TASTING NOTES
Sparkling Renaissance
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Romans, accounts of celebrated English crus, like that of Painshill Park in Surrey, renowned in the 18th century for its exquisite gardens but also for its wine, said to have “sparkled and creamed in the glass”. A pipe dream? So it seemed to many, until the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards, when a sparkling bottle-aged chardonnay of beguiling depth and éclat from Sussex, England – the 2006 Blanc de Blancs from Ridgeview (ridgeview.co.uk) – was named the best sparkling wine in the world, trouncing five champagnes. For Decanter’s tastings director, Christelle Guibert, it was a landmark upset. “This unequivocally rubberstamps England’s membership
MAP: THERESA GRIEBEN
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oday, English wine’s very existence is a testament to the plucky British character. For decades following the launch of the first commercial vineyards after World War II, nary a nectar was produced in the British Isles that could have been mistaken for fine wine. There were promising soils, but the cool climate posed a daunting obstacle to viticulture. Even cold-hardy hybrid grapes rarely ripened beyond six to eight per cent natural alcohol. Most vintners’ attempts at winemaking relied on several kilos of beet sugar. Yet they laboured on, perhaps fuelled by tantalising tales of Britain’s winemaking past – vast vineyards planted by the
AFTER CENTURIES OF SUB-PAR VINTAGES, WINEMAKERS ACROSS SOUTHERN ENGLAND ARE TURNING OUT SOME OF THE WORLD’S TOP TIPPLES. JEFFREY T IVERSON REPORTS ON THE REMARKABLE REBIRTH
to that exclusive club of truly world-class, sparkling wine producers,” she declared. Today, a perfect melange of global warming, globalisation and gusto is transforming English winemakers’ wildest hopes into reality. In the next few years, the volume of English sparkling wine reaching the market is expected to rise from 1.5 million to more than 5 million bottles. In fact, since the 2004 launch of Hampshire’s Meonhill Vineyard (hambledonvineyard. co.uk) by Frenchman Didier Pierson of Champagne Pierson Whitaker, Champagne houses are increasingly hopping the Channel for sparkling wine partnerships in southern England, from Taittinger last December
to Vranken-Pommery in May. Might oenophiles the world over soon be swapping their Bollinger for British bubbly? Even Stephen Skelton, a founding father of modern English viticulture, couldn’t have foreseen this renaissance. He recalls planting champagne grapes such as chardonnay at the Kent vineyards he established in 1977, which became Chapel Down (chapeldown.com), England’s largest estate. “It never got anywhere, it was hard as bullets.” So for Skelton, two decades later, to taste the sparkling 100% chardonnay from Nyetimber in West Sussex (nyetimber.com) – Britain’s first estate planted entirely with champagne >
69 NetJets