Chapel Down Sparkling Brut, England NV (£21.99, Waitrose) Amid all the pomp and circumstance of next weekend’s festivities, it’s easy to see why the English wine business spies a good opportunity. It’s all part of English wine’s remarkable progress over the past couple of decades, a period in which it has gone from a largely amateurish pursuit to become, to use the UK government’s ludicrously boosterish parlance honestly for once, a ‘world-beating’ industry. Certainly, the Coronation, like last year’s Platinum Jubilee, will have its share of commemorative bottlings by English sparkling producers and it seems likely that many punters will, as they did last June, take the patriotic option as their sparkling choice at parties and gatherings. Among the producers making a special cuvée for King Charles is one of the biggest, Chapel Down, which has released a 2,000-bottle run of Coronation Edition from the 2016 vintage at £65 a pop. I’ve not tried it, but the company’s regular, widely available Brut NV is among the most consistently enjoyable English sparkling wines around.
Leckford Sparkling Brut, England NV (£24.99, Waitrose) One measure of English fizz’s progress is the confidence its leading producers now have in selling at prices akin to top champagne. Chapel Down’s Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2016 goes for £120 a bottle, while Gusbourne’s 51° North 2014 costs £195. English sparkling wine has been adopted by the supermarkets, all of which now have an own-label or two of the style on their shelves. Waitrose has taken the idea even further, having planted a small vineyard at the company’s farm, Leckford Estate, in Hampshire, in 2009. The sparkling brut, which is made from Leckford’s pinot noir, pinot meunier and chardonnay grapes by the well-established Ridgeview Estate in East Sussex, is very good indeed, with a mix of typically nervy English Cox’s apple acidity and buttered toasty notes.
Breaky Bottom Seyval Blanc Cuvée Grace Nichols, England 2017 (£35.99, Breaky Bottom) Ridgeview is still among the top English producers along with, among others, Nyetimber, Gusbourne, Exton Park and Camel Valley. Ridgeview’s champagne-style white and rosé sparklers are always going to be their main stock in trade, but last year they added a Ridgeview Sparkling Red Reserve (£55, ridgeview.co.uk) to their range which, if you are going to splash out on English fizz this holiday weekend, is rather a lot of fun, with its tart-tangy, crunchy and sappy summer pudding berries. Another pioneering South Downs producer who is as creative as ever is the evergreen Peter Hall, who planted his vineyard near Lewes in 1974. As well as classic champagne grapes, Hall still works with the under-heralded seyval blanc, the base of his very fine, incisive, Cuvée Grace Nichols.
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