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Chapel Down appoints new wine chief to fuel growth plans

Published:  10 July, 2015

Kent wine producer Chapel Down is hoping to accelerate its expansion after appointing a former LVMH executive to head up its wine operation.

Kent wine producer Chapel Down is hoping to accelerate its expansion plans after appointing a former LVMH executive to head up its wine operation.

The publicly-listed company - which secured just under £4 million from crowdfunding last year to finance new vineyards and other capital needs - has appointed Mark Harvey, former business development director at Moet Champagne group LVMH, as its new managing director for wines.

Chief executive officer Frazer Thompson told harpers.co.uk: "These are very exciting times and his appointment is an important recognition of the fact that we need talent to drive the business forward. Raising money for investment is one thing but you need to have good people in place.

"We're building a brewery, planting vines and developing a brand proposition on wine that's sustainable in the long-term and we want to ensure we can make it all happen as fast as we can."

Thompson said relatively poor harvests in 2011 and 2012 had made still wine and beer the driver of recent growth but that he expected sparkling to make a more forceful contribution in the near future.

"We're going to be able to release more because we had two decent harvests in 2013 and 2014," he said. "We've been able to build up some stocks of non-vintage and should be able to start on some serious growth on sparkling."

Thompson said Harvey "brings a wealth of experience in luxury drinks development as well as the personality and intelligence to help us shape the future of the English wine industry".

Harvey added: "We have a winning combination of outstanding wines, a fantastic team and world class customers. I'm really looking forward to the challenges and enormous opportunities ahead."

Chapel Down's Curious Brew lager has just been released in 33cl cans for the first time.

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