Sugrue South Downs

Sugrue South Downs was established in 2006 when Dermot Sugrue, then head winemaker at Nyetimber, was approached by a monastic order of Catholic priests to plant a vineyard at Storrington Priory in West Sussex. Later that year, Dermot left Nyetimber to establish vines at Wiston Estate, where he worked as head winemaker until 2022. The first release of Dermot's own wine The Trouble with Dreams from the 2009 vintage rapidly gained critical acclaim and cemented his reputation as one of England’s finest winemakers.

In 2021, Ana – a winemaker with experience working across four continents and a former lecturer at Plumpton College – joined Dermot full-time as fellow winemaker and sales director at Sugrue South Downs. Together with their small team, they farm 11ha of mature vineyards across the South Downs of East and West Sussex: Storrington Priory, Mount Harry, Coldharbour, and Alpaca Block.

In addition to The Trouble with Dreams, Dermot and Ana release limited quantities of their other sparkling wines in exceptional vintages. These include Cuvée Boz Blanc de Blancs, a zero dosage cuvée ZODO, Rosé Ex Machina, and Cuvée Dr. Brendan O’Regan, which is regarded by many of the world’s wine critics as England’s very best sparkling wine. In 2025, they released a still Chardonnay called Salt Éire – the fourth wine in Indigo's Salt of the Earth series.

In the vineyards, Dermot and Ana's team work organically ‘at soil level’ using mechanical cultivation for weed control. Meticulous farming and naturally low yields lend the wines impressive concentration. In the winery, they use 50% of the juice from the first press; fermentation is in stainless steel and neutral oak, and since 2013 they've worked with 500 and 600 litre barrels: "Big barrels give finesse to sparkling wine," says Dermot. The wines spend four-to-six years sur lie and a minimum of six months on cork before release.

Sugrue South Downs scored a hattrick at the 2023 WineGB awards: Cuvée Boz Coldharbour Single Vineyard 2015 was named best Blanc de Blancs; Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan MV was awarded Best NV/MV Classic Cuvée; and Sugrue South Downs was named Best Boutique Producer for the second year running. In 2025, The Trouble with Dreams was listed by Wine Lister as the highest-rated English sparkling wine based on average critics’ scores. It’s nice to win awards, but we think the wines speak very eloquently for themselves.