English Sparkling and Marmite Pizza?! Chapel Down Grand Reserve 2019

Hello and welcome to another English Sparkling with Tweenie video and I'm going to rush through the intro a bit because I've got some pizza which I would like to actually eat while it's still vaguely warm. I'm sat here by the stone of free speech. I made a video about that over on Tweenie Misc. Don't feel as though that received as many views as it really deserved. Hint hint. Well anyway I'll shut up because I really want to get on and eat some pizza and then I do have some white with me and I'll talk about that in a moment. Almost ended up with two pizzas actually in fact. This is just a very standard margherita. I do like to keep it simple sometimes. One of the toppings were really jumping out at me. I don't know if you can see it's from Yard Sale Pizza. This is not sponsored content in any way shape or form. It seems exceptionally unlikely that they'd be interested in having someone like me do ads for them. It's not exactly a second pizza but it came with some free garlic bread because I've, I don't know, ordered enough pizzas in the past or something. That is in fact garlic bread with cheese and marmite. Never tried that before but I was a bit curious to see what that's going to be like. I'm going to try a bit of this marmite garlic bread first. That's what that looks like. I like that very much. This really will hinge on whether you like marmite or not which is of course famously divisive. It's a bit like marmite. I love the marmite garlic bread. Really good. Packed with but I feel like I ought to eat a proper slice of pizza as well. Like I say just a straightforward margarita. Very nice as well. Would be better if it was slightly warmer but there you go. That's not not their fault. It's my fault. Very quickly going to open this because I'd like to have a glass of it with the pizza. I don't often feature Chapel Downs wines on this channel do I? I've only really touched on them a couple of times and they are possibly the second biggest producer of sparkling wine in England. They are a big player. I like the really, as I probably say every time I mention Chapel Downs, I like their really expensive stuff. That Kitts Coty I think is their best vineyard next to the Megalith. It's a former Dolman isn't it? Of the same name. The regular stuff from Chapel Downs, I don't know, for some reason never quite works for me. But this is called their Grand Reserve. It's actually got a vintage statement on it. It's 2019 this particular bottle and I assume this is meant to be a bit of a step up in quality from the regular classic. We'll see. I'll be the judge of that. I haven't really done my homework in terms of grape breakdown and stuff. It just says on the back Chardonnay Pinot Noir and Pinot Mernier in that order so presumably there's more Chardonnay than individually of the other two. I think predominantly lemon. There might be a tiny bit of something like stone fruit, maybe a little bit of apricot. Probably a bit of apple in with that and that was all pre-swirl, post-swirl. A bit windy here, I hope you can hear me okay. Slightly candied lemon now actually. Nice sort of slight sweet edge to that lemon on the nose. It's not a bad nose actually. There's almost certainly some alternative character, something slightly pastry-ish. Yeah something like that. Now I'm getting a little bit of baked apple. Candied lemon, baked apple, a bit of pastry, something like that on the palate. Nice blitzing, quite dry. Didn't check the dosage. I don't think it's written on the back but it's coming across as relatively low dosage. I don't know if that's actually the case or just how this happens to express this particular vintage. Not a huge abundance of fruit on the palate compared to what I was getting on the nose. It's all sort of there. It's a little bit lemony, a little bit apple-y. Not quite as apparent on the palate as it was on the nose. I liked the nose, that was nice. A bit more dry mineral and I'm noticing a bit more of the alternative character on the palate actually. Some ready notes there. A little bit of bitter lemon now coming through. Yeah a little bit of bitter complexity. Actually that's not bad. I do think that is a step up from the regular Chapel Down classic, whatever it's called. I'd like a tiny bit more fruit on the palate but perhaps that will emerge as I sit my way through this. But there's definitely interest going on there. Bitter complexity I like. I like the nose. Mouth feels good. Camera's getting wobbled by the wind. Quite dry but that that can be what you want sometimes. More pleasing, appealing, lemony notes there. Yes, I think that has gone over the border from the classic which somehow leaves me wanting something a bit more out of it to actually being good. So I'm going to shut up now, eat my pizza and I'll probably come back to you later with some more wine thoughts. Probably was a bit too much food for one person wasn't it? I enjoyed that Marmite garlic bread cheese thing, whatever it was, so much that I just ate that. And apart from that one slice of the Marguerite, I think I'll just take the rest home. I did really enjoy that and in a way I think that the fact that it had Marmite on it somehow made it feel a better pairing for English sparkling wine. What's more vernacular, that's the right word we're talking about, what's more appropriate to England than Marmite? You can't think of anything more English really. I can't. I think this is actually good. I think with Chapel Down, for me at least, don't want to sound like a snob but you know it's too late for that, just got to get beyond the basic range which has just never really done it for me. Sorry, it's just a bit bland and underwhelming personally but when they push the boat out and try and make something a bit fancy, I think that is a thoroughly respectable decent bit of English sparkling. It all hangs together very nicely. I like that lemony character, I like those subtle but definitely there sort of bitter complexity notes, bitter complex notes, sort of slight botanical feel to it, a little bit reminiscent, a tiny bit reminiscent of what Dermot Segrue does in Trouble With Dreams. Nice little bit of brown sugar, possibly honey there on the nose now. That often goes hand in hand with a bit of pastry quality, a bit of autolytic pastry type quality and I think I am getting a bit more fruit on the palate for whatever reason the first couple of sips that wasn't so present but a nice lemony character, mainly lemons I think and I like that actually here. A lot of English sparklings tend to go quite apple-y, those are the two main things you get out of Chardonnay, it's either apples or lemons in England. It's nice to have something that's more citrus forward for a change. Yeah, it's quite refreshing, it was a good antidote to the slightly extreme and I'm sure divisive Marmite and cheese garlic bread, I think that's what it was. I couldn't actually taste the garlic that much, I'm not necessarily even complaining but I think the Marmite was quite full-on when you reduce the impact of the garlic, it's not necessarily a bad thing, but just it's effectively the sort of weird version of cheese on toast but I guess that's pizza for you isn't it? Sorry to the people of Italy, not that anyone's watching. Actually good, Chapel Down's a grand reserve, well done. People of Chapel Down, I like that. It's probably enough babble isn't it? I'm going to sit here and enjoy, get to see a little bit of something akin to a sunrise behind me, I'd love to turn around and appreciate it. Anyway, cheers. I'm actually a bit cold, what an incredible luxury that is after that heatwave we've been having all summer. It's only 8 o'clock, still 10-15 minutes until the official moment of sunset, I think the heat is already clearing off. I saw some youths walking past wearing hoodies with the hoods up. Maybe they do that anyway, I don't know. I'm wearing tweed and I'm not faulting it, it's not a case of just doing it for the aesthetics and it's actually a bit uncomfortably warm. Wearing tweed feels appropriate for the weather, fantastic. That may also mean a bit more of a return to Burgundy rather than English sparkling the next couple of weeks, but good. What a delight, cold. Cheers.