Gutter&Stars is proud to be Cambridge’s first winery. From the basement of Chesterton Mill winemaker Chris Wilson makes award-winning English wines from grapes grown locally.

Gutter&Stars was established in 2020 when a golden opportunity came up to house the winery in the basement of the Grade II-listed windmill less than a mile from the city centre, and work began turning this octagonal cave into the city’s first winemaking facility.

The winery is housed in the mill’s basement. The space itself is bijou (just 33m2) but it is big enough for a rack of ex-Burgundy barrels, a handful of tanks - including a natty egg-shaped fermenter from Germany - and all the equipment and fittings needed to make quality wine.

You can find the wines produced here in restaurants and wine merchants across Cambridge and beyond, but to get a true sense of the winemaking process a visit to the winery is a must. Gutter&Stars runs regular wine tastings and events hosted by winemaker Chris Wilson.

The wines have won a number of accolades and each wine produced sells out quickly. 

"Gutter&Stars should be on every wine lover's radar," says Olive Magazine.

Winemaker Chris Wilson began his professional life as a music and newspaper journalist before discovering the unending joys of wine.

After a writing career at titles including the Daily Mirror, The Observer and Jockey Slut magazine he returned to study in 2010 to undertake a winemaking degree at Plumpton College in Sussex.

During his time at Plumpton and since graduating Chris has made wine in Napa Valley, California, Germany and East Sussex. He has worked in the UK wine trade for more than 15 years as a trade and consumer wine journalist. In this time he has visited countless cellars around the world, getting to know winemakers, philosophies and techniques along the way. All of this helps to shape the Gutter&Stars wines he makes in Cambridge.

He continues to write - mainly about wine - for titles including Decanter, The Buyer and Harpers Wine & Spirit, and consults on communications and marketing for a handful of UK-based wine importers.

Away from the cellar Chris loves hanging out with his family, playing and watching cricket, and listening to loud music… although not at the same time.

What about the grapes? This question comes up a lot when Chris talks about the winery, and it’s a very important one. Gutter&Stars does not own a vineyard or grow its own grapes; instead Chris works with grape growers close to Cambridge and sources the fruit he needs from them.

This ‘négociant’ approach is popular in Burgundy and Champagne, so why can’t it work here too? 

With a desire to source the grapes from as close to Cambridge as possible for environmental and logistical reasons, it’s fortunate that East Anglia is fast becoming the grape-growing breadbasket of the UK. Essex, with its big skies and below average rainfall is England’s very own Napa Valley and the grapes grown here – especially in the famed Crouch Valley – can be exceptional.

Gutter&Stars works with a handful of growers in Essex, including Missing Gate Vineyard, Creaksea Place, Bromley Brook and Great Wheatley Vineyard, as well as growers in Oxfordshire and Kent. The fruit for the much-loved Ortega wines come from Yew Tree Vineyard, just outside Didcot in Oxfordshire.

Our Growers:

• Missing Gate Vineyard, Essex: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir

• Yew Tree Vineyard, Oxfordshire: Bacchus and Ortega

• Bromley Brook Vineyard, Essex: Bacchus and Pinot Gris

• Creeksea Place, Essex: Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir

• Jojos Vineyard, Oxfordshire: Pinot Blanc

• WhiteWolfe, Kent: Chardonnay

• Brenley Farm, Kent: Pinot Noir