feature / Albion Awakes / Hambledon Vineyard


HAMBLEDON VINEYARD: CHALK SHOW


Margaret Rand travels to Hampshire to meet Ian Kellett, the former yoghurt- factory manager and investment banker who has turned England’s oldest commercial vineyard into a standout sparkling-wine producer


ll of this is leading me to think quite bold thoughts,” says Ian Kellett of Hambledon Vineyard. All of this is data; Kellett was an investment banker, so data is his thing. He also read biochemistry at university, so the science of winemaking is also his thing, as is poring over geological maps and cross-referencing them with weather. “I can’t think why everybody doesn’t do that,” he says. And he adds later, “Nobody else is doing all this: all chalk, this close to the coast, all estate, and this level of expertise.” (He’s referring to consultant winemaker Hervé Jestin: “Why would you not go to the best for advice?” he says.) “Weather maps and geological maps are all public: Why are [people] not using them?” What all this data tells him is that his part of Hampshire, in the south of England, is something like 1.8°F (1°C) cooler in July and August than Champagne, if you look at the period from 1980 to 2010. That means 60 growing degree-days fewer. But in


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September, it’s about 2.7°F (1.5°C) warmer at Hambledon than in Champagne, so about 20 of those degree days are clawed back. “Sugar in Champagne [at picking] is up between 15 and 20 percent over 30 years,” he says. Now it’s acidity that is the focus in Champagne; and it’s the focus at Hambledon, too. They pick on acid, not on sugar. “Doing the malo is a buffer for them [in Champagne], but total acidity is falling. We’re better with the malo. We do full malo on everything. Hervé says that in the 1980s they were picking at 8.5–9.5% potential alcohol, and that’s sort of where we are here. We aim for north of 9%, and 10% is perfect.” But that’s enough data for the moment. Where is “here,”


and why?


Chalky, coastal, venerable Hambledon is, of course, England’s oldest commercial vineyard; it was established in 1952 by Major-General Sir Guy Salisbury- Jones. (The village was also the birthplace of cricket, a bit before that. It’s where the third stump was put in the wicket, I’m told.) But the estate changed hands, and by the mid-1990s the vineyard had shrunk to 4 acres (1.6ha). Kellett bought it in 1999, took himself off to Plumpton for an enology course, and in 2005 planted 10 acres (4ha) of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Meunier in 27 different combinations of clone and rootstock to see what worked best. “What terrifies everyone in a winemaking class is the chemistry,” he says, “but it was fairly headline level.” He’d also learned about wine, mostly Bordeaux, in the City of London, via a lot of tasting, and he reads a lot of wine-science books. In 2010 and 2011, he set up a company in order to raise money from other shareholders—and here we are.


A new winery and visitor center is being cut into the chalk hillside. (It was going to be fairly simple; now it’s going to be very beautiful, with solid oak pillars and beams, which cost six times the MDF substitute that was first planned.) A restaurant is taking shape, too. (That was also going to be quite simple; now there is going to be a kitchen brigade of six or eight.) And Kellett wants to have the best eno-tourism facility in England and to make the best wine in England. Those bold thoughts also include the idea that if England has the same chalk and a cooler climate, one day it should be able to make better wine than Champagne. (Some of us would say that sometimes it already is.) He also points out that there’s a great deal of chalk under


the Atlantic, “and who knows what the future might bring?” But there might be a few more geological shifts before that point. Chalk, then. Hambledon’s chalk is Newhaven Chalk formation; the French categories are different from the English


150 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 79 | 2023


Photography (left) © Jenny Zarins; right © Sebastien Baert


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