(2024) From Dorset a sparkling blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay with just 2g/l dosage. Made using the traditional method, 50% is fermented in neutral barrels with natural yeasts, before the second ferment for a minimum of 24 months on the lees. This bottle mostly from the 2019 vintage, with 18% reserve wines and disgorged 11th July 2023. Lots of foamy mousse and a very delicate mother of pearl to peach colour. Quite a lot of leesy, bready autolysis here giving some toast and cinder toffee, then a real mouth-filling wine with plenty of ripe berry sweetness, but the low dosage and thrust of lemony acidity gives real zip and real gastronomic appeal.
(2022) The base vintage here (46% Pinot Noir, 18% Pinot Meunier and 36% Chardonnay) is 2018, with 15% reserve wines. Fermentation was in a combination of stainless-steel and older oak barrels. It is made by assemblage, blending 6% red wine and was on the Lees for 20 months before a dosage of just 3 g/l. There's red fruit and a real meatiness on the nose, gravelly and racy too. The palate is strikingly dry and gastronomic, loads of citrussy acidity slicing through those meatier, tart raspberry fruit characters. Lovely stuff.
(2021) A blend of 54% Pinot Noir, 23% Pinot Meunier and 23% Chardonnay, there is only 4g/l of residual sugar in this incisive and dry English sparkling rosé. It's part barrel-fermented and is an 'assemblage', with a small percentage of still Pinot Noir added to the blend before secondary fermentation. After 24 months on the lees, the mousse is strong, and the nose has a real mineral, smoky, taut and small red berry-fruited appeal, a herbal streak only adds to the freshness. In the mouth that dry, mineral and flinty character continues, yes there is red fruit of raspberry and bitter lemon, good length and that racy, very grown-up acid character.
(2021) The blend here is 62% Chardonnay, 29% Pinot Noir and 9% Pinot Meunier, the base vintage 2017. This cuvee contains 10% reserve wines and has only 2g/l dosage and was disgorged in December 2020. It's a fabulously incisive, dry and mouth-wateringly saline English sparkling wine, utterly energising though with a depth and richness of baked apple and hazelnut, then the palate bursting through with thrusting, ripe and fat lemon fruit and that salty, seaside freshness and gastronomic, tingling length powering through. I really enjoyed this wine.
(2021) There is 6% of reserve wines in this blend of 66% Pinot Noir, 24% Pinot Meunier and 10% Chardonnay, on a base of the 2017 vintage. Partial barrel fermentation was followed by 18 months on the lees, a dosage of 2.5g/l and a further six months ageing post-disgorgement. Despite the energising blast of the salts and citrus here with its low dosage, there is a generosity and golden glow to the wine, ripeness and some toast and creamy almond, full texture and excellent length. A more open and slightly less rigorous wine than the Corallian, but still absolutely pin-sharp and decisive.
