Defined Wine Ltd

Defined Wine: England's Dedicated Contract Winemaker

Defined Wine is not a vineyard and does not put a label of its own on a bottle. It is one of England's leading dedicated contract wineries, set up to do one thing and do it well: make wine on behalf of growers and brands who would rather outsource their production to a highly equipped, professionally staffed winery than invest in their own cellar.

The company was founded in late 2018 by Henry Sugden, a former British Army officer who had previously worked with small companies in Kenya and had a stint in the City before turning his hand to the rapidly maturing English wine industry. The name Defined Wine captures the philosophy: by working closely with each client, the team helps them to define their own style of wine rather than imposing a house style.

Today Defined Wine operates from two sites: a winery at Highland Court Farm, just south of Canterbury in Kent, and a second winery at Holton Hall Farm in East Anglia, near the Suffolk - Essex border between Colchester and Ipswich. Together, the two sites give clients in the south-east and east of England easy access to a full-service winery without having to transport fruit or finished wine long distances.

What is contract winemaking?

Most well-known English vineyards - Nyetimber, Ridgeview, Gusbourne, Chapel Down - produce wine from their own grapes under their own labels. But the cost of building a winery, buying presses, tanks, filters, disgorging equipment, a laboratory and temperature-controlled storage is significant, and for many newer or smaller producers it makes more sense to hand that side of the business to a specialist.

That is exactly where Defined Wine sits. It owns the equipment, employs the winemakers, runs the lab and stores the wine, while the grower provides the grapes and (usually) the brand. The result is a true crate-to-case service: grapes arrive in crates at the winery and leave, eventually, as finished, labelled cases of still or sparkling wine ready for the client's customers.

Because Defined Wine does not have any vineyards or labels of its own, every decision and every hour is spent on behalf of its clients. Winemakers involve growers as much, or as little, as they wish - some want to be in the cellar at every press load, while others simply hand over the fruit and trust the team to do what it does best.

The Kent winery at Highland Court Farm

The Kent winery sits at Highland Court Farm, Coldharbour Lane, Bridge, Canterbury, CT4 5HL, also known as Canterbury Business Park. Visitors arriving at the farm should keep to the left of ISS and look out for the Defined Wine logo.

The village of Bridge is itself a charming corner of Kent and a useful stop for anyone visiting the winery. Within walking distance you will find The Pig at Bridge Place, the gastropub The Bridge Arms and the Tadpole Tearoom - three good excuses to combine a winery visit with lunch, a pint or afternoon tea.

The East Anglia winery at Holton Hall Farm

Defined Wine's second site, opened in late 2023, is at Holton Hall Farm, Holton St Mary, Suffolk, CO7 6NN, conveniently located just off the A12 between Colchester and Ipswich. The expansion was covered by The Times and Fruit & Vine magazine as English wine producers in East Anglia sought a closer, professionally equipped alternative to long-distance haulage of fruit.

All grape and lab samples for testing should be sent to the Kent address rather than Suffolk, while bulk deliveries of fruit and finished wine are routed to whichever site is closer for the grower.

Services on offer

Defined Wine is not a one-size-fits-all operation. While the headline service is full crate-to-case contract winemaking, the winery is happy to be used as a shared facility for any individual step of the production process.

Full contract winemaking

The team produces still, sparkling and natural wines for clients, taking fruit from intake and pressing all the way through fermentation, ageing, secondary fermentation (for sparkling), riddling, disgorging, dosage and final bottling. Each batch is fully traceable through the winery software system, giving clients a clean, auditable production record.

Pressing

The winery has six presses across the two sites and runs two shifts during harvest to make sure fruit can be pressed the moment it is ready to pick, which is critical for English harvests, where ripeness windows can be tight. Temperature-controlled tanks range from 1,000-litre units up to 20,000-litre vessels, allowing the team to handle both small-batch and larger-volume clients.

Filtration

Defined Wine has invested in a Pall cross-flow filter for gentle filtration with minimal product losses, alongside a hybrid filter suitable for smaller batches. Cross-flow filtration is particularly useful for preserving aroma and mouthfeel in delicate still and sparkling wines.

Riddling and disgorging

The winery has multiple gyropalettes for riddling traditional-method sparkling wines and can disgorge half-bottles, standard 75cl bottles and magnums. Jetting and fill-height detection equipment provide consistency and quality control, which is key for any sparkling brand that wants its bottles to look identical on a restaurant wine list.

Bottling and labelling

The bottling lines can handle still wines sealed with cork, screw cap or Vinolok, as well as sparkling wines finished with bidule and crown cap. Application of foils, capsules, front labels, back labels and neck labels is all done in-house, so clients receive a finished, retail-ready case.

Bonded, temperature-controlled storage

Defined Wine offers secure HMRC-bonded storage with separate temperature-controlled stores for still and sparkling wines. This allows the team to adjust temperatures for wines going through secondary fermentation while still wines are held at appropriate cellar conditions.

Cold stabilisation

For cold stabilisation, the winery uses KHT and insulated tanks to chill wines down to tartrate-stabilising temperatures, or CMC for an alternative approach. A portable chiller unit is also available to cold stabilise smaller volumes that would otherwise be lost in a large tank.

Wine and grape trading

The Defined Wine group also operates a sister business, Wine and Grape Trading, which helps clients source grapes and bulk or bottled wine. This is particularly useful in tricky vintages or for new brands that need to build inventory while their own vines come into production.

The laboratory

The in-house analytical laboratory is one of Defined Wine's biggest selling points for serious producers. Equipped with an OenoFoss FTIR analyser, an Anton Parr CarboxQC for dissolved oxygen and CO₂, a spectrophotometer, a heat bath, a centrifuge and full wet-chemistry capability, the lab can run the full spectrum of analyses required to make informed winemaking decisions.

Analysis offered

ABV (Alex 500 or distillation)
pH and titratable acidity (TA)
Free and total sulphur dioxide (SO₂) by aspiration
Glucose and fructose (FTIR or enzymatic)
Malic acid (enzymatic)
Gluconic acid (enzymatic)
Acetaldehyde (enzymatic)
Volatile acidity by distillation
YAN by FTIR
Protein stability (heat bath / NTU)
Bentonite trials
Calcium stability
Cold stability (conductivity or freeze test)
Filterability (fouling index)
Dissolved oxygen and dissolved CO₂
Disgorging trials and copper trials
Pressure (aphrometer for sparkling)
Yeast count and viability

Popular lab bundles

To make life simpler for clients, the lab offers a series of pre-priced bundles:

Basic wine and juice
Pre- and post-bottling
Tirage (for sparkling wines going into bottle for secondary fermentation)
Disgorging

A full lab report is normally returned within two working days. The current pricing is set out in the Defined Wine Contract Lab Work Price List 2025 (PDF).

Sustainability

Defined Wine was one of the first wineries to be accredited to the Wine GB Sustainability Scheme. Where grapes have been sourced from accredited vineyards, clients are able to use the Sustainable Wine Scheme logo on their labels and marketing, which is increasingly important to UK buyers and the on-trade.

The winery is a member of Wine GB, the UK industry body, and is featured on Produced in Kent, reflecting its roots in the Garden of England. The trade body is the Wine and Spirit Trade Association.

The team

Defined Wine has built an unusually international team for a young English winery, with winemakers and cellar staff who have trained and worked in virtually every major wine-producing country in the world.

Leadership

Henry Sugden, the founder and CEO, came to wine after a career in the British Army, followed by small-company work in Kenya and a period in London's financial sector.

Nick Lane, Director of Winemaking, was previously winemaker at Cloudy Bay in New Zealand before spending five years in Champagne with Moët and Dom Pérignon. He joined Defined Wine during harvest 2020 and now leads the winemaking team across both sites.

The winemakers

Poppy Pease-Watkin - holds an MSc in Viticulture and Oenology from Plumpton College and has completed vintages in Australia, California, New Zealand, South Africa and the UK before joining Defined for harvest 2019.
Nora Leitz, Winemaker East Anglia - studied viticulture and oenology in Vienna before completing her degree in New Zealand. She spent five years with Indevin, New Zealand's premier contract winery, before joining Defined in July 2023.
Janneke van der Merwe, Operations Winemaker - holds a BSc in Oenology and Viticulture from the University of Stellenbosch and joined for harvest 2022.
Cristiano Zorzan, Technical Winemaker - trained in his native Brazil, joined in summer 2024 and now runs the lab as well as leading research and problem-solving.
Isabella Ching, Assistant Winemaker - holds a BA in Winemaking and Viticulture from New Zealand and brings additional experience from Australia and France.

Cellar and production

Cellar supervisors Pete Robinson in Kent and Greg Harries in East Anglia lead the cellar teams, supported by cellar hands Alana Moorhead, Kristine Carr, Oliver Motley and Oli Rivers-Boyce. Cecilia Machado joined in time for harvest 2025, having worked multiple vintages in New Zealand.

The lab team is led by Irena Petsova as Lab Supervisor, with lab technicians Alex Ball and Tim Morgan. Production is coordinated by Michelle Brock (Production Coordinator) and Lila Fabio (Assistant Production Coordinator), with Chris Norris as Technical Production Lead and Andy Johns as Production Lead. Monty Irish, who previously worked at Majestic, joined in time for harvest 2025 to lead sales.

Operations, warehousing and accounts

Rob Goddard is Warehouse Supervisor, supported by production hands Ian Carless, Dave Russell and Julie Keeves. Nina Julian manages stock, storage and dispatch and more recently has taken over the running of the accounts, assisted by Dienna Davies on stock control. Carole Cook is Office Manager and a WSET Level 3 holder who previously worked for Wiltshire independent merchant Yapp Brothers. Nicole Smith is the Financial Controller.

All grape and lab samples should be sent to the Kent address. Enquiries about harvest work should be sent by email to carole@definedwine.com with a copy of your CV.

Funding and infrastructure

The purchase and installation of Defined Wine's contract winery equipment was part-funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. This support was part of a wider investment programme to build shared infrastructure for the English wine industry, allowing smaller producers to access equipment they could not justify buying on their own.

Media coverage and industry profile

Defined Wine has attracted sustained attention from both the UK and international wine press, reflecting the unusual scale and ambition of its business model within the English wine industry.

Vineyard Magazine - September 2025: feature on how vineyards define the wine style and the role of contract wineries.
The Buyer - July 2025: coverage of Defined Wine at the London Wine Fair.
Decanter - June 2023: report on Jackson Family Wines' expansion into the English wine industry, working with Defined Wine.
The Buyer - June 2023: interview with Henry Sugden on bespoke winemaking services for the English wine industry.
Harpers - June 2023: profile piece on Defined Wine.
The Times - September 2023: coverage of the East Anglia winery opening.
The Drinks Business - March 2021: early feature on growing demand for the contract winery's services.
Harpers: profile of Nick Lane's move from Dom Pérignon to Kent.

Newsletters

Recent editions of the team newsletter are shared as PDFs:

Visiting and contacting Defined Wine

Defined Wine is a working contract winery, not a visitor attraction or cellar door, and does not currently offer public tours, tastings or a wine shop. Enquiries from growers, brands, prospective clients and the press can be sent by email to carole@definedwine.com.

For the latest updates and behind-the-scenes content, follow the team on Facebook and Instagram.

Why Defined Wine matters for English wine

Contract wineries like Defined Wine are an under-appreciated part of the English wine story. As the number of vineyards in the UK has grown rapidly, the bottleneck has increasingly shifted from grape-growing to grape-making: there are only so many experienced winemakers in the country, and building a commercial winery capable of producing still and traditional-method sparkling wine to the highest standard is a major capital investment.

By pooling that investment across many grower-clients, Defined Wine allows new entrants to enter the market faster, helps established producers expand without having to build a second site, and gives international brands, including Jackson Family Wines (as reported by Decanter in 2023), a credible UK production partner. The company's expansion into East Anglia, its Wine GB Sustainability accreditation and the international experience of its team all point to a business that is helping to professionalise the entire English wine industry, one batch at a time.