Renegade & Longton

We want to bring new and modern flavours to sparkling wine.

We started out with the idea when my brother made an elderflower sparkling wine to a traditional recipe on the Isle of Skye. He had no interest in leaving the island to work on the business as he is happy building boats.

That left me to experiment on the process and recipes, to see what else could be made without grapes. To perfect the recipes, I enlisted the help of Richard who has 30 years experience in wine making.

Between us we have made our first two products, a pure elderflower and an elderflower blush (a blend of elderflower, rhubarb, strawberries and blackberries, all added at the fermentation stage). We currently make them in Hastings, sharing facilities with the award winning English sparkling winemaker, Carr Taylor.

We have been inspired by the Victorian era when Champagne was popularised, where batches were made using ingredients that could be found in the hedgerows to compliment the grapes. We want to take this further, using very different ingredients to create other exciting flavours in the future!