I've had a Damascene conversion. A recent trip to has left me convinced that the most vibrant and exciting style of wine to be found anywhere in the world today is ... English sparkling wine.
Last year I joined a trip visiting English vineyards with a group of Masters of Wine. Before I set out, I told a fellow MW in New Zealand that I would be making the trip, he laughed and wished me good luck.
I like to think I know a little about English and Welsh wines and their producers. While living in England, I used to regularly go with my family to help harvest grapes at the Iron Railway Vineyard in Merstham, Surrey. A smallholder who also makes cider and grows fruit and vegetables, John sends his Madeleine Angevine and Phoenix grapes to a contract winemaker and sells his wines at local farmers markets. I guess this was along the lines of what my colleague thought I would encounter.
Previously, while working in the UK, I sold and loved the wines of Digby, I had tasted a couple of Wiston's excellent sparkling Blanc de Blancs and I had met and chatted to winemaker Dermot Sugrue. More recently I have tasted wines from Gusbourne and Chapel Down that were impressive. I very much wanted to visit Taittinger's joint venture Domaine Evremond which was on the itinerary; I knew there were some excellent wines being made in England.
Having said that, my mind also went back to a tasting staged by the Institute of Masters of Wine in 2013, where English sparkling wines were shown. I had a real issue with this tasting as I felt the quality of the wines failed to match the occasion. I may have been overly picky in my tasting that day, but from a lineup of more than 20 producers I only found three or four wines I really enjoyed. So I did approach the trip with some skepticism.
The sparkling wines I tasted this time, however, did not disappoint. What was amazing, though, was how quickly they had improved.
Often as new regions have ventured into the production of quality, bottle-fermented sparkling wines the lead has been taken by Champagne houses – think of Roederer in the Anderson Valley, Taittinger in Carneros, Mumm in Napa, Moet's Green Point in the Yarra Valley or Deutz in Marlborough. In each of these cases high-quality wines have been made whose price and quality place them just below the level of grand marque Champagnes.
I'd like to argue this is not the case for English Sparkling wines at present, but rather that England's cooler climate allows these wines to exceed the quality of many Champagnes. Furthermore, it seems currently many of these wines are available at prices below those of similar quality Champagnes.
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