English bubbles are undoubtedly having a moment, making waves in the world of fine sparkling wine, with some wineries producing excellent traditional method sparkling wines that are often claimed to go toe-to-toe with Champagne.
In fact, the same chalky soils that fame Champagne also travel beneath the Channel to southern England. While some popular English wineries have their vineyards planted on chalk, like Wiston, for example, several of England’s big sparkling producers are growing their vines on varied soils such as limestone, green sandstone, green sand, and clay. These varied soils make an ideal foundation for pinot noir and chardonnay, combined making up 60 percent of the total plantings.
But does the English climate suit making still wine that’s just as well as their bubbles?
So far, sparkling wine still reigns supreme within the country, accounting for 70 percent of production, but with the effects of global warming allowing for longer ripening periods, winemakers have been ‘warming up’ to the idea of still wines.
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Interestingly, the monumental crop size of 2023 in England that had the wine world buzzing, may just be what catapults the launch of a new coveted wine style from the country.
“With our crop surge last year, some producers made four times more wine than the previous vintage, and all that wine will have to go somewhere,” says Natalia Pezzone, manager at Stanlake Park Wine Estate. She points out that production of traditional method sparkling wine takes up space, time, and money. “Many producers will have to launch still wines.”
Stanlake Park Wine Estate
Prior to the giant bounty of 2023 for the U.K., still wines were being utilized by the British in more ways than one. “More and more English producers are creating still wines to fill their portfolio, and because there is a race in the hospitality offerings in the U.K., you need more than four bottles of fizz to have a cellar door experience,” claims Natalia. But Natalia and her husband Nico, who is the winemaker at Stanlake Park, have always seen still wine as being so much more than a portfolio filler.
Natalia and Nico started managing Stanlake Park five years ago when they had more still wine than sparkling, including one red, four whites and a rosé. In the first year, they bought a tank for red wine fermentation. Today they have three reds: a pinot noir (in optimal vintages that it can achieve ripeness), and two are dornfelder based. One is an easy-drinking Beaujolais style. It’s unoaked, fruity and soft with low tannin. This wine is Stanlake’s best-selling red. The other is fuller-bodied and oak aged, with partially new oak.
Natalia Pezzone is the manager at Stanlake Park Wine Estate, in England.
Dornfelder, a German grape that was planted in England in the ‘70s and ‘80s, has turned out to be a dark horse of the English wine scene. When crafted from these old vines under the right winemaking direction, dornfelder has proven to be a loveable, fruity, yet complex wine that easily showcases the region’s unique minerality and overall terroir, with wineries like Stanlake Park and Bolney producing excellent examples.
“What we like about the dornfelder is that despite the very short growing season here, it still ripens. Dornfelder is a good friend,” says Natalia.
“Nico’s Italian heritage led him to invest a lot of time in [still wines],” continues Natalia. “He has a lot of experience in making rosé. He created a rosé in Romania, very similar to the one he makes here, that won the national award for Top Rosé Wines in Romania two years in a row. The first wine we launched with Stanlake Park was a rosé and it has been the best seller since day one and very instrumental to our success. A lot of people know us for our Pinot Noir Rosé.”
Budding English winegrower and winemaker Jen Davis predicts an upcoming demand for English rosé: “English still wine has yet to find its niche,” she says. “I think where it’s going to come into its own is with rosé. We love rosé, and I think it’s going to become really popular. That’s why I selected the varieties I wanted to plant (gamay noir, pinot meunier, pinot gris) very carefully, to give me maximum versatility. With these three varieties, I can make a rosé but I can also make red, and a white. I can also do an orange or a pet-nat. I can do anything I want from year to year.”
Jen just began planting her own vineyard last year in May and plans to focus on still wine production.
“…people just keep planting here, so it’s only going to get bigger.” – Jen Davis
“I’ve had pinot meunier as a single varietal rosé and I think it’s really cool. It’s also underrated as a grape variety” she admits. “I knew that if I planted pinot meunier, pinot noir and chardonnay, I am basically doing what everybody else is doing in the market. All the big estates across the U.K. are focusing on making traditional method sparkling wine; that’s their bread and butter. I can’t compete against those guys when they are spending millions on state-of-the-art equipment. I need to do something that’s different.”
Jen Davis at her property in Tunbridge Wells.
She adds: “I’ve tasted a lot of still wines in the U.K. and I’m impressed with what we are producing. Some of the best, standout wines I’ve had in the past few years here have been still wines.”
Jen started thinking about making her own wine five years ago. Then, after a trip to South Africa for a few months to practice winemaking, her decision was solidified. She went on to Plumpton, a winemaking school in the U.K. and it was during this time, in 2022, that Jen started looking for a place to grow vines. In April of that year, Jen and her husband moved to a site in Tunbridge Wells and began to prep the soil.
“The benefit of still wines is that they’re quicker to produce; the cashflow is better, and you don’t have to store the wines for five years. I can’t keep wine at that storage level like the larger wineries can, so I need to do something else. And, also, I’m just impatient,” she laughs. “I want to taste my wine quicker!”
Although a tipping point for still wines in England seems to be on the horizon, it’s still questionable how long it will take the average consumer to be on board with the idea.
“There are not a lot of producers making still red wines. The styles that people like in the U.K. aren’t really matched to what we are producing. Brits love a malbec and a merlot, something with soft tannins and medium acidity. So, if you bring in a high acid English wine, even though it’s a red, it isn’t for the general public. As a nation we really love our Champagne, and sparkling wine, and Prosecco, so we are latching on to that wine style and selling it at a lower price point”.
Jen further explains that the U.K. is getting a good foothold on buying local sparkling in supermarkets as some stores now have just as much English bubbles on the shelves as they do other imported sparkling wines, apart from Champagne.
English Wines from Stanlake Park are diverse with red, white, rose and sparkling offerings.
Either way, England’s still wine market will grow whether it’s a matter of demand following supply, or supply creating demand. As Jen puts it: “We’ve already been doubling our crop (referring to the 2023 vintage), and people just keep planting here, so it’s only going to get bigger.”
Natalia also has a sunny outlook for the future of English wine beyond bubbles: “I hope more people here in the U.K. will plant more grapes outside of pinot noir and chardonnay because the good thing about where we grow here, there are still not many rules. Of course, sparkling is good and all the experts love it, but I think we can do more than that and experiment. That’s the fun here in England. We aren’t under an appellation and rules code. There’s always something different that we want to make, and we will keep having fun with that.”
– Leah Spooner is a contributing editor with VineRoutes
