Experimenting with sweet wine as dosage for English sparkling wine

Instead of the usual mixture of base wine and sucrose, Justin Howard-Sneyd MW of Domaine of the Bee is trialling a range of sweet wines as dosage to add an extra twist to his English wines, made in collaboration with Ridgeview.

What is dosage?

For sparkling wines made using the traditional method (méthode Champenoise), dosage is the winemakers’ final touch of adjustment to the fizz in the bottle.

The liquid mixture, or ‘liqueur d’expédition’, is added right after disgorgement, so as to top up the bottle while adding some sweetness, if wanted, to the sparkling wine before final corking.

Spot the difference: Tirage and dosage in Champagne – ask Decanter

Roughly speaking, dosage is composed of sugar (such as rectified concentrated grape must, RCGM) and base wine. Winemakers also have the option to not add any sugar at all, if the bone-dry, ‘zero dosage’ or ‘brut nature‘ style is what they desire.

Sweet wine as dosage

The inspiration of using sweet wine as dosage first came from ‘Champagne cocktails my father used to make for Christmas’, said Justin Howard-Sneyd MW.

He decided to commit to the idea with a more professional approach, after a gathering of Masters of Wines in London which saw people pouring Sauternes into the sparkling wines in their glasses.

Scroll down to see the six tasting notes and scores of the ‘special dosage’ series

But he isn’t the only one who has thought about the idea.

Existing examples include Canadian producer Peller Estate, which uses ice wine to garnish their ‘Ice Cuvee Classic’. From the old world, Equipo Navazos add Sherry to their ‘Colet Navazos Extra Brut’ to give a nutty hint to their herbal and buttery Cava.

Thankfully, the English Quality Sparkling Wine PDO regulations ‘are still very open about what is allowed to be added at this stage,’ according to Howard-Sneyd.

These findings encouraged Howard-Sneyd to extend the trial to his 2014 vintage ‘Hart of Gold’ sparkling wine, sourced from a vineyard in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire on the Welsh border.

2014 was a ‘dream vintage’ for English wines, with little frost and a warm harvest season to ensure ripeness. Before disgorgement in March 2020, this wine had ‘spent nearly six years in the bottle in contact with the lees’, he added.

Preparing the ‘Special Dosage’

After trials and errors, Howard-Sneyd settled on five sweet wines to create his ‘special dosage’ cuvées.

• Cuvée ‘S’ – The Sauternes finish

Wine: Château Coutet, Sauternes, 2001 – 40ml

• Cuvée ‘T’ – The Tokaji finish

Wine: Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos 2013 – Blue Label – 16ml

• Cuvée ‘P’ – The Port finish

Wine: Taylor’s 10-year-old Tawny – 22.5ml

• Cuvée ‘M’ – The Madeira finish

Wine: Blandy’s 15-year-old Bual – 25ml

• Cuvée ‘J’ – The Sherry finish

Wine: Lustau – East India Solera – 17.9ml

‘I have previously played around with a couple of different sherry and Madeira styles, and the Coutet 2001 which I have in my cellar, but chose the wines we settled on as being a good match.’

The amount of each sweet wine is carefully measured to impart enough, but subtle, extra flavours to the base wine, said the MW.

In action, the ‘special dosage’ is prepared by firstly ‘removing a little wine into a jug to create space, then the calculated volume of each wine was added by hand using a pipette, followed by any balancing RCGM, and finally topping back up with as much of the wine as was needed to reach the correct file level, before corking’, Howard-Sneyd explained.

‘This is the same process as any manual dosage (and often practised when filling large format bottles), and the risk of oxidation is minimal.’

The final sugar level sits at 8g/l, right in the ‘Brut’ zone. Alcohol levels stay at 12%, following the regulations that dosage should not increase the alcohol strength by more than 0.5%.

The winemaking team at Ridgeview has been supportive of his special dosage trials; ‘They were curious about the results, too,’ he said.

The wines

The resulting sparkling wines vary in flavour and texture, but are certainly intriguing – see tasting notes below.

When compared with the Zero Dosage version, Cuvée ‘S’ – the Sauternes finish showed the most apparent change in texture, thanks to as much as 40ml of the wine added to the bottle, the most in volume compared to the other four cuvées.

The 2001 Coutet gave the English fizz a much rounder, riper mouthfeel compared to the fresh and zesty Zero Dosage, with a very mild hint of blossom, honey and figs on the nose.

A brighter nose of botrytis was brought by the 2013 vintage of Royal Tokaji 5 Puttonyos, along with fresher limey acidity on the palate.

Among the fortified versions, Cuvée ‘P’ – The Port finish was the highlight. Taylor’s 10-year-old Tawny Port not only gave the wine a pink hue but also an interesting hint of tannin on the gums. The red berry fruits and nutty flavours mingled in surprising harmony with the yeasty, blood-orange notes and buttery mouthfeel of the wine.

The striking almond, burnt sugar notes of the Blandy’s 15-year-old Bual Madeira seems to have, more or less, overpowered the original flavours of the Hart of Gold 2014.

The Lustau Oloroso version gave a savoury, nutty nose, which may still appeal to sherry fans.

The innovative approach

The heavy manual efforts involved means that only 18 bottles of each ‘special dosage’ cuvées were made for the 2014 vintage Hart of Gold. The range also includes a Cuvée ‘Z’ – a zero dosage style to complete the set of six and as a point of comparison.

The set of six is sold at £300 per case, but the initial 10 cases released have already been sold out, said Howard-Sneyd. He is now planning the disgorgement of the 2015 vintage, with the hope to expand the production of these ‘special dosage’ editions.

‘I would love to do more extensive trials,’ said the MW, mentioning younger vintages as base wines, and further refinement on the amount of each sweet wine added for the liqueur d’expédition.

Howard-Sneyd is also looking for sweet wine producers to collaborate and further explore the idea of ‘genre-blending, a fusion between drinks categories’ as a novel take on English sparkling wines.

See the six tasting notes and scores of the ‘special dosage’ series

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