About Wine Cellar Door

The founding story

In 2015, Elisabeth and Ian had a simple observation: more than two hundred vineyards across England and Wales were welcoming visitors, and almost nobody knew.

The two had met working at VisitBritain, the national tourist board, and both loved English wine. Elisabeth had spent years building eCommerce experiences for brands like Emma Bridgewater and the Tate — she understood that helping someone find a dog-friendly vineyard in Kent was not so different from helping them find the right red lipstick. Ian was a geographer with a serious interest in wine and a conviction that a great map was worth more than any amount of prose. Between them, they built Wine Cellar Door: a directory, a map, and a guide to visiting the vineyards that most people did not yet know existed.

They visited over half the vineyards themselves. They wrote about what they found. They won the Drinks International Wine Tourism Award in 2015 and again in 2018, and were shortlisted by the Good Web Guide in 2017 and 2019. English wine was becoming something, and Wine Cellar Door was helping people discover it.

The next chapter

Wine Cellar Door is now part of 5forests, a specialist wine marketing agency founded by Polly Hammond, with over a decade of work for wine producers big and small across the globe. The directory Elisabeth and Ian built has grown into the consumer-facing layer of a wider wine industry group: a planning resource for vineyard visitors, a listing platform for producers, and a place where independent editorial and genuine expertise sit alongside each other.

The founding belief has not changed. The vineyards are still there. Most people still do not know about them. That is still the problem worth solving.

For vineyard visitors

If you are planning a visit to wine country, use the directory to search by region, occasion, and facilities. Listings tell you what a visit involves, what it costs, and what you need to book in advance. Every listing is managed by our team, not generated automatically. The last-verified date tells you when it was last checked. If something is wrong or out of date, tell us. We’ll fix it.

For vineyards and wine country businesses

A basic listing is free. A premium listing gives visitors everything they need to be found, favourited, and booked: experiences with pricing, a full travel guide, booking integration, and an FAQ structured for search and AI discovery. We handle the build and the upkeep. You make great wine and welcome people well.

The 5forests background means the people managing your listing understand wine DTC, cellar door economics, and what converts a visitor into someone who comes back. That knowledge shapes how listings are built, not just how they are described.

How we work

Every listing is managed by our team. We reach out to producers regularly to keep details current. Our editorial work — articles, features, itineraries — is independent of our listing relationships. A vineyard does not earn coverage by listing with us, and a listing does not depend on editorial coverage. The two are kept separate because that separation is what makes both worth having.

What people have said about us

Wine Cellar Door has been recommended by Jancis Robinson as a resource for planning vineyard visits in England. Jane MacQuitty in The Times pointed visitors here during English Wine Week. Susie Barrie MW and Peter Richards MW named us among the most useful resources they consulted for their Essential Guide to English Wine. Stephen Skelton’s UK Vineyards Guide directs readers to our searchable database. Britain Magazine, published by VisitBritain, has drawn on our research for coverage aimed at international visitors.

Awards

Drinks International Wine Tourism Award — Winner, Best Promotional Body, 2018
Drinks International Wine Tourism Award — Runner Up, Best Promotional Body, 2015
Good Web Guide — Shortlisted, 2019
Good Web Guide — Highly Commended, 2017