English Sparkling Wine

Waitrose Cellar is the supermarket you’ll often find us touting at WinesDirect, not only for its excellent quality and championing of independent wineries over the mass brands, but also for its exceptional exclusives and exciting gems from lesser-known regions. Find yourself a hidden gem, and you are truly paying for the wine alone rather than a premium on branding or regional perception. With Master of Wine Xenia Ruscombe-King hand selecting their range, you can be sure that there is real…

After literally sliding out of Simpsons Estate we returned to The Pig, only mildly inebriated, and got ready for dinner. They had got two more English wines in store to pair with our food. It is a multi-vintage blend comprising 60% Chardonnay and 40% Pinot Noir sourced from two select vineyards in the South Downs and aged in Burgundian oak. The vintages in the blend are old giving it some real depth and complexity from the off. Critics such as Sir Hugh Johnson and Matthew Jukes rave about this…

If you missed part 1, you can start by clicking here. After a ready heady start at Gusbourne, Simpsons Wine Estate was the next stop, with their famously limited Q Class Pinot and Chardonnay on the menu. Located in the small, quintessential English village of Barham, just outside of Canterbury, it provided a nice quiet spot to tour the vineyards. We met Henry Rymill, sales and events manager, to show us around. A short walk to the first vineyard, the iconic Roman Road vineyard, was filled…