English Sparkling Wine: What to Know

Can English wine, yes you heard right, English wine compete on the world stage? Here to help us answer this vexing question is WSJ's wine columnist William Lyons. Hello William, thanks so much for being with us. Hi Tanya, great to be on the show and great to be talking about English wine from England. Absolutely and I have here a sparkling white from Ridgeview Estates, the Cavendish, and you William have the rosé. But before we get to the tasting I want to ask you, English wine, I mean isn't England better known for its beer or gin? Well you're absolutely right and I think if I pitched this story 25 years ago I would have been laughed out the newspaper. But funny enough since the mid 1990s England has had a burgeoning wine industry and in the last 10 years it's really caught on. It's won a slew of international medals and now we have more than 500 wineries here producing around 2 million bottles a year. Fantastic and what are the major styles, white or red? Well look we are a northerly climate, we may be sort of warm by the Gulf Stream but it's mainly white wine, 80% is white wine. But the key to understanding English sparkling wine and its success is this, it's bubbles. This is the one product we do very well over here. All right so our image of England as a rainy little island, we need to rethink that. In a way we do, I mean I don't know about the climate, everyone talks about the climate change, but what I do is I crunch the numbers and actually the soil isn't too different here in England than it is in Champagne. Also during the growing season we only have a sort of variant temperature of about one degree which is perfect for ripening grapes. And you say in your piece that there have been comparisons with Champagne. Is it as good as Champagne, William? Well this is the big thing, this is what always gets the headlines and over here we're obsessed with it. I think it's because the Brits drink more Champagne than any other country in the world. But for me English sparkling wine can now stand on its own two feet. It's a little bit different to Champagne. If you come to London and you order a glass of English sparkling wine it's a wonderful aperitif, it's a wonderful pick-me-up. It has searing acidity, quite sort of tart fruit and also a flowery flavor which I'm sure we can taste in a minute. But I think it's separate to Champagne now and I think it should have the confidence to go out and say exactly what it is. All right William, let's taste. Cheers. Okay cheers. So Tanya, is this your first time you've ever tasted a sip of English sparkling wine? It is and I have to say I quite like it. It's refreshing and tart, a little delicate fruit maybe. Well have a look at this. I mean I've got the I've got the Fitzrovia 2011 from Ridgeview and I chose Ridgeview because I thought they were the sort of closest style to Champagne. And just look at this glorious sort of salmon pink color and this white mousse. Beautiful. And the aromatics, I mean I've got sort of flowery but it's also clean and crisp as well. Clean and crisp and we get a wonderful red current tartness there. Bright acidity. I'm sold but what say you William, the expert? Has English wine arrived? Well I think there's two things that I would say as a caveat. Certainly in terms of quality, it's undoubtedly up there. It can stand shoulder to shoulder with all the best sparking wines in the world. I really strongly agree with that. All right. But the caveat I would say Tanya, just quickly, is there's a tiny production and the price is still quite high. All right so let's hope they speed that up and lower the price because I'm on board. Thank you so much William. Pleasure. Thanks Tanya.