Rathfinny Wine Estate Classic Cuvée Brut 2018  £29.61

Rathfinny Wine Estate Classic Cuvée Brut

Rathfinny Wine Estate is an audacious and exciting player on the English wine scene. Crafted using 65% Pinot Noir, 18% Chardonnay and 17% Pinot Meunier, their Classic Cuvée is aged on the lees for an impressive 36 months. Bustling with red apples, tangerines, greengages, grapefruit, raspberry sorbet, buttered rye bread with a pinch of sea salt, prickly sherbet and peppery gingerbread, this is an intense, creamy and rambunctious fizz.

At such an accessible price for English Sparkling Wine, this can be used to celebrate for no reason at all. Alternatively, serve it alongside truffle risotto, wild mushrooms, fish pie, cheesy arancini, crispy duck pancakes with plum sauce, scrambled eggs with tarragon, apple pie or lemon posset.

Rathfinny Wine Estate has around 90 hectares of vines on Sussex’s South Downs between Brighton and Eastbourne. This ambitious venture – the first vines were planted on the chalk soils behind the Seven Sisters in 2012 – is set to be 140 hectares when at full capacity, making it one of England’s most significant vineyards. Set up by Mark and Sarah Driver – former hedge fund manager and solicitor respectively – and employing a winemaker from Champagne and a vineyard manager from New Zealand, Rathfinny will undoubtedly set the benchmark for English Sparkling Wine.