(2025) Only 500 bottles of this utterly convincing Pinot Noir are available, on sale to waiting list customers from 24th October 2025. From the Mason's Point Vineyard in the Crouch Valley, planted on blue clay, it also comes from the exceptional 2022 vintage of record-breaking temperatures. It spent 14 months in new oak, then rested another 22 months before release. It is superbly ripe. Immediately, it is all about glossy, deep black cherry running into bittersweet damson plum. The oak sits lightly, but adds a little balsamic note, hints of truffle and peppercorn add interest. In the mouth it is smooth, juicy and has plush ripeness, then something cool and mineral kicks in, again cherry springs to mind with svelte tannins and pert, pretty acidity extending the finish.
(2025) Ace English wine maker Dermot Sugrue and his wife have released this barrel-fermented and aged saignée of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier from the excellet 2023 vintage. Much darker than is fashionable, bronze-to-cherry in colour, with small red berries like redcurrant and cranberry. In the mouth it is textured, dry, the intense red berry character continuing yet given real zip with a saline tang to the acidity and the merest squeak of oak tannin adding some earthy depth. Very good. Noodles, by the way, is their dearly departed lurcher.
(2024) The first still wine from sparkling wine maestro Dermot Sugrue and his wife Ana is as quirky as its name. It is in fact the first issue of a solera of Chardonnay, the 2022 component aged in small barrels, the 2023 in large barrels, with a proportion made in an oxidative style. It displays a flinty, herbal character but elegantly smoothed by almond and creamy ripe, honeyed apple. The palate shimmers with vibrant sherbet lemon and ripe grapefruity vivaciousness. It has a flinty drive and freshess, a bittersweet ripple of citrus, the finish long and intense like a blood orange straight from the freezer.