MERRY ENGLAND
A bottle of sparkling puts the fizz into any occasion, writes Terry Kirby, as he pops the cork on English Wine Week
English Wine Week this year took a bit of a blow. The annual celebration of our domestic wine industry – and please do not let us forget the excellent vineyards in Wales – had to be postponed for a month from the last week in May because of the lockdown, and now it starts today.
And although there are some vineyards open for socially distanced visiting, the restaurant and bar trade remains shut down, so the chances to extensively promote this success story are much diminished. And given the state of the wider world, there does not seem much reason to pop a celebratory cork. But… but, as I said in my column on budget sparklers a couple of weeks ago, we will, I’m sure, all have some personal landmarks to note this summer, particularly if we are seeing friends and family after a long gap and many of
us will be celebrating Father’s Day tomorrow – and such moments can go a long way towards keeping us going until better times. And failing that, a bottle of sparkling can always put some fizz into yet another Saturday night in with a box set…
The explosion in English and Welsh wine, mainly sparkling, but with increasingly excellent still wines, has been well told and I’m not going to rehearse that again, except to say that the overall quality has never been better, as skills cascade down from the work of Plumpton College graduates and oversees winemakers come to share their expertise.
Wineries have added tasting rooms, restaurant and hospitality venues, all unfortunately, hit by this year’s events. Supermarkets like Waitrose are expanding their ranges and there are new players entering the market all the time, often producing bottles that are the result of investment and foresight almost a decade old, given the lead time in producing sparkling wines by the traditional champagne method.
In the past I’ve recommended the brilliant wines from pioneers such as Nyetimber and Ridgeview in Sussex as well as big bold newcomers like Hush Heath in Kent, but here are just some of the other great sparkling wines I’ve enjoyed recently for your delectation. And what better time to support our sparkling wine industry…
Roebuck Estates is one of the newer, bespoke operations, buying up vineyards across Sussex, where the south facing chalky slopes are most conducive to sparkling wine, but with their wines actually made by winemaker Emma Rice at award winning Hattingley Valley winery in Hampshire, which earlier this week became the first English winery to launch a nationwide television advertising campaign.
Roebuck’s Classic Cuvee 2014 won a gold in the WineGB awards last year and their latest release, on the market only this week is the brilliant, elegantly bottled Blanc de Noirs 2015 (£45 roebuckestates.co.uk) made entirely from pinot noir grapes grown near the site of the ancient Roman villa at Petworth in West Sussex, which has really individual depth of rich, nutty, lingering flavours stemming from fermentation in French oak and four years lees ageing in the bottle.
For a taste of one of Hattingley’s finest, try their Blanc de Blancs 2013 (£39.99 grapebritannia.co.uk; £47.50 hattingleyvalley.com) a 100pc chardonnay wine, with lighter, floral aromas, and citrus inflected, creamy, brioche flavours. Both quite different, but both exceptional summery celebration and special occasion wines.
Both these wines are individual expressions of two of the three champagne grapes, but for a more balanced blend of the two, together with pinot meunier, the gorgeously moreish Rathfinney Classic Cuvee 2016 (£29.50 rathfinnyestate.com) is the new release from one of English sparkling’s most ambitious projects. Launched by Mark and Sarah Driver ten years ago on an ancient farmland site in a fold of the South Downs, they have made a considerable and ambitious investment in a modern winery and experienced staff.
Although their first wines were released a couple of years ago, this spring has seen the launch of their wholly elegant full range, which also includes the Rose Brut 2017 (£36 rathfinnyestate.com) bone dry, with lovely cranberry and cherry flavours, brilliant as an aperitif, but also, as the Driver’s recommend, with rhubarb crumble.
But it is not all about shiny new entrants to the game. The Bolney wine estate, also in the South Down, was one of the earliest vineyards to be planted in the modern (ie post-war) era of domestic wine making and now run by Plumstead graduate Sam Linter, daughter of the founders, they make a range of sparkling and still wines from their own grapes and those of others. Their award winning Blancs de Blancs (£30.99 bolneywineestate.com) is a wonderful entry-level wine for newcomers to English sparkling – carefully balanced between toasty undertones and bright citrus character, it has a mellow quality that just somehow conveys meadows on a summer evening.
While Sussex and Kent have seen probably the greatest concentration of vineyards, winemaking has now spread to other southern counties, such as Hampshire, helped by a greater knowledge of what soils and microclimates can create (together with a little global warming) as well as a real sense of locality and identity of the wines. In Dorset, the family-run Langham wine estate near Dorchester has already recognition for its small range of sparkling wines and their Rose NV (£28 langhamwine.co.uk) took a Gold trophy at last years WineGB awards: a proportionate blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier, with light strawberry and cranberry flavours; ideal as an aperitif but excellent with any shellfish or, say, crab cakes with a spicy tomato sauce. Over in Enborne in Berkshire, the All Angels vineyard is named after the local 12th-century parish church of St Michael and All Angels and based on a historic house and estate restored by the Darley family.
Their wines are also made at Hattingly, but reflect the individual flavour of the vineyards, by adding a little pinot gris – which can work very well in England for still wines – to the traditional varieties for their Classic Cuvee 2014 (£28.50 allangels.com) delivers just enough weight and complexity to round out the vibrant lemony, slightly nutty flavours.
And as is now well known, some of the big Champagne names have been scouting around southern England looking for suitable sites for investment. But the only one so far to release a wine is Vrankan-Pommery Monopole, the Louis Pommery England 2014 (£29.75 thechampagnecompany.com; £39.99 or £34.99 if bought as part of a mixed six-bottle purchase, majestic.co.uk) made in partnership with Hattingley and using grapes bought from vineyards across southern England – it’s a great tribute to the quality of our sparkling, and has lovely orchard and citrus fruit flavours. They are clearly in it for the long haul, having bought a site in Alresford in Hampshire, the first grapes of which are due to be harvested this autumn. The results will be anticipated with interest by some of the more establish domestic producers. So nice we can help out an up-and-coming sparkling wine country...