Tasting our different Blanc de Blancs

vintage vs. non-vintage

Our non-vintage Blanc de Blancs is made from 100% Chardonnay from our own vineyards and also with fruit from some of our partner vineyards. This wine is pressed in a pneumatic press and fermented in stainless steel to preserve the whistle-clean fruit and aromatics. It is made with a portion of wine from a harvest year, and a portion of our reserve wines – wines which we hold back every year in order to help blend and even out the different harvests which mother nature gives us.

After fermenting in stainless steel the portions are blended and the wine is bottled and allowed to re-ferment in bottle, giving it its delicate mousse. The time it then spends in bottle also imparts the toasty, sourdough notes – thanks to the contact with the dead yeast cells in the bottle. This process – autolysis – gives the wine a roundness on the palate and complexity of flavours. It is a delicious combination of fresh grapefruit, lemon, touch of minerality salinity, with those fresh bread notes blending in. We think this is a perfect wine to have with fresh seafood or as a palate tingling aperitif.

We tend to make our non-vintage wines every year, so that they are always readily available in bottle – and in magnum!

vintage

Then we have our vintage Blanc de Blancs – the current vintage is from 2018 – ‘vintage’ here meaning that the wine comes from grapes all from the same year – no portion of reserve is blended in. We only make vintage wines in the years which produce the very best fruit, and 2018 was a great year for English vineyards, with all the various climatic pieces coming together to produce a harvest of perfectly ripe and abundant grapes. The grapes for this wine come from the steepest, chalkiest slope of our Findon Park Vineyard, hidden away in the South Downs. Our vintage wines enjoy the privilege of being pressed in our Coquard press. Whilst it looks incredible pretty, it also does have an impact on the structure and flavours of the wine – allowing lots of oxygen in at this first stage of winemaking. The juice is then fermented to wine – half in mature oak barrels and half in stainless steel tanks.

We use a combination of both for this wine – the stainless steel portion helps retain freshness and delicate floral notes, while the oak barrels impart a rounded texture and gentle toasty, vanilla notes. After several months resting in tank and barrel, the two portions are blended together and then bottled and the second fermentation takes place in the bottle. The wine then rested in bottle for four years – allowing for long contact with the yeast cells in the bottle which brings those delicious rich toasty notes, great complexity and depth to the finished wine.

compare for yourself!

We only make vintage wines in the best years, so there is only ever a finite amount of each harvest, and each vintage will differ in style depending on the conditions of the year. 2018 was a particularly good year, perfectly balanced, and it will continue to age well – for ten or more years, looking at other examples of vintage Blanc de Blancs we have seen from our vineyards (see our Library Collection Blanc de Blancs 2010 as an example). It is a very refined wine which works deliciously well on its own as a very decadent treat, but also has enough flavour intensity and balance to pair with rich creamy dishes, particularly fish.

Compare the NV and Vintage Blanc de Blancs for yourself, with our new special Blanc de Blancs Duo case. This is available online and from our Cellar Door Shop.