To celebrate English Wine Week kicking off on 27 May our Wine of this Month is Goring Estate Brut NV, a wine from The King of English Sparkling Wine himself, Dermot Sugrue.

In a nutshell: 

An elegant, complex English sparkling wine combining a youthful purity of fruit with subtle toasty, nutty notes.

The producer:

Dermot Sugrue is not exactly a new name in the English wine

industry but he is certainly a winemaker at the top of his game. Born in Ireland in 1974, he studied Viticulture and Oenology at Plumpton Agricultural College before completing two seasons working at Chateau l’Eglise-Clinet and Chateau Leoville-Barton. In 2003 he joined Nyetimber and was appointed winemaker in 2004. Over the following years he oversaw Nyetimber’s emergence as one of the world’s greatest sparkling wine producers. From Nyetimber he moved to Wiston Estate in 2006 to work with the Goring Family of West Sussex. The Goring Brut is made exclusively for us by Dermot Sugrue. It comes from the chalky soils of the South Downs in West Sussex which are not dissimilar to the vineyards of the Côtes de Blancs in Champagne.

The wine:

This was the first crop from a Sussex vineyard planted on chalk in 2006, harvested in near perfect conditions. Equal parts Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, it is pressed in traditional Coquard basket press with small portion put to new oak. 18 months on the lees with 8g/L dosage.