My name is Cécile Bergart and I have always enjoyed drinking wine. In fact, I was given my very first drop of Champagne at four hours old, and apparently liked it very much. As a child, I learned to read using wine labels and count thanks to champagne vintage years. As an adult, I have uncorked, swirled, laid down, warmed up, cooled down, decanted, tasted or drunk several hundred bottles. Washed thousands of empty glasses and marked numerous white and innocent table clothes for life. And the worst of my confessions? As a Champagne Expert, I love Hampshire sparkling wines. Let me explain why …
There is logic to Hampshire focusing on fizz. The first commercial vineyard of the modern era (admittedly only 0.4 hectare in size at the time) was indeed planted in Hampshire, in Hambledon in 1952 to be more precise. Since then, the area under vine has grown to proportions the pioneers could only have dreamt of. Hampshire wine has grown from being a cottage industry to one worth tens of millions of pounds with 42 vineyards operating across the county with more planted every year. The region helped the country to produce 6.3 million bottles of wine last year with sales of English wine predicted to make £100 million this year.
We have also witnessed a grape evolution. Old grape varieties are out (goodbye Bacchus, Müller-Thurgau and Madeleine Angevine) as new owners are in, and since they are strongly focusing on fizz (since 2016, at least 66% of the vintage goes into making sparkling wine), they are planting more of the traditional champagne grapes - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – which is much more to the international palate.
Furthermore, the chalky soils around the North and South Downs are very similar to the soil composition where famous champagne ‘Grandes Marques’, such as Bollinger and Krug, have their grapes planted. The billowing chalk hills of Champagne duck briefly under the Channel to reappear in Southern England, Hampshire included. If chalk matters, it must be because it affects aroma and flavour. Those who favour the idea of “terroir” believe chalk can deliver finesse – a fine, precise acidity on which to base a blend, in a way that no other Southern English soil can. And a sparkling wine needs finesse, elegance and acidity – or at least it does if it wants to imitate champagne in more ways than just grape varieties and price.
The Financial Times wine critic, Jancis Robinson MW agrees, albeit with a couple of caveats. "Most English fizz is now very well made and attractively dry and zesty. But very little has any real complexity since producers generally cannot afford to age it very long." Cost is indeed a problem. "It's never a bargain," Robinson says. "It is generally made by people who have invested a great deal in new vineyards or winemaking and need to see a return." Their fizz is therefore released on the market too young and sour. A Granny Smith apple taste which is not to the liking of most. We simply need more ageing in the bottle. That will come, I’m sure of it. But the price remains high and the competition can be significantly cheaper, whether prosecco, cava or own-brand champagne. Aldi, for example, sells their award-winning champagne for just £14.99 ... who can beat that?
Despite the cost premium (Hampshire fizz sells for a minimum of £30 a bottle), patriotism and the fashion for local provenance suggests that current levels of production are outstripped by demand. "The industry sells everything it produces," says Julia Trustram Eve, spokeswoman for English Wine Producers. "Demand is exceeding supply."
The main hindrance to production remains the capricious weather, and as such, English grape harvests vary enormously in both quantity and quality. Furthermore, in Britain’s cooler climate, the challenge is ripening grapes that tend to cling to their initial high acidity – we need more sunshine! Bring on global warming.
But back in Champagne, some are beginning to worry about falling acid levels there, as climate change takes effect. The long-standing rumours of Champenois investment in English wine came to fruition at the end of 2015 when Taittinger announced a joint venture in Kent with its UK importers Hatch Mansfield. It all started here with Didier Pierson of Champagne Pierson-Whitaker in the Grand Cru village of Avize, who came to Chidden back in 2004 to make his own sparkling wine ‘Meonhill’ and who then collaborated with Hambledon – which are now following a more ‘traditional’ champenois approach to blending for non-vintage. Vranken-Pommery followed suit in 2016 when the Champagne House announced that they will be making a sparkling wine in Hampshire. And more investment from the Champagne region is rumoured. Forget 1066, the French invasion is now about bubbles …
In the meantime, do try my top favourite award-winning Hampshire sparkling wines:
- Hambledon
- Meonhill
- Cottonworth
- Hattingley Valley
- Exton Park
- Raimes
- Jenkyn Place
- Danebury
- Black Chalk
- The Grange
- and now Louis Pommery!
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