English Wine Producers St George's Day Tasting

This annual tasting took place last Friday at Chelsea Football Club. Unusual to have a trade tasting on a Friday but it was scheduled to coincide with St George's Day. Despite some perfectly acceptable whites (of which Three Choirs' basic "English House Dry" stood out as good value for money at £5.85), I still think the future of English wine is sparkling.

The pick of the sparkling wines came from the more "established" producers. Camel Valley from Cornwall (07 Brut), Nyetimber from West Sussex (01 Blanc de Blancs) and Denbies from Surrey (02 Greenfields). All had fairly searing acidity as you would expect and autolysis was pleasantly restrained in favour of some good primary fruit characters, suggesting English sparkling wine is not simply moulding itself in the image of Champagne. There were also some interesting vegetal notes in wines with higher proportions of Pinot Noir.

Prices remain high however, with some sparkling wines nudging £30 retail. The euro exchange rate has pushed prices of Champagne, Cava and Prosecco up over the last 18 months but this is still expensive enough to make consumers think twice before buying. Relying on the novelty aspect of English wine is not a viable long-term strategy and even those consumers who want to buy English wine need to feel they are getting value for money compared to EU and new world alternatives.

The one important and unforgivable negative is that the labels are almost universally awful. With the exception of Chapel Down, which has a smart black and red label design (see pic), the rest really need to pay some attention to presentation. Asking premium prices for English wine is hard enough but when the packaging is so unappealing producers are doing themselves no favours.

English Wine Producers Tasting 2009

This annual tasting at the end of April coincided with English Wine Week, a campaign started some five years ago to promote English wines and vineyards. The sporting location was different - Stamford Bridge instead of Lord's this year - but the wines were broadly as I remembered them from 2008. In general terms, the sparkling wines stood head and shoulders above the still ones, the whites were patchy and there were next to no stand-out reds.

The highlights of the tasting for me were:

Chapel Down Brut Vintage Reserve NV - mostly small bubbles, crisp nose of stainless steel minerality and gooseberries, crisp/acidic/fresh on palate with a nice level of fizz; slightly synthetic aftertaste

Camel Valley 'Cornwall' Brut 2006 - Chardonnay-ish nose and palate, light malolactic, light, non-aggressive bubbles; bit of residual sweetness on the finish

Nyetimber Blanc de Blancs 2001 - mixture of large and small bubbles, very creamy nose, richness on palate - a foody wine


The future of English wine certainly seems to be sparkling. There are some pitfalls which need to be avoided, such as over-chaptalisation (Three Choirs?) and uneven bubbles which fade quickly (Bookers?) Trying to imitate Champagne should also be avoided (Nyetimber - especially their Classic Cuvee?)

The down-side of committing to a future of sparkling wine production is that it is much more capital-intensive than still winemaking. For this reason Stephen Spurrier says he is considering a joint venture with an established champagne house, Duval-Leroy (see article). Maybe this is the way forward for start-up English wineries. Convincing French champagne houses that they need an English producer on their books may well be a difficult task though...