Decanter World Wine AwardsBalfour-Lynn: No real future for English still wine
- Thursday 16 June 2011
Speaking at the opening of his new winery building at Hush Heath near Marden in Kent earlier this week, Balfour-Lynn told Decanter.com the English climate simply would not allow the consistent ripening of grapes for still wines.
Moreover, it would be impossible to compete with New World producers.
‘Do I believe we should focus on still wines? Probably not. There are some great still wines made all over the world and we’d struggle to make a good red.
‘In the odd year we might make a small amount but it will always be a curiosity. It’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to make a consistent brand.’
He conceded that there were some ‘good whites around’ particularly from the Bacchus and Ortega grapes, but again, ‘in terms of competing with a Chilean or a South African, it will remain a minor interest.’
Balfour-Lynn, who owns the Malmaison and Hotel du Vin groups, said that as English wine became more popular there was a danger of a ‘bandwagon effect’ lowering standards.
‘The thing I worry about is the amount of grapes being planted by a lot of enthusiastic people, who would be surprised by just how much work is involved in producing quality grapes.’
It is essential, he said, to maintain quality and exclusivity. Selling to the supermarkets – ‘where you suddenly get involved in price cutting and promotions’ - would be another sure way to erode quality as ‘you would have to cut corners to keep commercially viable.’
As well as opening his new winery – built with capacity for 100,000 bottles – Balfour-Lynn is also celebrating British Airways announcement that it will be serving the Balfour Brut Rosé 2007 in its first class cabins.
Hush Heath'stotal production is currently 30,000 bottles. From the 2010 vintage they will also produce a tiny amount of still Chardonnay, winemaker Owen Elias said.
Have your say!
Roger White
July 19 16:51
Very sad and disappointed to see the article above.
Mr BL is entitled to his own opinion, although he has a huge vested
interest in pushing sparkling wines at the expense of still.
Surely allowing vested interests to push their own products
unchallenged is hardly good journalism.
If you allow him to sound his own trumpet in this way, surely you
could at least balance by mentionining results from our own
Decanter Wine Awards, and comparing the success of English still vs
English sparkling. Is that really too much to ask?
Or a mention of the English rose that won best rose in the world at
the recent IWC?
You should now run an interview with a leading still wine producer on
why English still wines not only have a future - but are
selling out at good prices in the present!
Like Mr BL we make good fizz ( silver medal at the most recent Wine of
the Yr competition vs Hush Heaths silver ) BUT we also
made an equally good still rose ( silver for the 3rd year in a row )
which sells out its 3000 litre run at £8 or £9 a bottle in under a year
( All Yearlstone still wines sell out in a 12 month period, despite
pushing production up from 5-20,000 bottles in recent years ).
Of our 55 plus awards at competition in the last few years, probably
about 10 have been for fizz. Our best - a gold medal - was for a
Rondo based red, and we have matched Hush Heath's fizz silver not only
with our own fizz, but with rose, a Pinot Gris based dry white wine
and a Bacchus dry white among others.
Looking forward to seeing a similar uncritical puff for English still
wines in the next edition
regards
Roger White
Director
Yearlstone Vineyard Ltd
Ian Davies
July 01 14:28
Other than the odd bottle of Bacchus I am sad to say that I find English still wine very disappointing; perhaps we will just have to wait for a few more years of climate change. In the meantime there are plenty of very reasonable priced wines from the New World.
Graeme Farr
June 25 15:18
Wow, what a surprise. There is nothing better than drinking English still wine on an evening in a garden in England. So much nicer than a 'we all taste the same' New Zealand sauvignon blanc. English still whites go well with a huge range of foods and have the balancing acidity to last and improve for five years. Yes, there are some fabulous sparklers as well, but the still wines are so much more than a mere curiosity.
roger white
June 20 14:05
Well Richard we are quite happy for you to put your money into sparkling wine - but there's no need to knock fellow producers of still.
Like you we made a silver medal winning fizz this year, but we also made a silver medal winning( still ) rose.
We sell more still than fizz - and out of our 60 or so awards, perhaps 45 of them are for still.
English wine producers need to stick together and stop providing people and wine experts with reasons to put us down.
Please think more carefully next time.
roger
yearlstone vineyard