My columns often take me further afield, but it was a pleasure to stay close to home in Kent for this one. I recently visited Chilston Park Hotel and Chapel Down for the launch of their partnership, hosted by Henry Buss, the Southern sales manager of Chapel Down. The trip began at Chapel Down with a hosted tour of the vineyards, before moving on to a stay and hosted dinner at Chilston Park. It’s a multi-centre trip connecting vineyard and hotel, and a great addition to tourism in a growing region like Kent.
Chilston Park is one of 21 properties under Hand Picked Hotels, a privately owned collection of luxury country house hotels and coastal retreats across England, Scotland and the Channel Islands. The group was founded in 2001 when Julia Hands acquired a portfolio of hotels from the Virgin Group, and has grown through careful acquisition rather than rapid expansion. Set in Kent, Chilston Park sits within easy reach of some of the county’s most established vineyards, which makes it a natural gateway property for wine tourism.
What makes Hand Picked Hotels particularly relevant to the UK wine industry is the seriousness with which wine is treated across the group. The group’s philosophy centres on storytelling behind every bottle, food-friendly wine lists and strong sommelier leadership, backed by Head of Wine Louise Gordon and a newly created Group Wine Director role. That level of investment in wine expertise is still relatively rare among UK hotel groups, and it signals that wine is being treated as a strategic pillar rather than an amenity.
The Chilston Park and Chapel Down collaboration puts that philosophy into practice. Chapel Down, one of England’s most established and widely recognised wine producers, is roughly half an hour from the hotel, and the partnership has been built around three tiered experiences. The Luxury Tour & Dine Experience offers a full day of food and wine, with both lunch and dinner paired around the winery tour and tasting. The Discovery Experience balances a culinary stay with a winery visit and lunch. The Vineyard Retreat combines a tranquil overnight stay with the tour and tasting itself. Each package includes accommodation in a Manor House Classic Double room and a freshly cooked breakfast, alongside the exclusive Chapel Down tour and tasting.
This kind of structured, multi-tiered offering matters for English wine because it moves the conversation beyond the tasting room. A guest booking a stay at Chilston Park is not just visiting a vineyard, they are experiencing English wine as part of a wider luxury hospitality narrative, with the country house setting, the dining and the producer story all working together. It is a model that treats wine tourism as an experience to be curated rather than a bolt-on activity,
For English wine, partnerships like this are exactly what the category needs. Chapel Down gains direct access to a luxury hospitality audience already primed for premium food and wine experiences, while Hand Picked Hotels strengthens its wine credentials with a producer whose reputation is well established both domestically and internationally. It’s a genuinely symbiotic relationship, and one worth watching as more English producers look to hospitality groups as a route to reaching new audiences.
