Out and About - Winter 2021

TOP TIPPLES It seems like we will be able to enjoy more of a celebration this festive season so ROMAIN BOURGER, head sommelier of The Vineyard hotel and UK sommelier of the year 2019, looks at Champagne alternatives, including English sparkling wines of course

T here has been a huge

improvement and emphasis towards English wines, especially

sparkling, over the past decade or so; even though wine-making in the UK dates back much longer, from AD 43, when every important Roman villa had vines; although this fact was only recently discovered, in 1995. There are about 40 significant vineyards listed in the Domesday Book under William the Conqueror’s reign and the number of vineyards went up to 300 during medieval times, most of them, as in the rest of Europe, run by monks. Between the Black Death and, a couple of centuries later, the dissolution of monasteries under the reign of Henry VIII, the wine making industry was almost brought to an end. In the meantime in France, the oldest recorded sparkling wine Blanquette de Limoux was being made by Benedictine Monks in the Abbey of Saint Hilaire, near Carcassonne. In 1662, the English scientist Christopher Merret documented that the addition of sugar to a finished wine created a second fermentation. He presented to the Royal Society a paper in which he detailed what is now called Methode Traditionnelle, this was six years before Dom Perignon set foot in the Abbey of Hautvillers and supposedly ‘created’ Champagne. It wasn’t until 1951 and the establishment of Hambledon that English wine making started on a commercial scale. The industry particularly bloomed in the 1960s and 1970s. It then took two Americans, Stuart and Sandy Moss, to really rock the English wine industry by establishing one of its leading wineries, Nyetimber. Their ambition, as crazy as it might have seemed then, was to create a world-class English sparkling wine. They pioneered and promoted the

planting of the classic Champagne varieties – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – over the old and over- used German crosses, thus setting the trend and success of English sparkling wines. Despite the rather negative reaction, they didn’t despair and asked the counselling of the Champenois who advised them on what clones to plant, the rest is history. They were followed by a few successes including Mike Roberts’ Ridgeview in Sussex and Bob Lindo’s Camel Valley in Cornwall. Nowadays, the English wine industry is flourishing and is showing amazing results not only with their sparkling wines, but also some still dry wines. Local wineries include Exton Park, Coates and Seely, All Angels and Winding Wood to name an amazing few. One of the reasons for the success is focusing on the second fermentation in bottle which impart the quality of the wines. The winemaker will first produce still wines from red and white grape, blend them and add the ‘liqueur de tirage’ made of wine, sugar and yeast. By adding this “liqueur”, the winemaker allows the yeasts to kick-start a second fermentation producing the CO2 necessary to make the wine sparkling. The bottles are then laid down for a certain amount of time to create

enough gas. They will then be moved to a pupitre in order to separate the sediments from the wine. During this operation, the bottles are turned every day and the bottom is slowly brought up from a horizontal position to a near vertical one in order to bring the yeast into the cork. The dead yeasts are then removed by freezing the neck of the bottle. This creates an ice cube of sediments that can easily be removed by disgorging the bottle (opening it and letting the ice cube pop like a cork). As a result of this operation, each bottle suffers a small loss of wine; this will be rectified by adding a ‘liqueur d’expedition’. The ‘liqueur d’expedition’ is made from wines and sugar. Different amounts of sugar are used to determinate the style of the wine. Sparkling wines can be labeled as below depending on their style: Brut Nature: 0 to 2 grams of sugar per litre Extra Brut: 0 to 6 g/l Brut: 0 to 15 g/l Extra Dry: 12 to 20 g/l Dry: 17 to 35 g/l Demi sec: 35 to 50 g/l Doux: 50 + g/l The wine is then aged further and sold.

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O&A WINTER 2021