Sparkling Wine News
What’s happening in English Sparkling Wine?
The 2016 production figures from England and Wales released today, reveal a dip in overall volume, but a high-quality vintage. The overall production figures show that 31,116 hectolitres were produced, equivalent to 4.15m bottles. This volume is below the current ‘average’ annual production of 5m bottles. 2016 got off to a slow start but finished…
Add Edible Rose Gold Glitter to your Prosecco
Glam and glitz up your Prosecco for any occasion with an iridescent rose gold shimmer. With a raspberry flavour and heart-shaped flakes of gold simply add half a spoonful of raspberry shimmer popaball for Prosecco available from Lakeland to a glass of Prosecco and watch it fizz and cascade down the flute, leaving behind a lovely…
Just how good is English Sparkling Wine? Just ask the French…
We are all well aware of the qualities that Champagne holds as a wine and how the heavily protected region of France produces many award winning wines and traditions for the world to enjoy. Now, not so far behind, especially with its wines, is English sparkling and so much so is its rise to fame…
Frost hits English Vineyards
We’ve already heard how frost has affected vineyards in Champagne. Now the frost has hit some vineyards in England, with Albury stating the frost has caused damage to 80% of buds. When frost is forecast, it’s all hands on deck with the lighting of ‘bougies’ (French for ‘candle’) and burners throughout the vineyards. These ‘bougies’…
Domaines Paul Mas
Nestled in the Coteaux de Languedoc AOC between Pézenas and Sète on the Mediterranean coastline, Château de Conas has been in the Mas family home for over one thousand years. Fourth-generation vintner, Jean-Claude Mas took over the helm in 2000 and his mission has been to use only premium quality grapes to craft superior wines…
Chapel Down Launches Most Expensive English Sparkling Wine
Chapel Down has launched a Coeur de Cuvée English sparkling wine at a cost of £99.99, making it the most expensive English wine on sale at the moment. Named Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2013, the wine is produced from the best areas of Chardonnay in Chapel Down’s 98-hectare vineyard on the North Downs of…
Water is the Critical Ingredient to Wine & Champagne
Ask any wine connoisseur what goes into making a truly great wine or champagne and you will invite an in-depth debate of the pros and cons of different grapes, processing and crushing practices and numerous other factors. But few will think to mention the most important ingredient of all. Your average wine has a water content of…
Waitrose Starts Exporting English Wine To China
Waitrose has become the first supermarket to start exporting English wine to China. As part of the supermarket’s support of the English wine industry, four English sparkling wines will be sold through the Royal Mail store on Tmall, the huge Chinese online marketplace operated by Alibaba Group, from 12 April. With over 100 wines available…
David & Goliath – Can English Sparkling Wine take on the might of Champagne?
English Sparkling Wine has experienced something of a meteoric rise over the past few years. Peter Ustinov’s phrase “I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine” would have had little argument even in the very recent past, with English wine being the parochial and somewhat comical poor cousin of the fizz…