Our Impact Report

TENDED

A Report on How We Care for This Land · 2026

“We are not trying to get bigger. We are trying to get better.”

Our father planted the first vines here in 2012, above the chalk stream that gives us our name. The vineyard sits within a wider farm, arable land, ancient woodland, and the Candover Brook itself, and we treat it as one system.  Regenerative farming isn't a marketing phrase for us. It's the decision we reached after honestly looking at what conventional agriculture does to soil, water, and wildlife, and asking whether we could do better.

This is the short version of our first Stewardship Statement. Every figure is supported in the full report.

Mark Sainsbury, Co-owner

THE NUMBERS

WHAT'S INSIDE

How We Farm

Cover crops. Sheep grazing instead of herbicide. Home-made compost. Zero tillage across 1,500 hectares of arable rotation. No soil left bare, year-round.

The Chalk Stream & the White-Clawed Crayfish

Our emblem is Britain's only native crayfish, found only in the healthiest chalk streams. Since 2023 we've partnered with the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust to help it survive here — and we donate 50p from every Hampshire bottle to that work.

Rooted in the Valley

From candles lit by neighbours in the vine rows on frost nights, to a Forest School for local children in our Memorial Wood, after honestly looking at what conventional agriculture does to soil, water, and wildlife, and asking this is a valley we farm with, not just in.

WHAT WE'RE STILL WORKING ON

Glass is the single largest source of carbon in everything we do, and we haven't solved it yet. We trialled sheep fleece around the vines to cut plastic use; it didn't work, so we stopped, and we're trying something else.

Transparency means telling you what isn't fixed yet, not just what is.

THIS IS THE SHORT VERSION.

The full Stewardship Statement sets out what we do, who we work with, and where we're still learning with every figure evidenced.

coming soon

candoverbrook.co.uk/tended