English Rosé Tasting at the Vineyard

Now that we are nearing our first harvest we need to start thinking about the style of still rosé wine we would like to produce. Hopefully we will get some good quality fruit and we will have something to drink next year.

To help form our views, a group of us met at the vineyard last week to taste some of the best English rosé wines, including samples from Camel Valley, Chapel Down, Hush Heath, Denbies, Stanlake Park, Three Choirs, Brightwell, Meopham and Gusbourne. The tasting was blind and lead by Stephen Skelton MW. Ulrich Hoffman, who will be making our still rosé, was also there amongst a number of friends and local restaurant owners.

The runaway winner was the Camel Valley which they describe as a light dry rosé with intense strawberry flavours. It is made from 67% Pinot Noir and 33% Dornfelder.

Our rosé will also be made from Pinot Noir but with Seyval instead of the Dornfelder. We will decide the percentage mix and even what rows to use in 4-5 weeks time when we will be better able to judge the quality of fruit.