English wine: Status report and top wines to try

A rainy 2019 harvest period has put no dampener on the mood for English wine, especially after the growing and ripening season had been largely successful, though not as universally bountiful, warm and exuberant as in 2018. Volumes are good and the early undercurrent seems to be of quiet confidence.

On the growing sparkling front, there continues to be increasing variation in the classic traditional-method categories, with a clutch of niche prestige cuvées now spearheading them.

Tank method

A more immediately accessible trend is the appearance of tank-method (also known as Charmat or Martinotti) bubblies. This is the same way that Prosecco is made, with the focus on fruit aromatics and primary flavour purity in preference to the stylistically very different toasty, yeasty, nutty autolytic flavours imbued by the traditional method.

These tank-method wines are a potentially exciting area for the UK: fruity, aromatic grape varieties, icy-crisp signature acid freshness from the cool climate, and a separate market segment to the increasingly reputable traditional-method sparklers.

It’s only in the last couple of years that a handful of producers have started to produce tank method bubbly, largely because the equipment to make them is specialised and expensive. While a company such as Fitz has invested directly for their brand, others are hiring the equipment from a wine industry services company.

Hannah Witchell of Flint Vineyard explained why they made their Charmat Rosé: ‘There are a number of aromatic red grape varieties being grown in the UK which [winemaker and husband] Ben felt were perfect for a rosé, particularly in a charmat style – they ripen early, are full of colour and produce bright red fruity aromas.’

And, she added, ‘Ben uses winemaking methods for the [base] wine such as lees stirring in neutral oak barrels to introduce character, texture and complexity. The wine is also naturally higher in acidity, giving a crisp style which is drier than Prosecco.’

Prestige cuvées

Something of a diametrically opposite trend is for the niche, carefully selected production of super-prestige traditional-method cuvées. Winemakers are able to weave threads of weight and texture and complexity into the fabric of a wine, layering in influences of oak, of wild primary ferments, of lees-ageing on the base wine, of length of time on the second-ferment lees, and so on. All of this is laced around the raciness of that bright, spine-shivering acidity.

It’s this trademark acidity that aids longevity in these concentrated, complex and balanced wines. Victoria Ash, the winemaker at Hush Heath Estate in Kent, says, ‘English acidity helps to give ageability to our wines. The structure is still there all those years later. Of course, it turns into a different wine’.

Nyetimber’s winemaker Cherie Spriggs agrees: ‘The crisp, clean acidity of our grapes grown in the south of England allows for many years of ageing, where different flavours and complexities will be unlocked over time.’

Indeed Nyetimber led the vanguard of prestige English sparkling wines in September 2013 when it released Tillington Single Vineyard. The most recent vintage retails for around £100. In 2018, the company pushed boundaries again, releasing super-premium white (£150) and rosé (£175) sparkling wines, both with around 6.5 years on the lees, named 1086, which references the mention of the original house in the Domesday Book.

In Kent, Chapel Down’s 40-hectare Kit’s Coty vineyard, planted in 2007 on south-facing slopes of the North Downs, is providing top quality fruit. Chapel Down launched Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée (‘heart of the first pressing’) in 2017 to critical acclaim, and the second release from the 2014 vintage breaks through the three-figure price barrier.

Using the methods noted above, such as wild ferments and lees ageing of the base wines, the bar has been set pretty high, and with careful vineyard and winemaking selections these wines hold their own.

Still wines

With all the positivity and excitement around the sparkling sector, it’s easy to forget that nearly one-third of UK wine production is still. Martin Fowke, winemaker and production director at Three Choirs Vineyards in Gloucestershire, explains that demand for still wines is very high, and benefits from all the good news around UK sparkling wine.

‘Promoting Bacchus as a flagship still wine is definitely coming’, he pronounces. Despite the variety accounting for only 7% of the nation’s vineyard area, Bacchus regularly produces refreshing, zesty wines in locations as far apart as Cornwall and Norfolk.

Apart from steely Bacchus and better-value blends, red wine has become a litmus test for UK still wine. And while reds are made from the likes of Rondo, Regent and Dornfelder, Pinot Noir has become the pull.

Producers increasingly seem keen to show prowess in producing both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay still wines. Realistically, these are tiny volumes, though they tangibly demonstrate ambition and vision, especially from the excellent quality, ripe 2018 vintage.

Outside of a top vintage, quality of reds continues to improve, and quite possibly in correlation with the warming climate.

30 English wines to try: still and sparkling

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