Three distinctly English sparkling wines

It’s a Hampshire triple bill today with two wines from Black Chalk and one from Hattingley Valley.

One of the biggest questions in English wine is whether the industry should keep comparing itself with Champagne, or strike out on its own and try to forge a distinctly English identity. I’m generally of the opinion that it’s too early for England really to have a style and if ‘champagne but English’ sells wine then what’s the problem?

But there are plenty of English wines that really couldn’t come from anywhere else. I’m thinking in particular of Breaky Bottom in Sussex where Peter Hall has been making his own idiosyncratic wines since the 1970s. And then there are the three wines which I tasted last week. They’re all from Hampshire, two are expensive, one isn’t. Let’s look at the posh ones first.

One of the arguments I had with the publishers is that they kept on calling my recent book ‘definitive’ in marketing material and I kept on asking them not to do so. My worry in making such claims is that I would be a hostage to every pedant who said, ‘how can he claim to be definitive, when he hasn’t visited  Bloggs’ vineyard in Devon or some such place?’ With the deadline I was under, to write and research the book in a year, I quickly decided that I was going to have to leave out some important producers. 

Perhaps my biggest regret* is that I didn’t visit Black Chalk in Hampshire which first released wines in 2018. Not just because of the wines which are individual and getting better the whole time but also I was looking for great characters to bring the story to life so why the hell didn’t I include Black Chalk’s dynamic duo of Jacob Leadley and Zoë Driver? I recently listened to Driver on the Master & Merchant podcast and I was kicking myself. Anyway, regrets…

I remember first trying Black Chalk in 2018, it was a name that a lot of people were very excited about, and if I’m being honest I was a bit underwhelmed. The wines just seemed a bit simple and fruity. Where was the toast, the Marmite, the hazelnuts? But once I stopped looking at them through a Bollinger lens, they began to make sense. Reading my old notes for their Wild Rosé and Classic Brut, and the same words come up over and over again ‘up-front fruit’, ‘purity of fruit’, ‘crunchy red fruit’. What I’m trying to say is that these are fruity wines. 

Driver, the assistant winemaker, explained in an email: “I absolutely want that fruit to be the star! We’ve worked so hard to grow it so meticulously, I don’t want to dull or mask it with too many wine making modifications.” According to Driver, compared with Champagne, the English season is six weeks longer meaning, “the grapes develop very slowly, creating a real delicate, pure and bright profile.” It’s why English apples taste so good.

As she goes on to explain, creating depth of flavour in a sparkling wine without relying on flavours from long lees ageing isn’t easy and requires absolutely first rate ripe grapes:

The biggest challenge is creating wines with complexity, when we aren’t relying on any other winemaking tools. To do this we pick and process all our clones separately - we have around 36 different clone and rootstock variations across the three main varieties (chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier). This is an awful lot of work in both the vineyard and the winery, but for us totally worth it.”

Black Chalk’s core range wines, which are always vintage, are good and getting better with each vintage but they have just released two posh wines that totally knocked my socks off, a Blanc de Blanc and a Blancs de Noirs. Both were samples and both will retail for around £65. So a lot of money but I’d say they are as good as anything coming out of England today.

All the technical information you could want… and more!

Black Chalk Paragon Blanc des Blancs 2020

Most Black Chalk wines are fermented in stainless steel but this has some oak in the mix, though it’s unobtrusive. Usually when I taste an English blanc des blancs my first thought is, I can’t wait to try this in five years time, generally English sparkling wines always need more time. But not this one, though undoubtedly it will mature, I really wouldn’t want to drink it any way than as it was when I tasted it last week. It’s a thrilling wine, with incredible ripeness, fruit depth and then the gentlest, creamiest hazelnut notes. 

Black Chalk Blancs de Noirs Inversion 2020

This is made mainly from pinot noir with 17% pinot meunier. As with the other wine, there's a thrilling purity here. It's a little broader with more overt brioche and yeasty character. The finish is very long and it’s drinking beautifully now. We drank this over three days and it just got better and better. Whereas some English sparkling wines taste great on opening but become a bit sweet ‘n’ sour as the fizz fades away. 

I love these fruity, youthful style wines. And though expensive, I’d say they are as good as anything coming out of England now including some over £100 wines. 

But I also tried a wine recently that’s a lot more affordable, that pointed towards an English style of sparkling wines. It’s called the English Gent from Hattingley Valley. It’s a blend of pinot gris and bacchus and I must say that when I heard about it, I wasn’t that keen to try. Aromatic bacchus plus Champagne method always seem to be to be a dog’s dinner but this one really worked.

I sat out in the garden with my wife and her first comment was “I like this. It’s not trying to be champagne at all, it’s really it’s own thing” which is exactly what I was thinking. There’s a gentle elderflower but without the overt vegetal wafts you sometimes get in bacchus. It doesn’t have the depth of the Black Chalk Wines but it’s simple, ripe, and delicious and only £20. I don’t think you could find a better sparkling wine for the money from any country.

After my wife and I separately came to the same conclusion about it, I looked it up on the Hattingley Valley website about this wine: “If there were ever a wine that expressed pure Englishness in a glass, this would be it!”

Sometimes those marketing people do get it right. 

*Another glaring omission is Sharpham (aka Sandridge Barton) in Devon. There are many others.