The Royal Botanic Gardens has teamed up with the Bolney Estate in West Sussex to produce two new sparkling wines. Margaret Clancy does the decent thing and tries them both
Global warming – it’s such a depressing issue, constantly being warned that the end of the world is nigh. And so we all do our bit for the environment (well, President Trump aside), but if you’ll excuse the tenuous pun, for every cloud there is a silver lining.
With our increasingly milder climate, the wines grown on British soil just get better and better. Different varieties of grapes benefit from different soil types and climates, and even a small shift in the temperature in the UK makes all the difference. English wines may have been hyped up for decades, but now they genuinely deserve their place on the shelves alongside their foreign counterparts.
I’ve covered the lovely sparkling wines that Surrey has to offer before and I am sure I’ll do it again, but this month I am going a little further afield – to the Bolney Estate in West Sussex. Happily, the vineyard has entered into a new tie-up with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which somehow hauls West Sussex northward and brings it right on to our patch.
Though Bolney produces a full range of wines, the Kew varieties are, so far, all sparkling.
“There may be more lines in the pipeline,” hints the vineyard’s Nick Hutchinson. “But for now, there are two top-of-the-range sparkling wines that we’ve made especially for Kew.”
He says the new wines are slightly drier than the company’s current prestige wines, yet they nevertheless sit comfortably alongside the companion cuvées. The wines are produced in the traditional méthode of the French Champagnes, and indeed are made from the classic French Champagne grapes, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. However, Nick is very clear that the Bolney wines are not trying to copy the French style.
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“We’re making English sparkling wine and we’re very proud of what we’ve created,’ he says. “There are similarities, certainly, in the mousse and texture as well as the wine, but ours isn’t a replica. It doesn’t need to be – it can perfectly well stand on its own."
Given Kew’s role in horticulture in the UK as well as the world, it wouldn’t be surprising if it had something to do with the viticulture at Bolney, but it seems it has left the wine making to the experts, content instead to share in the mindset of the vineyard, where sustainability, minimal use of chemicals and active promotion of soil health are paramount. But it has had something to do with the labelling, making this line one of the prettiest wines you’re likely to come across. Both the labels depict vines and grapes from old sketches in the Kew Garden archives; look carefully and you will see a couple of species of the local wildlife among the leaves.
Both wines are very new to the market and at the moment only available from Bolney and from Kew Gardens, but keep an eye on the smart wine retailers near you – I predict them popping up here and there as something rather lovely and quintessentially English. Expect to pay about £31 per bottle.
It’s all very well for Kew Gardens to have its own specially made English wine, but however attractive the bottle and presentation is, what’s really important is what it actually tasteslike. So I did the only decent thing and tried them.
The white (100% Chardonnay) is quite acidic, with plenty of lemony, tangerine-like citrus hints. It’s fizzy and fun, but seems slightly lacking in fruit. That may be (ironically) because the globe hasn’t warmed up enough yet – Chardonnay isn’t most English wine growers’ grape of choice. If the climate doomsayers are right in what they predict, this cuvée can only get better and better.
The rosé is a different story. Made from 100% Pinot Noir, this has a beautiful pale colour, and from first sniff to last sip, has a lovely balance and depth. There are hints of rose and a warmth and softness that make it a really enjoyable glass – perfect as an aperitif, stunning with salad and fish and no doubt ideal with quintessentially English strawberries and cream – though it’s so drinkable that if I doubt it will be allowed to go the distance to pudding.
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