Mount Farm Vineyards

Mount Farm Vineyards (ARK Wines): A Solar-Powered Suffolk Family Winery in the Stour Valley

Tucked into the rolling farmland of the Stour Valley, on the Suffolk - Essex border a few miles south of Sudbury, Mount Farm Vineyards - better known to most of its customers as ARK Wines - is one of the most distinctive new producers in the English wine scene. Set across 30 acres of disused poultry farmland, the estate combines a six-hectare family-run vineyard with an on-site winery powered almost entirely by the sun. The result is a quietly ambitious, sustainability-led project that is putting small-batch still and sparkling wines from East Anglia on the map.

Location and setting

Mount Farm Vineyards sits at the end of a narrow single-track lane - Blooms Hall Lane - in the village of Stanstead, just outside Sudbury in Suffolk. The postcode is CO10 9BY and the what3words reference is ///everybody.chugging.purely. The estate lies within the East Anglian Stour Valley and is approached via shared countryside used by walkers, cyclists and horse riders, so visitors are asked to drive carefully and be prepared to reverse.

The site itself is around 30 acres in total. Roughly six hectares (about 15 acres) sit under vine, with just over 20,000 vines currently in the ground. Soils are a mix of clay and loam with a deep clay subsoil that retains both rainfall and minerals through dry summers - a profile the team likens to that of Napa, Barossa and north-east Pomerol.

History: a Swedish family, an old chicken farm, and a leap into wine

Mount Farm's story is, in many ways, a second-act story. The family behind the project - Hans, Kristin and their daughter Amanda - left Sweden for the UK more than 25 years ago. In 2018, while looking for a barn to convert into a forever home, they stumbled on the Mount Farm site, an old chicken farm in the Stour Valley that just happened to come with a south-facing, gently sloping field ideal for vines.

Hans, with daughter Amanda, took the plunge and started the vineyard. None of them came from a farming or viticulture background; Amanda enrolled at Plumpton College to study Wine Production, picking up the practical and scientific skills needed to turn a bare field into a working winery. The first vines went into the ground in 2019, and just a handful of years later the estate has grown from bare field to bottling line, with eleven different wines currently in the range.

The vineyard: eight grape varieties in clay and loam

The vineyard is north - south facing on a flat-to-gentle slope at an altitude of 60 - 80 metres. It benefits from the gentle south-westerly Atlantic breeze and from the dry, sunny summers typical of East Anglia - both of which help ripen the grapes cleanly. Eight different varieties are grown across the six planted hectares:

Chardonnay and Pinot Noir dominate the planting and form the backbone of the still and sparkling programme.
White experiments include Pinot Gris, Riesling, Bacchus, Ortega and Reichensteiner.
Red experiments include Acolon, Pinot Meunier and Gamay.

The clay-loam combination gives what the team calls "powerful and voluptuous" wines. Deep clay holds water through dry spells and supplies minerals to the vines, while the loam topsoil gives structure and aromatics. As a deliberate philosophy, Mount Farm farms to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) principles - treatments are applied only where and when strictly necessary, with minimum inputs to protect long-term soil, vine and environmental health.

The winery: small-batch, solar-powered, on-site

Once the grapes are picked by hand, they go straight to the on-site winery, where every step from pressing and fermentation to bottling and packaging is carried out under one roof. The winery runs almost entirely on solar: 58 solar panels on the winery roof now supply around 20 kWh a day to the winery building and machinery, the two on-site EV car chargers and part of the supply of the neighbouring residential buildings.

The winemaking itself is hands-on and experimental. Whites and reds ferment in stainless steel tanks before being transferred to barrel for ageing; the team judges maturity by regular tasting rather than a fixed time, then blends (where applicable) and bottles. The wines are deliberately unfiltered and unfined, only racked as finely as possible, which leaves a light haze or sediment in bottle. The team's view is that this protects aromas and flavours and lets the wine develop further with age.

One signature technique at Mount Farm is the Acolon and Pinot Noir blend: Acolon grapes are dried on straw to concentrate the sugars, fermented, and then blended with lighter Pinot Noir. The result is a warming red with extra body and alcohol, recommended with game, ragù pasta or aged cheese - or simply in front of a fire on a cold winter's evening.

Winemaking also uses a lot of water, so the estate has drilled its own borehole and treats and recycles wastewater back into its own man-made reservoir. That reservoir is now home to three species of wild geese as well as other birds and local wildlife - an unintended but welcome side effect of the water-reuse scheme.

Sustainability ethos

Sustainability isn't an add-on at Mount Farm - it's the founding ethos. Practices include:

IPM-led vineyard management with minimum, targeted chemical inputs.
58 rooftop solar panels providing the bulk of the winery's electricity.
On-site borehole with treated wastewater returned to an on-site reservoir.
Complete on-site bottling and packaging, so bottles travel directly from the cellar to partners and customers, with no intermediate transport or third-party facility.
Wildlife-friendly margins and reservoirs supporting geese, birds and other local fauna.

The result is a low-impact, long-term approach designed to keep the vineyard productive for decades.

The wines on sale today

Eleven wines are available, all in 75cl bottles, unfiltered and unfined, and shipped direct from the cellar in Stanstead.

White wines and a Pet Nat

"Sol" Riesling Pet Nat 2023 - £29.00. The winery's "burst of sunshine" semi-sparkling, 100% Riesling, 11% ABV. Crisp and refreshing with sherbert, grapefruit, cloudy apple and a slatey minerality. Aged on lees for 19 months before secondary bottle fermentation. View product.
Bacchus 2022 - £22.00. 100% Bacchus at 12% ABV, aged 12 months in oak. Aromatic dry white with apple, gooseberry, mango, nettle, subtle vanilla, garden mint, basil, elderflower and lemon on the nose. View product.
Chardonnay 2022 - £25.00. The estate's first single-variety Chardonnay, 13% ABV, aged 12 months in refurbished French oak barrels. Smokey cedar, zesty lemon, gooseberry and apple with a creamy yoghurt finish. Low in sulphites. View product.
Ortega 2024 - £22.00. 100% Ortega at 12.5% ABV. Medium bodied and well balanced, with white peach, apple and light florals on the nose; pear, apricot and a minerally, slightly spicy finish. Whole-bunch pressed before a slow, wild fermentation. View product.
Pinot Gris 2023 - £18.00. 100% Pinot Gris at 11% ABV, macerated on the skins for 48 hours before fermentation. Golden and medium-bodied, with toffee apple, honey, clove and ripe pear aromas and a spicy, smoky finish. View product.
Pinot Gris 2022 - £18.00. A robust, dry, skin-contact rosé Pinot Gris at 12% ABV, with grapefruit, apricot, ripe apple, orange blossom and a nutty finish. View product.

Blends

Chardonnay Bacchus 2020 - £25.00. Chardonnay and Bacchus blend at 11.5% ABV. Clean, fresh citrus nose; soft palate of pineapple, ripe apples and a slight yoghurt finish. Hazy and lemon-tinted in the glass. Awarded 88 points at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2023 and a silver at the WineGB Awards 2020. View product.
Chardonnay-Bacchus 2021 - £22.00. Slightly brighter successor vintage at 12% ABV. Fresh and fruity aromas of lemon, gooseberry and grapefruit with a clean palate and good acidity - recommended with grilled seafood. View product.
Field Blend 2024 - £18.00. A true co-fermented field blend of Reichensteiner, Gamay, Bacchus, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, 11.5% ABV. Juicy peach rosé with raspberry, redcurrant and British hedgerow; notes of citrus peel, pink grapefruit and pear drops. Wild-yeast fermented. View product.

Red wines

Pinot Noir 2022 - £30.00. 100% Pinot Noir at 12.5% ABV, crushed and fermented in 600-litre oak barrels and aged on the lees in oak for 15 months. Soft dark fruit, plum and cherry on the nose; lingering tannins with tobacco, leather, blackberry and spice. Sulphite-free, unfiltered and unfined. View product.
Pinot Noir 2024 - £30.00. 100% Pinot Noir at 11% ABV. A characterful, elegant, light-bodied red with blackberry jam, leather and liquorice on the bouquet; red cherry, black pepper and plum on the palate. Made using wild yeasts with part of the grapes undergoing semi-carbonic maceration and no added sulphites. View product.

All bottles are sent out by the estate's own shipping team.

Visiting and opening hours

The Mount Farm cellar door is open without appointment from Wednesday to Saturday, 10:00 - 17:00. Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays are closed, though the team note that visits outside regular hours can sometimes be arranged by emailing info@mountfarmvineyards.com in advance.

There is plenty of parking on site, and the cellar door is family- and dog-friendly. Visitors are gently reminded to drive carefully down the shared single-track lane. Trade and stockist enquiries go to amanda@mountfarmvineyards.com.

Events and open days

Mount Farm Vineyards runs a small but lively programme of seasonal open days and parties. The headline event is the Good Friday Open Day - a free-entry, family- and dog-friendly afternoon and evening (15:00 - 23:00) with wine by the glass, a BBQ (historically run by Wild Things Food and Lavenham Butchers) and live music from Ah-kin of Whats Good Music?. Season launches and further gatherings are added throughout the year.

Shipping, local delivery and stockists

Online orders are shipped once a week - national UK deliveries leave the cellar every Wednesday for orders placed by 10am that day, sent via APC Overnight with tracking, at a flat £8.50 rate with 1 - 2 day delivery. Free local delivery is offered to any postcode starting CO10 and IP29. Free national delivery kicks in over £70.

A growing list of independent UK stockists also carries the wines. Trade enquiries go to amanda@mountfarmvineyards.com. Stockists include Suffolk Food Hall in Ipswich, Chater's in Saffron Walden, Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, Gather in Long Melford, Two Sevens Deli in Sudbury, Parade Wines and others, out to Baythorne Wines in Halstead, AngloThai in Marylebone, Grape Britannia in Cambridge, Lark in Bury St Edmunds, Pour in Ruddington and Wingnut Wines in Hackney.

The labels: a collaboration with independent artists

Every vintage of ARK Wines is also a small piece of art. The winery works with independent and emerging artists to design each label, treating the artwork as integral to the personality of the wines, rather than decoration. Past collaborators include:

2020 - Anders Palmér (Stockholm): three existing abstract works chosen and cropped to suit the wine. www.anderspalmerart.com
2021 - Karla Engstrom (Gloucestershire-born, Manchester-educated, Hans and Kristin's daughter): a series of eerie but humorous illustrations with a Scandinavian flavour. www.karlaengstrom.com
2022 - Hiba Baddou (Paris-trained): bold primary colours and vibrant themes from her Osmoses collection, chosen to match the hottest vintage so far. hibabaddou.com
2023 - Ellie Meape (Neon Studio, Bali): contrasting colours and tropical landscapes depicting sunsets and the Bali coast. www.neon-studios.com

Why Mount Farm matters

Three things make Mount Farm Vineyards stand out in a crowded English wine market. First, the place: a genuinely family-run, hands-on, on-site estate on a former chicken farm in the Suffolk clay, producing everything from grape to bottle under its own roof. Second, the sustainability story: solar-powered winemaking, borehole-fed water, a wildfowl-rich reservoir, IPM-driven vineyard management and zero third-party bottling or transport steps. Third, the wines themselves - a tightly edited range of small-batch Chardonnays, Bacchus, Pinot Gris, Riesling Pet Nat, an Acolon / Pinot Noir blend, single-variety Pinot Noirs and a true co-fermented Field Blend, each labelled by a different artist.

For visitors, the cellar door is open four days a week for tastings and bottle sales; bottles can also be ordered online with free local delivery into Sudbury and the surrounding CO10 and IP29 postcodes.

Practical information

Winery address: The Winery, Mount Farm Vineyards, Blooms Hall Lane, Stanstead, Sudbury, CO10 9BY.
Opening hours: Wednesday - Saturday 10:00 - 17:00 (closed Sun - Tue, except by prior arrangement).
Email: info@mountfarmvineyards.com (general); amanda@mountfarmvineyards.com (trade).
Online presence: Find the winery at arkwines.co.uk, with an online shop and an events page. The winery is also active on Facebook and Instagram as @arkwines.