Simpsons Wine Estate

“We were excited by the prospect of being part of the developing English Wine Industry. We’re also British by birth, so ultimately it was fascinating for us that our homeland was now able to produce really high end wines.

“Wine has been made in England for many years but it’s not been high end method traditional sparkling wine using the champagne varieties, so we spotted an opportunity. Ultimately it was the dynamism of the industry and the desire to be part of that movement that attracted us.”

“In France we do not have a visitors’ facility because we realise that with the low population in southern France everyone’s cousin or uncle or grandfather has a plot of vines. There are vineyards as far as the eye can see so it’s not cool or interesting to be making wine in the South of France.

“As far as the local population is concerned in the South of France you might get the odd tourist during the summer when it is a cloudy day and you can’t go to the beach, but there’s not the same demand for wine tourism in our area of France.

“Here in Kent, however, we realised there was huge opportunity for tourism, as both the local residents and visitors from further afield are fascinated by the fact that the UK can now produce a very high quality product.

“Therefore, a commercial fit out became a viable project for us. Our plan was to bring people in for tours and tastings ahead of actually selling them some wine at the end of 2018. Clearly that also means staffing it appropriately; we have people trained up to host tasting events so it’s a different area of the business that we can develop in conjunction with the actual wine production side.”

“Essentially it’s about increasing footfall and visitor numbers, raising awareness of our brand, and attracting customers for our wine.”

“Our monthly vineyard and winery tours will help to raise awareness of our brand. We can really get people excited about the product and this will hopefully result in us getting pre-orders for wine ready for its release at the end of the year and into 2019.”

“It’s about having a more of a presence within the English wine industry and ultimately attracting more visitors. For example, we’re now on the radar of people like Visit Kent who will hopefully be able to talk more about our business.

“It’s such a long lead time between purchasing the land, planting the vines and actually having a product to sell, so certainly by organising events it’s a way for the business to generate some income before we actually move on to wine sales.”

“Rap definitely lived up to our expectations. I think what attracted us to Rap was the fact that it could handle the design, construction and furniture elements of the fit out. This meant that although there were a lot of decisions that had to be funnelled through them we didn’t have to work with multiple companies.

“Rap being a Kent based organisation business was another attraction. We were also attracted by the fact that Rick and Julie were a husband and wife team like ourselves.”

“Yes, absolutely!”