Mary Bridges on Gusbourne Estate Part 1

This show was published Friday, July 11, 2025

Overview

We visited Mary during English Wine Week at Gusbourne Estate, a premium English wine producer with a winery in Kent and vineyards in Kent and Sussex.

Mary is from Scotland and moved to Sussex to study oenology at Plumpton College. At the time Charlie Holland was the winemaker at Gusbourne and they met while Mary was studying. In 2018, Mary re-connected with Charlie and worked the harvest at Gusbourne. She never left! After the harvest she worked part-time for Gusbourne in various roles while studying. In 2020, Mary went full time, and in 2023 became their head winemaker.

The estate is planted with around 90 hectares of vines, growing Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier. They use Burgundian clones, well suited to still wines, and different root stock combinations for all three grapes and have not planted any other grape varieties.

The vineyards were first planted in 2004 established by Andrew Weeber and their first vintage was released in 2010. Their chief vineyard manager is Jon Pollard who has been at Gusbourne from day one and brings a wealth of experience. They are highly experimental with a range of styles including single vineyard wines which give a unique opportunity to chose components for the final blends.

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