Fruit Wine

James started his winemaking career at a young age. Cutting his teeth in the wine labs at Broadland Drinks, testing 20 to 30 wines per day, he enrolled on a wine appreciation course led by Frank Leatherdale. James credits Frank’s knowledge, enthusiasm and passion, for setting him on his career journey into wine.

He quickly moved onto his first WSET course, and his passion for wine was set. He started a tailor-made role within Broadland, looking after wine quality and working with various winemakers worldwide.

In 2006, drawn by Lyme Bay Winery’s ambition to plant a vineyard and make still English wines, he took the job and relocated to Devon. While others had already shown that sparkling English wines of real quality could be made, he felt that still wines had significantly more potential.

Sarah joined Lyme Bay in 2019, just before harvest. Before that (she describes herself as a ”travelling winemaker”), she worked at wineries in California, Australia and Burgundy. She wasn’t planning on staying for longer than one harvest at Lyme Bay Winery but enjoyed it so much she decided to lay her hat down.

During the 2020 harvest, Sarah worked the day shift and was astounded at the quality of the fruit, crediting it with a ripeness she has never seen in English grapes before and is excited about the wines we’re creating from this harvest.

Sarah is also working on her own unique project creating a small batch of sauvignon blanc, which is looking great and will be ready to release later this year.