Nyetimber launches top-level English sparkling wines to rival best of Champagne

English sparkling wine producer Nyetimber has announced a new range named ‘1086’, which will only be produced in certain vintages and will be priced at the level of several 'prestige cuvee' Champagnes.

Nyetimber 1086 prestige wines

Nyetimber said that grapes for its new ‘1086’ English sparkling and sparkling rosé wines were picked from the best parcels of its own vineyards.

The English wine producer said it will release a 2009 vintage sparkling white and the 2010 sparkling rosé.

It’s a range that will only be produced ‘in a year that has all of the right stuff’, Nyetimber’s head winemaker, Cherie Spriggs, told Decanter.com at a launch event in London last night (25 September).

The exact blends between Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier will also vary with each vintage. ‘We believe a wine should always be balanced – it should be balanced from the get-go, even when youthful,’ said Spriggs.

‘To find the balance in a rosé is fun… the extra element of the phenolics to work with, alongside the acidity and fruits.’

The 2009 white is 46% Chardonnay, 43% Pinot Noir and 11% Pinot Meunier. The 2010 rosé is 75% Pinot Noir and 25% Chardonnay.

The wines will initially retail at Fortnum & Mason and Harrods, plus a few select bars and restaurants. Nyetimber said the 2009 sparkling white had a recommended retail price of £150 per 75cl bottle and the 2010 rosé was £175. Magnums would be priced at £325 and £375 respectively.

Future vintages of the 1086 will include a 2010 vintage for the sparkling white wine and a 2013 vintage for the rosé.

However, there will certainly be a gap from 2012, an English wine vintage considered so poor that Nyetimber abandoned it completely.

English wine’s 2018 vintage

The 2018 vintage across English wine looks much more promising, with winemakers praising the ‘near perfect conditions’ and ‘ideal’ harvest.

‘2018 is a likely potential to be a 1086 wine,’ Spriggs told Decanter.com. ‘But January is when we make the decisions on the blends. There’s been great quality on the fruit so far this year.’

She added, ‘We’re also expecting 2018 to beat the one million bottles milestone [for us], as well as be excellent quality. Great for Nyetimber and English wine industry as a whole.’

A small parcel of Nyetimber vineyards was harvested on 19 September and picking elsewhere was set to begin this week.

‘This is the earliest harvest we’ve seen; when we planned this launch date, we thought we wouldn’t have started yet,’ Spriggs said.

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