There's no rule that English sparkling wines must feature in our Best in Show selection; quality is all. Year after year, though, it is precisely the quality of those English sparkling wines submitted to the DWWA that keeps impressing our final-round judges and insisting on inclusion. What distinguishes this wine is that it's not a vintage or late-disgorged speciality, as with previous Best in Show winners, but a non-vintage blend of the three classic varieties. It's pale gold in colour, with a steady stream of fine bubbles; aromatically you'll find ultra-freshness and a distinctive sappy cool infusing the shy orchard fruits, like a sniff of an early spring morning before the mist has lifted. It's taut, tight and stony on the palate, in bracing aperitif style -- but the quality of the fruit, teased to ripeness over the long-houred English summer, is there for all to taste.
by DC, Decanter , 2022
Extremely pretty apple and lemon-curd aromas with some honeydew-melon undertones. Hints of bread dough. Full-bodied with plenty of fruit, a layered texture and a creamy finish. Fruity, yet tight and focused. Mostly 2016 with reserves of 2015 and 2014. 4 grams dosage. More than three years on the lees. Drink or hold.
by JS, James Suckling , 2021
A blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, with reserves from previous years, and lees-aged for 2 ½ to 3 years to give depth and complexity. The Brut Reserve NV won the Best in Show Trophy in 2022’s Decanter World Wine Awards with a Platinum medal and a score of 97 points.
A decade later, their sparkling wines are listed in royal palaces, Michelin-starred restaurants and iconic houses around the world and have won Gold Medals and Trophies in all of the leading national and international wine competitions. In 2017 their wines were voted Best Overall Wine, Best Sparkling Wine, Best Blanc de Blancs and Best Sparkling Rosé in the UK Wine Awards. In 2019 their 2009 Blanc de Blancs ‘La Perfide’ won the International IWSC Trophy for Best Bottle Fermented Sparkling Wine. They are still the only English wine to be listed at the George V in Paris.
This is a winemaker’s dream, where chalk soils and clay caps disgorge rugged flints that help retain the heat of the sun, warming the top-soils, whilst in the late summer and early autumn the enclosed valley helps trap the last of the season’s heat to ripen the grapes. The fruit that then emerges contains the perfect balance of crisp acidity and sweet fruit, as well as the saline minerality, that lie at the heart of all great sparkling wine.
They are unique to us. They are our secret. For this reason, we restrict our productive capacity and focus instead on perfecting our craft in an unending pursuit of excellence, guided only by quality. To help us, we use not only traditional wine-making craftsmanship, but the latest technology, too – perhaps most notably evidenced by our concrete fermentation eggs, the only ones in England.
We also use French craftsmen who, combined with our English terroir, make wines of distinction, that are properly and fully aged – both on lees and on cork – using rigorous fruit selection, exacting discipline and an unending attention to detail.