What do an order of Catholic priests and actor Hugh Bonneville have in common? They helped this West Sussex sparkling wine triumph over multiple French Champagne houses

The trouble with dreams is that they often don’t turn into reality. Not so for winemaker Dermot Sugrue. His 2009 sparkling English wine, named The Trouble With Dreams, not only turned into reality, but went on to best several prominent French Champagne houses at Decanter’s World Wine Awards 2025.

Sugrue South Downs (pronounced ‘sue-grew’) won ‘Best in Show’ with the wine, making it the first time a sparkling wine in magnum has been crowned as one of the top 50 wines in the world and a feat never achieved by a Champagne. Hugh Bonneville is a fan. ‘He had been buying our wines for a very long time and was one of our best customers, but he was buying wine under a pseudonym,’ Callum Edge, the marketing director at Sugrue South Downs tells me, refusing, despite my many pleas, to disclose the Paddington actor’s vino alias. ‘Only when Dermot’s friend, the hotelier Robin Hudson behind The Pig group and Limewood hotel, did he reveal that he was one of our great customers.’ The acclaimed wine writer Hugh Johnson is also an investor.

A blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, The Trouble With Dreams spent 12 years on lees and a further two years ageing on cork after disgorgement. 600 magnums were produced from Jenkyn Place Vineyard in Hampshire. They went on sale in November 2024, since then the winery has sold out of the 2009, although the 2020 release is available, as well as small amounts of the 2019, 2017, and 2015.

The story behind the wine, and its name, sounds like something out of a Wes Anderson film. Sugrue, who has been making wine in England for more than two decades now, but who was relatively new to the trade at the time, was approached by a group of Catholic priests in 2006 to plant the vineyard. He agreed. It takes two years to get fruit from vines, typically, so it wasn’t until 2008 that he was ready to harvest. ‘He assembled his picking crew. He got transport sorted — you know, you've got to wake up at the crack of dawn at the right time to harvest — and he was next to the priest overlooking the vineyard one morning, and the whole vineyard had been decimated by birds,’ Edge recalls. ‘All the fruit had been eaten, and the priest turned to Dermot and said: "Well, that's the trouble with dreams" — and that's just been our strap line ever since.’

‘It tells the story of Sugrue South Downs, obviously, but also it alludes to how difficult it is to grow grapes in this country, which is getting easier with climate change. It's one of the positives of climate change that we don't really talk about.’ The Decanter judges were delighted by the wine: ‘Fifteen years in glass has given the always-masterful English acidity the brooding time it needs, and the result is fresh, wide and bracing on the nose, and searchlight-deep on the palate,' they said.

Sugrue was delighted by the win. ‘It’s no longer the outdated narrative of England versus Champagne when it comes to sparkling wine,’ he said. ‘Now it’s England and Champagne, because we really are on the world stage, alongside Champagne and the other best sparkling wines in the world.’

‘What sets The Trouble With Dreams apart is our attention to detail in the vineyard as well as in the winery. Bottling sparkling wine in magnums is almost the zenith of what you can achieve quality wise, because magnums have got the ability to age in a wonderful way. I’m thrilled that our very first vintage has aged impeccably and caught the attention of the judges.’

Amy Wislocki, the senior content editor at Decanter, said: ‘This year, Decanter celebrates its 50th anniversary. We've been doing the Decanter World Wine Awards for just under half of that time, and it is now the world's biggest wine competition.’

‘The strong points about the Wine Awards are the expertise of the judges. We really have the highest caliber of people on our panels — they're flying in from all over the world to judge the wines and the way it's kind of structured — you know, we're not judging apples against pears — we're judging English sparkling wines against English sparkling wines. And it's only once things get to the top level of that when they're kind of pitted against each other for the best in shows.’

And the future of English sparkling wine? She thinks it is going to be delicious. ‘I mean it is happening. And the fact is that these wines are as good as Champagne. You know they are, and they're only getting better, because as the industry matures, the vines mature and the wines mature. So the English sparkling wine industry is going from strength to strength.’

‘I think for people the exciting thing is that it's on our doorstep. So now you don't have to go to France if you want to do some kind of wine tourism or visit a wine region. Sussex, Kent, Hampshire. There are wines that are winning awards in East Anglia. There's even wine made in Yorkshire. But, you know, the south east, in particular, the wine tourism there is really developing.’