
Often people know what they like and when something crosses their lips or someone waves something under their nose that’s got “it”, that captures their attention twenty times better than words. Our wine isn’t shy about its pedigree and it’s pretty difficult for people to laugh it off once they’ve tasted it.
What benefits do you find in being a négociant rather than a vineyard?
We became England’s first négociant because it takes just the right balance between Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, between Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, and between pure chalk, green sand and clay soils, to really nail Digby’s take on what’s so exciting about England. We’ve broken the rules a little bit in English wine and we’ve done it for the love of what’s in the glass.
What is an unusual fact about your sparkling wine?
All our wine is vegan.
Do you think it’s important to have wines which are vegan?
It means we don’t mess with nature. I want our wines to tell the world why they’re so proud of being from England and vegan is the perfect stamp that says that.
If you could match Digby Fine English wine with a movie, which one would it be?
Johnny English. It’s a piss take of a character that represents what the whole world loves about Britain. It’s really easy in the wine world to take yourself terribly seriously so that’s why I thought I’d choose that movie.
Does most of your business come from international countries or is it more localised?
Our ambition was always to try and help make England world famous for fizz. We’re not the biggest sparkling but we’re serious about being on an international scale and that’s just how we like it. Boutique but really going for it.
What are the top countries you export to?
The United States is the biggest market for us. We’re still the only English sparkling in New Zealand and Norway is going well as well.
What are your two favourite places to drink wine in London?
In terms of out and about, it’s The Hunter’s Moon on Fulham Road. They pour Leander Pink, which is really just our most fun style of fizz, by the glass. It’s both fabulously wonderful but also comfortable and relaxed and just properly British. Or, to the house of some friends of mine, Colin and Elliot, and to their kitchen table. That’s another very happy place for me and wine drinking in town.
What’s it really like to sell an English wine in a marketplace where more people are aware of champagne?
These days, certainly in and around London, there’s quite a deep level of respect for what English sparkling wine achieves and is. The market for it is still relatively speaking very small and it takes time to build traditions. But I think more people nowadays would rather drink less and better. They want to know who made their wine and where it’s from.
Who is the most famous person you have ever met?
Iain McKellen.
I want to know more.
A friend of mine arranged it so we had dinner with Iain and Sir Michael Cashman, who are two of the original founders of [the LGBT rights campaign group] Stonewall. We had some bottles of Digby with the dinner as well. Iain’s just a mensch, a huge sweetheart.
If you could choose just one person to spend the evening with you whilst drinking Digby Fine English, who would they be?
Sir Kenelm Digby. When he came back from being a pirate, he was a chef, wrote a cookbook, was friends with Anthony Van Dyck, corresponded with all of the philosophers and mathematicians and the artists of their day; he was just the ultimate person to hang out with. I’d love to pick his brain and ask why he invented the wine bottle. To find out what was it that gave him that idea, that spark.
If your brand could be represented anywhere, where would you like it to be?
The iconic wine shop in Los Angeles is called Wally’s; they’ve got one location in Santa Monica and one in Beverly Hills. While we have a lot of customers in LA, you really make it in LA when you’ve caught their imagination and when you’ve got the sex appeal. So that’s the next one on the list.
What is always guaranteed to make you laugh?
It’s probably one of our dearest friends catching my husband out and making fun of him. While I’m the impresario, he’s a scientist and an engineer. He’s calm and I’m not calm. And I’m the one who drops his phone or does something silly but of course I love it when he gets caught out because that’s just kinda nice.
It’s great you complete each other. That’s how love works.
Absolutely. And business too.
What’s the most unusual thing you’ve ever done in a vineyard?
Because we live in rural Sussex it’s not super easy to get to the gym. But I’ve had this personal trainer for a while and one of the exercises that he taught us is called the carioca which is where you do lots of swinging of the arms and running sideways. So I did the carioca up and down the aisles and rows of the vineyard while looking for detritus in the runup to harvest.
Do you remember the first wine you ever had with Jason?
I don’t remember the first bottle but I do remember the most memorable one. We were in Tuscany for a wedding, back before we set up the company, and we met a woman called Elisabetta. She’s a female wine maker in Italy, which is badass. We sat on her terrace overlooking her vineyard and she poured us her Vernaccia, which isn’t a grape that we’d heard of at that time. It had this rich quality whilst still being really dry and light. It was the synthesis of people and place and wine and it was just beautiful.
How do you find working with the person who shares your love life? Is that difficult or does it just work?
I think it could work for some people and not for others. It works for us because while we are different in terms of what we like to do and our skills, we’re not all that different when it comes to our values. Having a young company is extremely intense and nobody should take it on thinking it’ll be all shits and giggles. But on the other hand, we got this. We know eachother, we know what we’re good at and we know why we’re doing this.
What is the best thing about being in the wine industry?
What I adore is having our tasting room in Arundel in Sussex and our experience that our guests have. It gets me when I look in their eyes and see this glow that tells me they’re not going to forget this. Wine has this really ephemeral ability to create memories from life and to bring people together and I’m so lucky to be able to do that.
What is the most difficult part of being in the wine industry?
There are so many different wines, breaking through the noise to really have something to say and have someone listen is not easy. And you can’t try too hard either. Then you become a fake and people smell a fake fast. I think we’ve probably chosen to grow more slowly and get things right for the customer. We’re not trying to make millions of bottles, we’re trying to make just a mere 120,000 and hope that every single one of them makes people happy.
To anyone out there who dreams of creating their own wine label one day, what would you tell them?
There is much, much more that you don’t know than that you do know. That’s a lot of the fun, so stick to your passion and your drive. Also, listen to your mentors. Don’t be afraid to listen and change.
What are your top tips for someone who wants to create their own wine brand?
Don’t do what everybody else is doing, that’s the first thing. Then think of your customer and what special thing you’re sharing with them. If you’ve got a bit of a luck and a bit of wind in your sails, then you might just have something.
What’s the next big thing for Digby Fine English wine?
I’m working on a little bit of a revolution but a revolution that’s sort of tick tick pause tick tick BOOM. And, in some ways, with a revolution you never know quite where the boom is going to be. So we’ll see, it might be years before the boom or the boom might be this year. Either way, it’s very exciting.
To find out more about Digby’s fabulous wine range, listen to my podcast interview with Made In Chelsea’s Digby Edgley. Or, just head straight over to the online shop.
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