Wickham Vineyard saved from administration

Wickham Vineyard in Hampshire has been saved from administration by a former manager.

Wilhelm Mead bought the company as it teetered on the edge of closing down following a failed attempt to enter the retail market. it will now be known as Wickham Wine Estate.

The vineyard is taking orders for wine again (although none can be shipped until new licences come through), as well as being open for tours and tastings, and has announced that its tea room will open this weekend and the restaurant and shop will be open again on Thursday 14 March.

The vineyard went into administration last December when the 14 stores it had bought from Threshers went under.

The stores, re-christened Wine Shak, were meant to be an outlet to sell the wine directly to consumers, as well as local beer. However, they continued losing money with the estate losing out trying to keep them afloat.

Administrators also cited short harvests in 2011 in 2012, when production fell dramatically from 105,000 bottles in 2010 to 40,000 in 2011 and then to just 5,000 last year.

Jonathan Rogers, sales and marketing manager, told db that the hard work now would be rebuilding relationships with old customers and suppliers, as well as letting the public know that the estate is open for business.

He said: ” I’m just trying to build it up and get it back to what it was before, we’ve purchased the wine back from the administrators. We have good wine and we know we can make good wine.

Wine Shak was not part of the buyout and has been liquidated.