Nyetimber wins Best Drinks Producer at the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2025

We’re delighted to announce that Nyetimber was named Best Drinks Producer at the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2025, becoming the first wine producer ever to receive the honour. The award celebrates our commitment to quality and craftsmanship, as well as our pioneering approach: we were the first English Sparkling Wine producer to exclusively grow Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier grapes, and we use only estate-grown fruit to maintain complete control from vine to bottle.

The announcement can be found here.

Nyetimber Owner and CEO, Eric Heerema, says, “We are delighted to have been awarded the Best Drinks Producer at the BBC Food & Farming Awards this year. The fact that the public nominated us for the award in the first instance demonstrates that Nyetimber is increasingly recognised for producing world-class sparkling wines to rival the very best in the world.”

Launched in 2000 to mark the 20th anniversary of Radio 4’s The Food Programme, the BBC Food & Farming Awards debuted at St James’s Palace, courtesy of HRH King Charles III. Their mission remains to honour those who have done most to promote the cause of good food. As Jaega Wise notes, the Best Drinks Producer category celebrates “the best of the UK’s drinks producers. People who aren’t just making incredible drinks but are doing things a bit differently.”

BBC audiences first nominated Nyetimber as a standout producer in the food world. A panel of leading experts, including Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, then selected us as one of three finalists, alongside Abbeydale Brewery and Yorkshire Wolds Apple Juice Co. Final judging followed with a vineyard visit in September from presenter, brewer, and category judge Jaega Wise.

Jaega Wise says, “Nyetimber is at a standard that can compete across the world, and there is nothing better I can say than that!”

The awards come during an incredible run of successes for Nyetimber. At the 2025 International Wine Challenge, our Blanc de Blancs 2016 Magnum won Champion Sparkling Wine, the first time a sparkling wine producer outside of Champagne has won. Head Winemaker Cherie Spriggs was also named Sparkling Winemaker of the Year for the second time, having first won in 2018 as both the first non-Champagne winner and the only woman to hold the title.

Our prestige cuvées also did remarkably well this year: 1086 by Nyetimber 2010 was judged the top-scoring sparkling wine at the London Wine Fair’s Battle of the Bubbles, and 1086 by Nyetimber Rosé 2013 won Sparkling Rosé of the Year at The Real Review’s Wines of the Year Awards.