Simply for the love of it.
Our aim is to produce exceptional wine from the grapes we lovingly grow each year, with minimal intervention and long lees ageing.
Individual. Honest. Handcrafted.
We are a small, family-owned and run vineyard in the heart of East Sussex. We hand craft wines that reflect and celebrate the natural environment that created them. With just 5 acres of north facing slopes on the edge of the Sussex Weald, we like to do things a little bit differently.
We make the most of the terroir and micro-climate to grow our grapes with minimal intervention and waste.
We only use our own grapes.
Our grapes are harvested by hand at the optimal time for both acidity and ripeness every Autumn.
Each year we create wines that best suit the grapes grown that year.
These wines spend at least 5 years ageing to create the most complex flavours.
We only release Tickerage in small batch runs to ensure that every bottle is an exquisite experience.
“I feel most at home when I’m out in the vines”
— Anthony Budd
There’s no grand plan, no exit strategy, we’re in this for the long-term and for the love of it. There are simply 5 acres of vines that demand attention each day, come rain or shine and the resulting grapes express the variations of the weather each year. It’s the challenge of the unknown, the unpredictable, that makes this such an exciting endeavour.
As a family, we feel privileged to live within the Wealden and Ashdown Forest backdrop and the plants and wildlife that our little slice of paradise attracts during the ever-changing seasons. We are committed to creating a sustainable wine business that minimises the impact on our environment.
Our reward? Creating something for the future, something others can enjoy, and sharing the result.
Our story.
In May 2007 we planted new roots with our very first vines, beginning a new chapter in our lives. We knew this was just the beginning of many years of hard work but something we were used to, albeit in a different way.
Anthony, Zarina, Zena and Kizzie
Before moving to Sussex, we’d lived busy lives in London. Zena worked on TV shows such as The Big Breakfast, while Anthony ran a digital graphics studio.
By the time of our second daughter, we had tired of London, upped sticks and moved to the south coast where Zena retrained as a primary school teacher and Anthony, having always loved wine, took the chance to follow his dream and began studies at Plumpton College to study viticulture.
As we settled into our new lives, attention turned to finding the perfect site for the next big step.
Aerial view of the vineyard 2020, courtesy of Kizzie’s partner, Charlie Moss
After a long search, we found our 5 acre site, moved in and started preparing the ground ready for planting the following Spring.
On the morning of 1st May 2007 we began planting 8,000 vines primarily comprising of Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir grapes, perfect for quality sparkling wine production. Using a dedicated team of planters, the work was finished in a day and we looked forward to the coming seasons.
With the help of friends and family, we harvested the grapes from these vines on 10th October 2009 and they went into our first wine, the award-winning 2009 Tickerage Blush.
In 2018 we were awarded a grant to help build our own purpose-built winery and pressing centre. This enables us to combine contemporary innovation with respected artisanal winemaking skills, which allows us to produce limited runs of top-quality wine.
The new winery was finished in time for the epic 2018 harvest
Our winery contains all the equipment we need to process our grapes straight from picking, through pressing, fermentation, bottling, disgorging and labelling.
Our bespoke approach from pruning to harvest means we know and lovingly care for every single vine and grape.
The time from picking to pressing is just a couple of hours, ensuring maximum grape quality is preserved from our precious bounty.
Blackboys Winery project
part funded by
European Agriculture Fund for Rural Development
Team Tickerage.
We feel very grateful and proud to have such fabulous support from our daughters and their respective partners, as well as all those who help with the harvest, pop in for cups of tea and share the Tickerage story far and wide. Close bonds are what makes Tickerage such a special place to live and work, and we certainly couldn’t have done it without the amazing moral and physical support from every member of our extended family!
Zena.
On leaving London both Anthony and Zena decided to retrain and embrace their new life on the South Coast. Zena decided to become a teacher and fortunately did not pay too much attention to Anthony’s chosen vocation. Zena loved being able to teach her own children as they progressed through school and revels in the peace and calm the vineyard offers at weekends and throughout the summer.
Anthony.
A two year HND course at Plumpton College was all it took for Anthony to realise his bliss lay in viticulture. After establishing the vineyard in 2007 he hasn’t looked back, often found outside in all weathers (although now with the onsite winery he reserves the worst days for indoor projects!) tending the vines from pruning through to harvest. There’s nothing better than sitting on the decking watching the sunset over the vines with a glass of the fruits of his labour.
Sam.
Sam has worked in the English wine industry for more than six years. With a degree in Wine Business and a Masters in Viticulture and Enology (grape-growing and winemaking), we feel very privileged to have Sam as a member of the Tickerage family. His ‘necessary-only intervention’ practises and willingness to adapt and embrace the ever changing landscape that is UK viticulture (and weather!) make him an ideal fit.
Kizzie and Charlie.
Kizzie had also left home, getting a start at university before March 2020 altered her course as well. Kizzie loves the vineyard work, a force to be reckoned with when a labour intensive job such as leaf removal comes along. Her partner has turned out to be a vineyard natural, providing the physical presence for the tougher vineyard jobs. Also a keen photographer he has provided a lot of the imagery for our social accounts, including video editing and drone footage.
Gordon.
Gordon found us as a volunteer during harvest 2020, and what a find he turned out to be for us! He enjoyed the commute (a 10 minute walk across the local allotments) so much he put himself forward to help with Winter pruning and a fantastic addition to the team he has been. Diligent, reliable and with a keen eye for the correct pruning cuts he powered through the pruning and we finished a month before I normally would on my own.
Simon.
2020 provided many new opportunities and Simon was one of the best to come our way. A long standing friend with whom we have spent many happy hours supping Tickerage, he suddenly found himself with spare time and an urge to develop skills. It was a bit of a surprise when he completely reworked our website and came forward with a new plan for Tickerage. This is his second iteration of our website and we love it!
Marc.
The call from Marc came out of the blue - would we be prepared for him to visit and discuss our brand? Something felt different about this ‘cold call’ and we agreed to hear him out. One sunny day, socially distanced and a little bemused by the new normal, we started a conversation that went on for many more hours than originally intended, and continued through many more hours of Zoom calls. A volunteer through harvest, he was one of the most involved and hardworking on the day. The result of all his field research - the new labels. We think they are simply stunning and encapsulate all things Tickerage. We wouldn’t be at this point without him and his wife Kate, who we feel will be friends for many years to come.
Everyone Else!
There are so many more people who have joined the Tickerage family over the years, too many to mention, but in the style of the best award shows, special mentions go to all our friends, including Daryl (business development), Nicole (marketing), Brian (vineyard hand), Bryce (winery hand), Neil (consumer), Adam (tree and groundwork), Callum (the OG vineyard hand), Alistair, Rob and Joe (Plumtonites).
To these and all the others that have passed through our fields over the last 16 years,
thank you!! xx
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