A ONE-OF-A-KIND ENGLISH RED
The Favourite: England’s First Single-Varietal Divico
The Favourite returns this October — a gutsy, full-bodied red unlike anything else made in England, and the UK’s first single-varietal Divico. With fewer than 1,000 vines in the ground, it’s Yotes Court’s rarest wine by a distance.
The 2025 vintage is available to pre-order now at £50 a bottle (£40 for Friends of Yotes Court), rising to £55 (£44 for members) once it lands.
At A Glance
THE HEADLINE FACTS
- England’s first — the first vineyard in the country to harvest and bottle a 100% single-varietal Divico wine.
- Just over 1,000 bottles — this vintage’s entire production, start to finish.
- A genuine first for English red wine — The Times’ “Kent claret” headline reflects something real: a full-bodied English red with the structure to stand alongside Shiraz or Syrah.
- As Seen In – The Times · Forbes · The Drinks Business · ITV’s Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh
TASTING NOTES
In The Glass — The 2025 Vintage
100% Divico, hand-harvested on 8th October 2025 and fermented on its skins with oak chips for 18 days before pressing. Aged entirely in French oak — a mix of newer and older barrels — and carried through 100% malolactic fermentation for a softer, rounder character. 11.8% ABV, vegetarian and vegan.
Expect a velvety wine with aromas of blackberry and dark plum, underpinned by notes of aromatic bitters, and a palate of plush tannins with a spicy finish. It’s this vintage’s warm, evenly paced summer — with rainfall arriving exactly when the vines needed it — that let the fruit ripen without stress, which is where that varietal character really comes through.
HOW IT CAME TO BE
The Story Behind The Favourite
Divico isn’t a grape most English wine enthusiasts, or even wine enthusiasts, will have come across — which is rather the point. It’s named after a Celtic chieftain who once fought Julius Caesar, bred in Switzerland for disease resistance in cooler climates, and first flagged to Vineyard Manager Tony as a serious prospect back in 2018, through research at NIAB East Malling here in Kent. In 2019, we planted a small, experimental parcel of it — and by 2021, we’d become the first vineyard in England to harvest a crop and bottle it as a single-varietal wine.
The scarcity was never the plan. It’s simply how the wine’s grown: the first vintage ran to around 80 bottles. The next, 238. The one after that, 356. This is only our fourth release, and it’s just passed 1,000 bottles for the first time.
The recognition has followed the wine, not the other way round.
‘The Favourite’ made page 3 of The Times, under the headline “Bordeaux beware, here comes the Kent claret” — wine critic and Decanter judge Jane MacQuitty called it “really rather good,” with a “vibrant, carmine” colour and “exuberant fruit.” It sold out online the following day. Vineyard Manager Tony Purdie has called Divico a genuine “UK gamechanger” for English red wine, capable of standing up to Shiraz or Syrah.
AVAILABLE NOW
How to get a bottle
- Buy online — delivered to your door. We offer complimentary delivery on orders over £100.
- Buy at the vineyard — available at the Cellar Door; check current opening times before you visit, as these vary between our main season and winter months.
- Try it before you commit — ‘The Favourite’ features in our Estate Flight this November and December. See our Winter Visits page for dates and details.
- Friends of Yotes Court members receive 20% off.
Pre-order now and it will be yours mid-October. We’re finalising exact collection dates with the winery and waiting on the labels to be printed, but will email you the moment they’re confirmed.
“In thirty years of growing vines, I’ve not worked with a variety that gives back so much. I didn’t expect an English vineyard to produce a red with this much structure — Divico changed what I thought was possible on this site.”
