The bowel movements of badgers is not a common topic of wine conversation. But for Emma Rice, chief winemaker at Hattingley Valley in Hampshire and the current United Kingdom Vineyard Association Winemaker of the Year, badgers are just one of many problems that beset grape growers in southern England.
"Viticulture in the UK is extreme," she tells me as we sit down over a glass of her award-winning sparkling wines. "We can get frost, wind, rain, mildew, botrytis – everything that can go wrong often does. In 2012, when we just didn't have a summer, we picked only five per cent of the grapes we normally harvest."
On the plus side, she says, there aren't any deadly snakes, spiders or insects – unlike in Australia. But she does have to deal with the badgers.
"They'll select the ripest bunches – and the grapes go right through them, as you can imagine. They dig latrines between the vine rows, too, so when you take your dogs into the vineyard they discover these pits full of poo and love to roll around in it. Disgusting."
Disgusting indeed. So why persist, battling bastard badgers and bitter barometry? Because when the vintage is kind, the cool climate and chalky soils of southern England can produce scintillating sparkling wine. And, thanks in part to a warming globe, the vintage is kind more often than not these days.
The British wine industry has doubled in the past decade: the sceptred isle is now home to more than 130 wineries and 500 vineyards covering 2000 hectares. Thanks to the success of pioneering wineries such as Nyetimber, Ridgeview and Chapel Down, fizz has emerged as the country's strongest suit: more than half of the vineyards in Britain are now planted to chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier (the classic trio of grapes found in Champagne), and about two-thirds of the country's annual wine production is sparkling. The growth shows no sign of slowing down, either: output is set to double by 2020 from 5 million to 10 million bottles annually.
Public embracing local bubbly
This is still only a drop in the ocean of wine sold in Britain, of course – domestic production currently accounts for less than 1 per cent of the domestic market – but there are signs that the great British public are beginning to embrace their local bubbly with gusto: last year, Ridgeview and Chapel Down became the suppliers of sparkling wine to 10 Downing Street, and last month Chapel Down replaced Bollinger as the official sponsor of that quintessentially English event, the Oxford and Cambridge boat race.
Rice fell in love with fizz when she was 18, working at The White Horse, a Sussex pub with one of the best wine lists in the country. She was asked to be the waiter at a particularly special wine dinner, which kicked off with a double magnum of 1979 Krug champagne.
"The owner told me if there was any left after I'd poured for the table I had to try it – so I made sure there was some left. I can still taste that wine now: I took one sip and thought, 'Right, this is it'."
After catering college and a stint grape picking in New Zealand, Rice worked in the wine trade and as managing editor for specialist wine publisher Mitchell Beazley, before completing the viticulture and oenology course at Plumpton College, Britain's leading wine school, and doing a vintage at Nyetimber. She then worked for wineries in California and Tasmania before returning home to help establish Hattingley Valley in 2008.
Almost a decade later and Hattingley is at the forefront of the boom in English sparkling wine, exporting to a number of markets from California to Japan (and, from late last year, Australia), and selling well, says Rice, at home – especially in Hampshire supermarkets, where her Classic Cuvée sits on the shelf at £30 ($49) a bottle – the same as Moët & Chandon.
To me, it's a no-brainer: if I'd popped into a Waitrose and was faced with these two options, I know which I'd choose.
"Yes," says Rice, smiling. "But we have to be careful: if everyone switched from Moët to English sparkling wine overnight we just wouldn't be able to keep up with demand."
What I'm drinking: English fizz
NV Digby Fine English Brut, (East Sussex, Britain)
You know a trend's threatening to go mainstream when the big liquor chains dip their toe in. This lovely non-vintage bubbly hit the shelves of selected Dan Murphy's stores around the country late last year: a persistent foamy mousse and delicate aromas of citrus and cracked wheat lead on to a creamy, balanced mouthful of lemon puff and fresh baked bread. $90
2013 Hattingley Valley Rosé (Hampshire, Britain)
Hattingley's main wine, the 2013 Classic Cuvée ($80), is quite delicious – crisp wafer, crunchy white nectarine, finesse and restraint – but I'm more drawn to this rosé (and the blanc de blancs, below). Pale pink in both colour and flavour, it has subtle, entrancing aromas of wild strawberry and Turkish delight, and fine, savoury elegance on the tongue. $90
Imported by cellarhand.com.au
2011 Hattingley Valley Blanc de Blancs (Hampshire, Britain)
This wine is 100 per cent chardonnay from an unusually good vintage (a record-breaking 29 degrees at harvest time!), grown in vineyards with particularly chalky soils, and it spent four years on lees before disgorging. It has beautiful aromas of elderflower and lightly buttered toast, with elegant richness and a hint of Marmite. Bloody marvellous. $120
Imported by cellarhand.com.au
Max Allen is the new wine and drinks columnist for The Australian Financial Review. He is also wine editor for Australian Gourmet Traveller and correspondent for jancisrobinson.com. He was wine columnist for The Australian for many years, and has also written about wine for The Age Epicure and international publications. He is an award-winning author, presenter and lecturer. This is his second column for Life & Leisure.
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