A time for celebration

Sparkling wine producer RidgeView has beaten top champagnes costing up to three times as much to win the Decanter International Trophy for Sparkling Wine over £10 for its Ridgeview Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs 2006.

Founded in 1995 by Mike and Christine Roberts, RidgeView is no stranger to accolades – earlier this year it won Wine of the Year for the second year running in the English and Welsh Wine Awards – but this is likely to command a special spot on its ever-more crowded wall of awards.

Beating off the likes of Taittinger, Moët & Chandon and Charles Heidsieck, this is the first International Decanter Trophy to go to an English wine. Christelle Guibert, tastings director at Decanter, called this “a truly remarkable win”.

From the start in the mid-1990s, founders Mike and Christine Roberts’ focus has been on sparkling wine, the rationale being that the underlying soil – limestone-based – is similar to that in Champagne. A firm fan of the region – “I think they make the quintessential sparkling wine” – Mike often makes swift trips across the channel to compare notes. His first release won Wine of the Year in the 2000 English & Welsh Wine Awards.

South-facing slopes within sight of Ditchling Beacon

As its name suggests, RidgeView Estate nestles within the South Downs on a gentle slope with views of the ridge which includes Ditchling Beacon as its highest point. When they began, French experts were consulted as well as UK winemakers. The grapes are grown on a gentle, south-facing slope within seven miles of the sea. The trick in planting, Mike tells DrinkBritain.com, is to emulate Champagne and “to use lots of different clones”.

In the winery, a reliably gentle Coquard press has pride of place, while the underground cellars have the capacity to hold 250,000 bottles.

2006 was a relatively warm year. With a beguiling mix of apricot, peach and patisserie aromas, the Grosvenor has more stoned fruit on the palate, a refreshing sparkle and plenty of depth.

Very much a family affair, the Roberts’ daughter Tamara is general manager, while son Simon shares winemaking duties and his wife Mardi looks after marketing.

A busy 2010 for Ridgeview has seen a number of firsts. It released its first magnum earlier this year – the 2001 version of the Decanter Trophy-winning blanc de blancs, and the wine that won it the Wine of the Year award. In response to public demand, it opened its doors to the public one Saturday a month; the last two dates for 2010 are 13 November and 4 December, booking essential. And when harvest starts in a few weeks, its smart new winery will come into commission.

RidgeView labels its wines with the term “Merret”, after Dr Christopher Merret who records show discovered and wrote about how to make sparkling wine years before brother Dom Pérignon ever reached Hautvillars monastery, and decades before his “discovery” of how to make sparkling wine is supposed to have taken place.

• £21.95, for availability of its wines, check Ridgeview’s website

Is it a champagne? Is it a sparkling wine? No, it's a beer!

Need a celebratory gift for a beer lover? Someone who won’t thank you for a bottle of champagne’s finest? Look no further. Those groovy guys at Adnams have come up with just the tipple.

Brewed to commemorate 350 years of brewing at the current site, Sole Bay is a 75cl, 10% Belgian-style beer that arrives chicly disguised as a sparkling wine, complete with tin.

Look more closely and you’ll see that the subtle bottle livery is a depiction of the brewery and its home town by local artist James Dodds. Brewed late last year, this limited edition was allowed to mature for six months before its release earlier in August.

Brewer Fergus Fitzgerald says that the concept arose while he and his team were enjoying a few Belgian beers at the retirement “do” for production manager Bob Lee. But as is Fergus’s way, rather than slavishly follow someone else’s formula, he came up with his own recipe – and a twist or two. The malt is from East Anglia, the hops from New Zealand – Nelson Sauvign – and a few sprigs of local lavender were thrown in near the end of fermentation. And, rather than use a champagne yeast which is often the way with these sorts of bottlings, Fergus trialled Adnams’ own yeast. Happy with the results, Fergus felt “it would have been impolite to introduce an outsider”.

It’s alcohol level – 10% – means there’s enough ballast to let it age, and that in itself is an interesting prospect. But my brother was visiting from afar and we were too impatient. We did follow Fergus’s other tip though, serving it in champagne glasses – a first for me, but certainly worthwhile.

And the taste? As you’d expect, rich and complex, with the aromas of banana bread and spice continuing onto the palate. Although not dry, the right level of carbonation means it’s refreshing, while it’s inherent sweetness makes it a good food partner. It suited our roast chicken and smoked haddock dishes well, and I’d be willing to wager there’s other matches out there too – let me know what you find. And don’t be afraid to let it fly solo.

If you like it, stock up – at its current selling rate, Fergus tells DrinkBritain.com that the supplies he thought would last until next summer are unlikely to make it past November.

• 75cl, £9.99, Adnams Cellar & Kitchen Stores, Adnams website

Come on down – the grapes are fine

Diary commitments permitting, Dragons’ Den entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne will be rolling up his sleeves for a spot of harvesting with one of his latest investments, Pebblebed Wines, this Autumn.

Bannatyne invested £60,000 in return for a 40% stake in Pebblebed’s future growth plans during the last run of the popular BBC series. “Pebblebed is a flourishing business,” he told DrinkBritain.com “and the wines are great. We have already trialled them at our Somerset Hotel [the recently purchased Charlton House in nearby Shepton Mallet] where they have been well received.”

Count me in

As well as requiring a financial return on his investment, Bannatyne says that he “also wants to help raise the profile of English and Welsh wine”. He and vineyard founder, Geoff Bowen, are finalising details of their Pebblebed Partner Vineyards offer, due to launch on 3 September.

Meanwhile back at the farm, Bowen is keeping an eye on the weather as the 2010 harvest looms. All was fine a few weeks ago, with the prospects of a large crop necessitating a spot of green harvesting, “to thin the grapes and make sure they ripen well”.

“Beautiful morning in the vineyard”, Bowen  tweeted last Sunday “Sugar levels rising nicely –  just want some early September sun!” Perhaps counterintuitively, this week’s rains have been good – “they help to swell the grapes” – but Bowen is hoping to be rain-free close to harvest. “Crop looking great – touch wood!”

Whatever happens, harvest will take place once Bowen judges the time is right. Operating a rather convivial rota, last year about 200 people helped out. Volunteers join current investors – 20 families co-own the current vineyards with Bowen and his family – for Saturday morning sessions from mid-September, followed by coffee and croissants.

SEE – In the Den: see Geoff do battle here.
And watch out for the Den revisit, due in the Autumn.

VISIT – Summer 2010 tours: Thurs, 4.30pm; Sat, 11am; reservation essential


TASTE – Cellar: see web, Wed–Sat, 5.30-9.30pm; Sat, 11am–2pm

JOIN – Those interested in becoming involved can register their interest.

Champion Beer of Britain brewer Adrian Redgrove, receiving the trophy from Roger Protz for his Harvest Mild

Wondering whether to head to CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival at Earls Court this year? My advice – Go. More than once if you can. Because I bet there’ll be more you want to try than you manage on your first trip.

This year’s event is as awesome as ever, and I use that word in its truest sense. Having been there yesterday for the opening trade day, I’m not surprised 47,000 pints were sold. With over 700 real ales, ciders & perries including a strong foreign contingent, it is a drinker’s paradise.

Regulars will know the score, but for any novices out there – and this was only my second visit – my tips would be:

• Map it out – Hang onto your handy guide and make friends with that centrefold map. This year, the beers are organised into counties, with these grouped alphabetically on stands given the name of military heroes in honour of this year’s charity, The British Legion
• Head for the top – If you want to taste this year’s Champion Beers – only finalised and announced yesterday, 3 August – pick up a Champions list from the CAMRA information stand
• Quaff in style – While you’re there, ask for one of the Beer Styles Trail leaflet. An innovation this year, each of the five trails pinpoints roughly half-a-dozen great examples around the vast exhibition hall. Rather  like a treasure hunt, but with a thirst-quenching prize at each stop.  And you could be in with a chance to win a case of real ale by telling the GBBF your top three.

Talking of competitions, visit the Marston’s stand to enter their Be a head brewer for a day contest.

While you’re there, check out the Fastcask video to find out about its revolutionary new system for speeding up the ‘clearing’ of cask ale. Using a cupful of yeast-soaked gel beads which settle in minutes rather than days, no matter which way the cask is placed, it’s been given the green light by CAMRA. Developed over many years, it is being adapted for smaller cask sizes for off licenses.

Want to taste the results? Try Marston’s relatively new EPA – English Pale Ale –golden, light and very quaffable, made solely from English barley and hops.

Speaking of hops, leave time for a trip round Shepherd Neame’s From Nature to Glass stand, where you’ll be able to scrunch and sniff half a dozen hops as well as witness for yourself how bottom-feeding lager and top-cropping ale yeast behave differently in fermentation.

Helpfully, there’s a family room for the so-called Half Pints Club on the second floor with plenty of activities, face painting included. One parent needs to stay with the youngsters, so it’ll be a case of taking it in turns to sample the ales.

Open until Saturday 8 August, for all the details, including session opening times etc, visit http://gbbf.camra.org.uk

Best foot forward – some of the many Walking Festival goers

The Boots and Beer Walking Festival began in 2002 when the Black Sheep Brewery took the initiative in the wake of the 2001 foot and mouth crisis to try and encourage visitors back to the Yorkshire Dales. Seven years later, 2009 saw nearly 500 hardy souls take part.

With guided walks, evening entertainment and – of course – plenty of fine ales on tap, this draws a large number of repeat visitors from around the country. Book your tickets early and dust off those walking boots.

Dates: 10-12 September
Location: throughout Upper Wensleydale, centring on Hawes, Bainbridge and Aysgarth.

Registration essential. Visit website for more details.

Take a peak at life on the ocean wave

With a million people expected to watch the 100 Tall Ships cross the finishing point as they sail into Hartlepool, Black Sheep will be the pint being poured in The Village, between PD Ports Victoria Harbour and Hartlepool Marina. With activities running from morn till dusk, from 7 to 10 August, visitors can not only watch the action, but go on board the ships and meet the captains and crew.

See Tall Ships 2010 for more information.

From grape to glass, from hop to heritage

Within striking distance of the big smoke, Kent has it all on the drinks front. For many beer lovers, it’s the home of hops, with now legendary tales of East Enders holidaying to pick the crop. For others, the cider apples are the fruit to applaud and appreciate, while more recently grapes have made a strong appearance.

Biddenden Vineyards already produces both cider and wine. To make the most of your Kentish day out, it has teamed up with the Hop Farm in Paddock Wood across the county for a combined group visit. Begin at Biddenden with a tour of the vineyards at 11.30am, stop for a ploughmans lunch with a glass of wine, before heading to the Hop Farm where hops and their heritage “will come alive”. Finish your day wth a cream tea.

Oasts & Toasts with the Hop Farm: £21.40 pp
As with all Biddenden’s group visits, a minimum of 15 adults is required.

See www.biddendenvineyards.com for other joint visits

With a fine deep colour, the nose is full of purple plums and raspberries. With spicy cherries on the palate and a nice dry finish, this offers more substance than a rosé on the flavour front, while still having the palate-cleansing bubbles.

On the food front, it was a pleasure with cheese nibbles and a pea and wasabi dip that was our appetiser of the moment, but winemaker Sam Linter is saying spicy savoury dishes, like Peking Duck with hoisin sauce or grilled teriyaki-glazed salmon, and game – duck or pheasant – for the mains, and I can well imagine that. She’s also thinking dark chocolate cake, summer pudding or mixed berry cheesecake for desserts. Because it is dry, I think I’ll have to experiment once more to see if the puds have a match or overwhelm – what a hardship!

But seriously, with grapes like Dornfelder to the ready, this could be the start of a new UK-style. Let’s hope so.

Available from the winery’s website.

Sparkling success: Pebblebed wins Dragon's backing

Within 12 hours of Geoff Bowen’s appearance on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, he had received 100 requests for more information – not something you’d normally expect from an English vigneron in the rural Devon town of Topsham.

But then there’s nothing that “normal” about the way Bowen runs his business. To begin with, rather than ending up in hock to the bank, he persuaded 20 other families to get involved with his initial Pebblebed vineyard purchase. Currently he has 22 acres spread over three sites.

And “involved” doesn’t just mean money, it’s joining in at harvest. Although even that seems different. Rather than a straight run of backbreaking days from dawn to dusk, once Bowen decides the time is right, everyone joins in for a morning’s picking for five Saturdays in a row, followed by coffee and croissants.

As well as his 20 partner families, Bowen welcomes others, putting an ad in the local papers. His young daughters, Jessie and Martha, get involved too, as does wife, Anna. Indeed there could be a dynasty in the making, with 11-year-old Martha already a mistress of the secateurs and often recruiting a few of her pals for the exercise.

Bowen keeps an eye on quality with a dose of sorting post-picking. “They know what’s ripe,” he says of his volunteers.

Cellar at the centre

Time to taste: Pebblebed Cellar by the Quay in Topsham

But the point of difference I love most is Bowen’s decision to place his “cellar door” in the centre of Topsham – “like in Chablis and St Emilion” he says – rather than on the edge of town where the vineyards are. So, yes, there are vineyard tours twice a week, but his main way of “meeting the public” is in the evenings, when he regularly gets 50 or so diners and imbibers to the whitewashed former warehouse near the Quay in Tophsham.

Formerly an environmental hydrogeologist, postings had taken Bowen all over the world before returning to Devon with his young family. Today, he likes the mix of being out in the field with the evening’s chat in the Cellar.

As well as his own, there’s other local drinks, including wines from Sharpham, Manstree and Yearlstone Vineyards, plus a few dozen international wines from his neighbour and Cellar collaborator, wine, food and travel writer turned wine importer, Marc Millon, whose company Vino specialises in small Italian producers.

All coming up rosés

Stick with the pink: "it's what we can do"

Long before it became fashionable, Bowen’s been in the pink. “I like pink myself,” he says, having admitted that part of his initial inspiration came from holidays spent sipping rosé in the hills of Provence. “I just feel that this is what we can do,” he says of rosé in the UK. His is made from the common UK bedfellows, Seyval Blanc and Rondo, with some made from Pinot Noir due to join from 2010. “You’ve got to focus on what you can do best.”

So what of his ordeal in the Dragons’ Den? “I was in there for two-and-three-quarter hours,” says Bowen. “I’ve never known Geoff stumped for words,” said Pebblebed Vineyard manager, Nigel Cox, of the moment where silence reigned. “Actually it was mid-way through the pitch”, said Bowen, not the beginning as portrayed on the programme.

But with fortitude, Bowen persisted, convincing leisure magnate Duncan Bannatyne to come on board with a £60K investment in return for 40% equity to seed-fund the next stage of Pebblebed’s development. Although the exact mechanism is to be worked out, the key is to enable others to be a part of the expansion. “What people really want is the involvement,” says Bowen. “Even if they only come down for half-an-hour and dig in two vines.”

Bannatyne and his family have already visited – he recently added Charlton House hotel in nearby Shepton Mallett to his portfolio of leisure properties – and this encounter will be shown in an update to be screened in August.

In the Den: see Geoff do battle here.
Summer 2010 tours: Thurs, 4.30pm; Sat, 11am; reservation essential
Cellar: see web, Wed–Sat, 5.30-9.30pm; Sat, 11am–2pm

Hampshire’s Food Festival

Take Wickham Vineyards in Shedley for example, halfway along the coast from Southampton to Portsmouth. In the news this year for buying some of the former wine shops from the now defunct First Quench chain, it continues with its original business – an 18-acre vineyard complete with celebrity chef, Atul Kochar’s out-of-town restaurant, Vatika.

Vatika is a destination in its own right, with its English-influenced Indian cooking, its much sought-after terraced tables overlooking Wickham’s vines and its talented cuisine team led by the affably modest Jitin Joshi. Its Tandoor BBQ demo on Saturday was a sell-out, but at the time of writing tickets are still available for a morning Wickham Wine Tour combined with wine matching lunch on Saturday 17 July. 01329 830405

Cheers m' dear: Wickham Vineyard visitors

If you’d just like a nosey around the vineyard and neighbouring nature reserve, book onto Wickham’s Wednesday early evening tour on 21 July.

For those nearer the New Forest, Setley Ridge Vineyard in Brockenhurst is teaming a guided tour and wine tasting with a local New Forest Marque produce supper on 14 July.
01590 676321

Let’s hear it for the beer – and cider

Locals at your local: Itchen Valley beer at The Bugle

If beer is your tipple, The Bugle in Hamble is offering a “super local” menu throughout July, with local brews such as Bowman’s, Andwell and Itchen Valley with dishes made from Hamble Valley-sourced ingredients.
023 8045 3000

Southwick Brewery continues its free tours of its brewhouse near Fareham complete with its 160-year old steam machine.
023 9220 1133, Southwick Brewhouse. Open Wed–Sat, with steam machine in action at the weekend; booking unnecessary

Meanwhile, New Forest Cider is the complimentary drink on arrival for those opting for Simply Hampshire lunches at the Whitley Ridge country hotel in Brockenhurst.
2 courses for £15, 01590 622354

Fish, ducks, walks and music

Winchester residents –  or visitors –have a chance to mix and match locally smoked food with Hampshire wine on Thursday 15 July in the evening, courtesy of renowned local fishmonger, Peter Atkinson, and Wickham Vineyard. Bulthaup, 01962 849000

If you fancy a bit of duck racing – and who doesn’t – the Concorde Club is hosting its family-friendly annual Jazz and Beer Festival in Eastleigh over the weekend of 17-18 July. As well as said races, there’ll be a BBQ with local produce, stalls, and garden games. 023 8061 3989

Apple city: Blackmoor Estate opens its gates to all

Hill Farm Products are opening its gates on Wednesday 14 July for a free guided walk in ancient woodlands and local orchards, showing visitors how their juice and offering samples. 01489 878685

Ten days later, Blackmoor Farm Shop, supplier of fruit to many local food and drink producers, is having an open afternoon of local food, drink and music on 24 July. 01420 473783.

Visit www.hampshirefare.co.uk/food-festival.asp for full details, including times and prices. Programmes can be requested by phone, 0845 6035638 or downloaded, and you can search online.

Booking essential unless specified; often there are discounts for Friends of Hampshire Fare.