RidgeView Estate

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.

From the start in the mid-1990s, Mike and Christine Roberts' focus has been on sparkling wine, the rationale being that the underlying soil is similar to that in the Champagne region. Ever since its first release won Wine of the Year in the 2000 English & Welsh Wine Competition, the family have been clocking up the awards at an alarming rate.

While Mike is a familiar face on the global sparkling wine scene, the whole family pitches in. Mike and Christine's son Simon helps with the winemaking, his wife Mardi looks after the marketing and sales, while Mike and Christine's daughter, Tamara, is general manager.

As well as group visits, the winery now runs a tour one Saturday a month – booking essential, see below for dates and details. Its Cellar Door is open Monday to Saturday, and there is always something available to taste for those visiting at other times.

A visit to this boutique producer provides a marvellous opportunity to see just how RidgeView has carved out its niche. Beginning with a walk around the fields, the tour heads into the winery, where good fruit is turned into award-winning wine courtesy of some of the best equipment in the country. The cellar can hold just short of 1/4 million bottles. No wonder several other top wineries ask the Roberts to produce their sparkling wine for them – and to good effect.

The bright and airy Tasting Room where the tour finishes with samples of the current releases has windows onto both the vineyards and the cellar.

Silverware

• Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs 2007 – Internationational Sparkling Wine Trophy, 2011 International Wine & Spirit Competition
• Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs 2001, magnum — Wine of the Year, 2010 English & Welsh Wine of the Year
  
• Grosvenor Blanc de Blancs 2006 — International Trophy, sparkling wine above £10, 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards
• Knightsbridge 2006 — Silver, 2009 Effervescents du Monde,
  also Wine of the Year, 2009 EWWY

Shop & Cellar Door

RidgeView wines, stoppers and glasses.

Club

The Circle of Merret is a small club for those who would like the chance to develop closer links with the winery and its founders. With members only tastings and special releases, wine events tutored by experts, plus a chance to visit and even help out at harvest (pre-booking essential). It offers something more worthwhile than simply a few quid off your purchases.

Community

RidgeView supports St Peter and St James Hospice, Haywards Heath.

Anything else?

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.

Last visited Spring 2010