English Wine For The New Year

NEW YEAR, NEW TASTES!

Christmas holidays are almost over and for one of our team this means saying a sad goodbye to her beloved country – England!

Before her return, she visited The Wine Pantry & Cellar, London’s exclusively English Wine & British Produce shop for an English wine tasting.

English wine (yes it does exist!) has been a quiet underdog of the wine industry for a while, but it is only really in the last few years that English wines, particularly the sparkling, have been truly recognized by wine critics.

The Southern regions of the UK (Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Hampshire, Sussex & Kent) have a similar climate to the Champagne region of France and are therefore able to produce some brilliant sparkling wines.

THE WINES 

Surprising amounts of choice is what struck a chord, but here are a couple which were particularly impressive:

A very popular wine (and a personal favourite) is from Nyetimber – a vineyard in West Chiltington, West Sussex)

Variety: Blanc de Blancs – 100% Chardonnay

Vintage: 2003 (An unusually hot summer in this year gave English wines one of its fruitiest vintages to date)

NOTES

Eyes: Crisp gold with delicate bubbles

Nose: A delicious concoction of summer dessert smells, citrus, peaches, buttery caramel & pastry, topped off with a floral hint of jasmine

Mouth: Very much a match to the nose, with the added zip of lime zest and a more biscuity finish.

Another impressive and award-winning wine is a sparkling Rosé from Camel Valley, Cornwall.

One of our team spoke to The Wine Pantry owner, Julia Stafford. Watch this video to find out more about this wine, and English Wine in general!

English wine is still something relatively unknown and unexpected – We hope this will encourage you to try new and interesting things!

With special thanks to Julia Stafford for her contributions to this week’s blog.