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English and Welsh winemakers have reported a sharp rise in production, after the hot, dry summer in 2025 and an increase in vineyard planting resulted in the third-largest UK harvest.
The equivalent of 16.5m bottles were produced across the UK last year – or 124,377 hectolitres – according to figures from the wine regulator, the Food Standards Agency (FSA).
This represents a 55% increase on the volumes produced a year earlier, the result of favourable growing conditions throughout the season that delivered good fruit quality and yields not seen for many years.
It followed a sharp fall in 2024, when production halved to 10.7m bottles after high rainfall caused more disease in the grape crop.
Volumes in 2025 were still below the 21.6m produced in 2023, which was widely considered a bumper year.
Last year’s harvest saw a particularly large increase in white wine production, which was up by more than 131% compared with 2024.
Nicola Bates, the chief executive of the industry body, WineGB, said: “We take great optimism from the quality and scale of the 2025 vintage and recognise the considerable skill and hard work from viticulturalists and winemakers in bringing in the UK’s third largest harvest.”
Grape yields tend to vary by region. Producers in north-west England and Wales had predicted a good harvest, while growers in the south-east of England, the UK’s biggest wine region, expected it to be below average.
Some of the UK’s largest producers, including Nyetimber in West Sussex, predicted that production would not reach record levels in 2025 because its vines needed more time to recover from the cool, damp conditions of the previous year.
Gusborne in Kent said its harvest had been lower than average because of a lack of rain.
There was a 4% increase in vineyards registered with the FSA to 1,158, the vast majority of them commercial operators rather than hobbyists.
The FSA is responsible for inspecting vineyards and enforcing wine regulations in England and Wales, meaning it ensures the wine that ends up in consumers’ glasses is accurately labelled and meets the required standards.
The growth in the industry means that more than 10,000 people are now employed across the sector, taking its value to £14bn.
There was an almost 3% increase in vine plantings in 2025, taking the area covered to 4,357 hectares (10,700 acres).
The UK is well down the list of wine-producing countries, below Uzbekistan and Tunisia, but output has generally been rising in recent years. Higher temperatures have attracted investors to UK vineyards, at the same time as grape production in more traditional wine-producing countries is coming under pressure.
