Wednesday Wines – Episode 316 – PART 2 English Wine Week 20th – 28th June
In addition, here are some more wines I am likely to feature before too long, which have made a massive impact on my palate! We have more wines than ever to be proud of this English Wine Week! I have included snap one-liners on each for your perusal! They are listed in alphabetical order. Congrats to all below – these are brand-new discoveries from samples sent to me directly and from wines I tasted at the London Wine Fair.
NV Albion English Fizz Brut – classy, bright, accurate and inexpensive, Albion proves that great wine can also be affordable, and we are listening.
NV Albion English Fizz Rosé – and Red Johnson has done the same trick with rosé, too.
2022 Black Chalk Paragon – beautiful, light, airy, and amazingly resonant, this is a sensational Chardonnay with thrilling timbre and freshness. It’s like A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a glass!
2022 Black Chalk Inversion – incredible! This 75% Pinot Noir / 25% Pinot Meunier manages to do the same trick as its sibling but with awesome sleight of hand, reversing the mood with pink and red notes, thrilling spices and brazen acidity.
2024 Cary Wine Estate The Old Rectory Chardonnay – this is a more refined wine than the ebullient 2023, with less obvious oak, more tension and more elemental appeal!
2024 Dillions Bacchus – despite the vintage conditions, this is a more focused, linear and far more appealing wine than this mercurial grape usually renders in hotter years! I love the floral tones and the citrus zest here, which make this a fantastic aperitif style.
2023 Dillions Rosé – The three Pinots conspire to make this rosé a smooth, pure, and soothing style that focuses on rose-petal and raspberry florals, with plummy tones on the palate. This is lovely stuff!
2025 Folc Dry English Rosé – back to form in 2025, this is a wonderful wine with masses of energy and flair. Made from a single plot of Pinot Noir grapes, it is lighter and fresher than many, making it a superb aperitif, or brilliant with crustacea or sushi!
2025 Four Daughters Riesling – this is the finest dry English Riesling I have ever tasted. It has all the élan of a world-class dry Riesling, and I am still reeling that it is made here! Only 750 were produced to get in quick!
NV Hambledon Classic Cuvée – never looked as good as it does today, this is one of the country’s most assured sparklers, and it drips with class and breeding.
NV Hambledon Classic Cuvée Rosé – is a true rosé, with a delicious perfume and a pointy, cleansing finish. Nothing sloppy or fruity here, just precision and purity!
NV Hambledon ‘The English Cuvée’ – is a brand-new creation with a short ageing and an unabashed desire to appeal to newcomers to the brand. And guess what? It works a treat. This is a genius, and I am convinced it will pay off.
2022 Harrow & Hope Brut Rosé – this is another refined, linear, and cleansing rosé, and this style appeals far more to my senses than the fatter, more vinous wines. H&H has an impeccable portfolio right now, and this wine is at the top of the tree!
2023 Heppington Pinot Gris – fleshy, layered, and toothsome, this is a stunning wine, parading pineapple chunks and jasmine on the nose and palate, yet the finish is remarkably dry and firm. Yum!
2024 Heppington Pinot Noir Rosé – fit, tense and refreshing, this is another terrific rosé, and I am certain that this summer has a wider choice of great English rosé than ever before. Heppington’s wine presumably draws its fruit from the wine below, allowing it to retain lightness and poise, while concentrating the flavours in the red! Clever.
2024 Heppington Pinot Noir – with a haunting perfume and trademark silkiness, this is a fantastic Pinot, and it is already looking ravishing.
the heretics The Disobedient Pale Barrel Fermented Pinot Noir Rosé – wild, green/red flavours, epic sourness with smoky/sweet oak throughout, this is a challenging wine that asks as many questions as it answers, and it will no doubt age very well. But if you want to dive in today, then cook up a storm – this is one of the most gastronomic wines in this list and the flavours are likely to confound and reward in equal measure.
2023 Higham Vineyard Pinot Noir – this is the best Pinot to date from Higham, and it ticks all the boxes, as well as being more stuffed with mid-palate fruit than many. It is a main course red wine, and that puts it in a small group of English Pinots with this degree of intensity and gravitas!
2025 Lyme Bay Shoreline – always a winner, Shoreline raises the bar again with delicate orchard notes over a slinky, ever-changing stone fruit and citrus palate. I love it.
2025 Lyme Bay Shoreline Rosé – a new wine to me, and one that is made from Bacchus and Pinot Noir. And for this reason alone, it is an outlier and stunningly unique. There is depth, pizzazz, amazing colour and also a super-long finish. It is as modern a rosé as we have ever seen on our shore(line)s.
2025 Lyme Bay Bacchus Block – another very familiar wine in my annual line-ups of England’s finest, this 2025 is a cracker with glorious hedgerow notes and amazing margarita freshness.
2025 Lyme Bay Pinot Noir – one tank, no oak, brambly fruit and nowhere to hide. This is a perfect expression of naked English Pinot, and it rocks my boat!
2023 Rathfinny Mini Rosé Vintage Brut (50cl) – strident, bold, punchy and strawberry soaked, this is the perfect/only way to enjoy two glasses of elite sparkling rosé in perfect condition. And the 2023 vintage is generous, open-armed and ready to go, making this an irresistible proposition.
2023 Rathfinny Mini Vintage Brut (50cl) – like its rosé sibling, this is another winner, but this time, the fruit is riper, more structured, swaggering and yet perfectly balanced. There is a ‘vintage’ feel that makes this mini a very special treat.
2020 Rathfinny Classic Cuvée Vintage Brut – the ‘full-sized’ vintage wine is made from a 55% Pinot Noir, 30% Chardonnay, and 15% Pinot Meunier recipe, and the result is an exotic, layered, and creamy concoction with a super refreshing and nicely dry finish. Like all Rathfinny releases, it is ready to go!
2018 Roebuck Estate Blanc de Noirs – bold, flamboyant, textural and resoundingly delicious, this is a fabulous wine, and it continues a run of excellence for this amazing cuvée from Roebuck.
2025 Shotley Bacchus – this is a Sauvignon-Blanc-like Bacchus with genuine class and length, and I feel it will appeal to all-comers, not least those who have yet to warm to this variety.
2024 Simpsons Rabbit Hole Pinot Noir – perhaps it’s inevitable that this is yet another winner for Simpsons. I have long been a fan of Rabbit Hole, and this 2024 is as clean as a whistle and perfectly perfumed!
2024 Simpsons Gravel Castle Chardonnay – like Rabbit Hole, Gravel Castle is a long-term winner, and this wine is another that has further improved in the tricky 2024 vintage. Spot on, Chablis-esque and stunningly teasing, this is a go-to English Chardy for all-round entertaining.
2019 Simpsons White Cliffs – this is always a great sparkler, and it sits in a zone that is a little lighter and leggier than many. Superbly refreshing and not as foodie as many, I would pour this as the very first wine of the evening, to titillate palates.
2023 Simpsons Roman Road Chardonnay – this has always been a more challenging wine than Gravel Castle, as it employs oak to build texture and weight. In the past, I have found it disjointed, but in 2023, the balance is spot on.
NV Sugrue South Downs The Trouble With Dreams – this is the 11th release of this amazing wine. Using 60% reserve wines across seven vintages, it is rich, showy, ostentatious, and yet, still, somewhat impossibly, impeccably well-balanced!
2023 Tinwood Estate Blanc de Blancs Single Vineyard – slight, and ethereal, with a lovely, sherbety texture and lightness of touch throughout, this is a beautifully packaged wine with a delightful halo of freshness.
2023 Yotes Court On the Nose Bacchus – controlled, green-tinged, indulgent and refreshing, this is my favourite wine from the YC portfolio, and it is another Bacchus for those who don’t know just how good this grape can taste in the right hands!
2025 The Uncommon High Tease White Wine North Kent Downs – this is a Bacchus/Chardonnay blend, with a tense, pithy palate and a super-long, nerve-tingling finish. It’s The Uncommon’s first foray into bottles, and they have aced it!
2025 The Uncommon Tempting Fete Rosé Wine North Kent Downs – this rosé is made from Pinot Noir and is similarly shaped to the white wine, with ninja-like red-fruit tones and a bracing, zesty finish.
Weyborne Wayward Demi-Sec – I have no idea when this wine will be released, nor am I privy to a ‘tech sheet’, but in one fell swoop, this is England’s finest Demi-Sec, and I for one would not drink it with pud, preferring to serve it as the ultimate aperitif, with its louche flavours and ultra-alluring palate. Thank goodness the exuberance is kept in place by knicker-snapping acidity.
2025 Williams Family Wines Bacchus – I loved this wine last year, and it is a notch up in 2025. The Williams team has gone from nought to sixty in record time, and this wine leads the charge with its pinpoint accurate flavour and thrilling balance.
2025 Williams Family Wines Pinot Gris – with 9 gms of residual sugar, this is officially an off-dry number, but it really looks like a classic Alsace model with its sultry mid-palate and generous finish. This is very assured winemaking, and I personally love this style, so I am delighted that this wine sits apart from the other PGs in my line-up!
2025 Williams Family Wines Pinot Noir Précoce – with a touch of English (not French) oak in the mix, this is another quirky and yet amazingly successful wine from this amazing mob! Precise, clean, ripe and rewarding, this is a superstar in the making.