Street party or garden party or dinner party?
A limited-edition Jubilee label for Classic Cuvee
Even as a Scot, I have to admit that the quality of English sparkling wine is soaring. England is making some fabulous wines, still and sparkling. It’s a young and exciting sector. Nyetimber were among the first to recognise that the greensand and chalk soils of the South Downs offered some fabulous south-facing slopes for the Champagne grape varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. They played a large part in creating the English sparkling wine industry, often giving the Champenois across the water a run for their money. They are certainly one of the country’s top producers.
The first vines went into the ground at Nyetimber in 1988. But Nyetimber has been around for a great deal longer than that, with ‘Nitimbreha’ getting a namecheck in the Domesday Book. You might in fact ask – what were they doing for their first 900 years? But with such a long history behind them, there can’t be a more appropriate drink to toast the platinum jubilee of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
Classic Cuvee is Nyetimber’s flagship release, a multi-vintage, traditional method sparkling wine. Like everything Nyetimber make, it comes entirely from estate fruit, and enjoys some extended aging before release, to build complexity and flavour depth. To celebrate Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, Nyetimber have launched a patriotically eye-catching edition of the Classic Cuvee. We can have it delivered to you in time for whatever kind of fete, garden party, street party or private toast you might choose to organise. /NT
