A Taste of Luxury: Tunbridge Wells' Love Affair with Champagne on Demand
Residents ordered more champagne than anywhere else in the UK this year, according to new data. Winston Churchill apparently knocked back two bottles of his favourite Pol Roger champagne every day at Chartwell, his Kentish pile. Judging by new data from Deliveroo, his neighbours in Royal Tunbridge Wells are continuing to raise a glass or three to this noble tradition.
The delivery service has revealed that residents of the royal spa town ordered more champagne than anywhere else in the UK this year. The adjective in “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” should perhaps now be replaced with “wasted”.
My mate who lives there complains of having to keep his dachshund and Jack Russell on short leads while walking them in The Grove Park, because the place is swarming with Deliveroo bikes. And we now know that those thermal bags are not loaded up with pepperoni pizza (that accolade goes to Glasgow) but £30 a pop Champagne Brut NV H Blin Louis D’Or (try saying that when you’ve had a few) from the local independent wine merchant The Secret Cellar. For those who have never visited the town, often described as charming and quaint, Tunbridge Wells is the epitome of middle England, conservative with a small c (and big until the recent election of Mike Martin, its first Lib Dem MP).
Alongside upmarket comfort blanket stores such as Anthropologie, The White Company and Farrow & Ball you will find dreamy independents like the cookware specialist Trevor Mottram in the handsome Georgian area of the Pantiles, jewellers to the Royals G Collins and Sons and the luxury antiques shop Pushkin’s. The town also has a branch of the Ivy. And, obviously, a Gail’s. As someone who lives in the less characterful but closer-to-London neighbouring town of Sevenoaks, I have closely observed this monied southeastern demographic and its drinking habits.
When I was a daily commuter on the Tunbridge Wells train, I’d have to be quick to bag a tin of gin from the Charing Cross M&S after 7pm, sometimes having to resort to one of those embarrassing cup-a-wines. I can guarantee the finance bros, lawyers and general City types had already snapped up every two-for-one of them, an aperitif for the 55-minute chug home. Those same weary but wealthy commuters are the ones dialling in their Deliveroo order from Majestic Wine for an impromptu Thursday night dinner party, when the mid-priced crémant in the fridge won’t do.
Status is king in the home counties. Residents here have often traded the cool buzz of the capital for grammar schools, garden pools and cockapoos (guilty on two charges). Champagne, bought via Deliveroo or not, sees you in safe social territory. Cockier types may even flourish a bottle of pricey independent Kentish sparkling wine from the likes of our local Mount Vineyard in Shoreham. But come to a do armed with prosecco of any type and prepare never to be asked back (sometimes handy). Ditto wine hurriedly bought on offer or because the label was pretty. But the fizz rules are murky around our way. Some supermarket-bought stuff is acceptable, even worn as a badge of honour. When Lidl landed in my market town a few years back residents were initially up in arms at such a mass (ie common as muck) brand potentially denting the house prices. Fast forward to the present and you can’t move for four-by-fours in the car park, the drivers of which literally fill their boots with wedges of Manchego and Montaudon Brut (“tastes just like Moët but only £14.99!”) My guess is that the Tunbridge Wells brigade will be quietly thrilled with their new Deliveroo champagne status, undoubtedly agreeing with their former fizz aficionado neighbour Churchill when he declared: “Champagne is the wine of civilisation.” My friend with the sausage dog is sanguine: “It reflects how wealthy a lot of people here are. And how bloody lazy.”
