ENGLISH FIZZ|CW
“To me, it was obvious that sparkling wine was the way to go because what you get here in Sussex (and in Champagne) is fully ripe grapes with great flavour...”
and, despite our reputation for liking the grape, the British manage only 3.53 litres of wine alcohol per person in any 12-month period. “Even if we get the Chinese only up to our level of consumption, it represents a massive opportunity for Ridgeview and other British wine makers,” says Roberts. “I’ve been warned that we might already be suffering in China from counterfeiters producing wine with our labels on the bottles. I suppose it is a form of flattery.”
THE CACHET OF AN ENGLISH BRAND For the sake of the English wine industry’s
reputation, Roberts is concerned that not all the newcomers who have been busy planting vineyards are truly prepared for the long haul that wine making demands. “After planting your vines, it takes three years until you can do your first commercial cropping, so you don’t start making wine until Year 4. Then you have to wait three or four years for the wine to be ready, so you are looking at seven and a half or eight years before you get back your first pound,” he warns. “Then you have to contend with years like 2011, when we suffered poorer than usual flowering on the vines.” Like the team at Christopher Ward, Mike Roberts knows that there is a cachet in a genuine English brand, yet he does not believe in over-charging for it. Ridgeview wines sell
mainly for around £23 to £27 a bottle. “Of course we are mindful of the competition, but we are not the most expensive English sparkling wine. We don’t treat shortages as an excuse for jacking up the price. We want always to offer good value,” he asserts.
The next generation of the Roberts family is in place to carry on the pioneering work of Mike and Chris. Their daughter Tamara is general manager and her brother Simon handles most of the winemaking duties. Their spouses, Simon Larder and Mardi Roberts, look after quality management and sales and marketing respectively. The senior non-family member is winemaker Charlie Holland, who joined in 2009 after working at wineries in
above; The climatic and soil conditions in Sussex match those of Champagne, left; Ridgeview’s founder Mike Roberts is also chairman of English Wine Producers, right; Ridgeview’s varieties reveal the versatility of English sparkling wines
California, France, Germany, New Zealand and Australia. To remind everyone that English wine making has a long, if largely forgotten, tradition, Ridgeview names all its wines after a London district or thoroughfare, such as Bloomsbury, Grosvenor, Knightsbridge, Fitzrovia and Cavendish. This is a subtle celebration of one Christopher Merrett, who in the 1660s described not only how to make sparkling wine, but how this “gay, brisk and sparkling wine” was being drunk and enjoyed in London over 30 years before the French first made sparkling wine and almost 70 years before the oldest Champagne House was established. That’s worth popping a cork for.
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