wine cooler, watching the sun’s crepuscular rays, striated through the clouds on the Meon valley around us, with only the purling of the stream in the background.
a bench ideally placed to luxuriate in this view and crack open a bottle of the Pinot Meunier Rosé to start the tasting. It is the ideal place for our first experience of this fine bottle, out amongst the vines, chilled to perfection in the Bentley’s
The Bentley with its four wheel drive had no trouble following Fred’s trusty raised pick up truck through the vines as we made our way back to the tasting room for a proper evaluation of this award winning vineyard. Twelve Silver medals, three Golds and one Trophy in wine competitions so far, not bad for a first year. The afore-mentioned Pinot Meunier Rosé was very well balanced, with a lovely pink glow, definite peach tones with a light fresh finish. Next we tried the Blanc de Noirs, which was great fun, made from all Pinot Noir grapes, 15% new vines, the rest from earlier plantings. A superb, dry, refreshing lime/floral taste, strongly sparkling with a well rounded long
finish.Then on to the Exton Park Brut, a citrus, mineral flavour, clean and well balanced, fresh off the chalk, made from a blend of 60 % Blanc de Pinot Noir and 40 % Chardonnay. Last we tried the Exton Park Rosé NV, made by slow pressing 70 % of Pinot Noir and 30 % Pinot Meunier from the older vines, a subtle pink colour, with lots of berry flavours, a fine balance between plum and strawberry, with an interesting depth and range.
The vineyard relies on the three Champagne stables, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay, but as they progress they are
looking at mixing the rootstock further and experimenting with other varieties to see what works best with the terroir. Corinne also believes in keeping a reserve of wines, around a third of the harvest, vinified plot by plot, stored in French oak barrels and in stainless steel vats to create a library that she can pilfer from to create great non vintage cuvées. They all feel quite strongly that they will only produce vintage if the harvest is right, rather than for the sake of it. So keep an eye out for any vintages they do produce, they will be excellent.
Malcolm has cleverly built his own “A” team pulling the very best people together to build a brand to watch, or more importantly to taste and enjoy. Highly recommended and we feel confident that Exton Park will soon become a prestigious and recognised name in fine sparkling wine. They are even conducting tastings in Paris to a initially sceptical audience (yes the French can be as nationalistic as the English) who we are sure will acknowledge Exton Park to be very fine indeed. We look forward to drinking Exton Park on long winter evenings with friends to remember the Meon valley and the delightful but swift English summer that produces these fine local sparkling wines.
Exton Park English Sparkling Wine:
www.extonparkvineyard.com
By Viscount Yves de Contades
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