feature / Albion Awakes / Gutter & Stars


nothing self-consciously experimental. Wilson will make a blend, sometimes of different vintages, if quantities aren’t big enough to fill a barrel; yeasts are usually cultured, often non- Saccharomyces, though enough yeasts have made themselves at home in the cellar by now to get fermentation going when he wants to go down that route. He doesn’t filter or fine, and he bottles by gravity. He prefers not to do lees-stirring for whites, because that character can be too strong. So, what is he trying to express? What, as one wine merchant put it to me, is Wilson’s DNA? Most of the vines he is working with are young, so trying to express the vineyard would be optimistic; Wilson agrees that the vineyards are often too juvenile to have an opinion. And it’s not show-off winemaking. “I have a huge ambition to make good wine,” he says, and there’s an honesty about them. They’re precise and sensitively made, beautifully balanced, and with individuality. They’re subtle; give them attention and they repay it.


They’re all still—“sparkling is boring to make, and I haven’t got the space”—though he does make the odd col fondo, and quantities are small. One barrel’s worth is generally the smallest parcel of grapes he’ll buy, though he did do 130 bottles of one wine, the quantity tiny because of the year, and borrowed a half-barrel from Danbury Ridge to make it. The business model works because everything is small-


Above: The allusive and creative labels inspired by literature (not only Oscar Wilde) and music. Opposite: The Cambridge windmill whence Wilson tilts at discerning wine lovers with integrity, passion, quiet resolve, and success.


162 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025


scale. Wilson doesn’t employ anybody and doesn’t use agents; 80% of his sales are direct to consumer, half local, half outside Cambridge. He has a wine club with 100 members who receive nine bottles a year and have various advantages. “Cambridge has a lot of people in the colleges and the technology companies who spend money on wine and eating out. They’re very happy to support a local enterprise, and they like experiences.” The wines generally sell out quickly, and he doesn’t age in bottle. The windmill is on a lease, not too expensive, and doesn’t need adaptations; “the kettle and the radio use the most power.” He’s funded everything himself, without investors (hence the name, he says), and for the first nine or ten months, until he had wine to sell, there was nothing coming in. But now it’s profitable—“it wipes its nose”—which is a lot more than you can say of many English producers, particularly at five years old. He keeps it on a tight rein: “Grapes are my biggest expenditure, and there are no cuts there. I pay what I need to.” If he expanded and made double, what would happen? He might well, he thinks, end up making only 5% more profit for a lot more than 5% more work. “I don’t want to make life more difficult for myself.” At the moment, he spends about three days a week on Gutter & Stars, and about two days a week writing about wine, averaged over the year. “I’m a writer,” he says. “I always want to write.” Though not, please note, about English wine. He also does some consulting for British wine importers. It’s a good balance, and it suits him. “I like being in the cellar, and visiting vineyards on a nice sunny day, but not worrying about the pruning.” Winter days in a muddy vineyard are not Wilson’s idea of fun, but winemaking very much is. Finally, I should point to the very, very clever packaging of his wines. He came across a designer called Ed Wright, and they share the same tastes in music and design, and they’re the same age. The colors of the wax over the cork are bright, varied, and go with the labels. It’s part of the experience. Wine is a performance art, and this is a one-man show, albeit with a good backing group. Try it. 


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