Breakfast at Denbies Wine Estate – Rocking in Dorking!

I genuinely can’t believe what a revelation this morning’s visit to Dorking ‘s best loved vineyard was.  We met with Mike and Karl who have taken over the reigns of wine production and marketing at Denbies under their own company, called Litmus wines.

Before Litmus, Denbies Estate was more closely associated with coach parties and supermarket wine, but since 2010 changes have been made.  Obviously they still deal with the big boys and the blue rinse brigade of pensioners buying the odd bottle of Surrey Gold but there is some serious focus on both quality and the terroir of Dorking comes through!  (Did I really just write that!)

Highlights were:

2007 Whitedowns Sparkling

Made from a blend of Seyval Blanc and Reichensteiner, this wine had a good clean nose with clear, attractive and aromatic fruit.  On the palate the wine was deliciously clean and ripe with a gentle mousse and a touch of lees flavour on the finish.  Elegant and eminently drinkable.

2006 Greenlands Cuvee

50%Chardonnay, 30% Pinot Noir, 20% Pinot Meunier means that the Greenlands Cuvee is like  classic Champagne using the three key varieties.  With three years on the lees, this has given the wine a real sense of complexity, lovely ripe fruit notes, a fine, elegant linear style with a good finish.  Quite serious in fact!

2010 Flint Valley 11%

Made from Seyval Balnc, Reichensteiner and Chardonnay, this was fresh, aromatic with citric almost sauvignon styled notes but with a lovely touch of smoke and cassis leaf too.  Clean, refreshing and really quite dry, this is pretty good.

2010 Bacchus 11.5%

Bacchus is a unique grape variety that is only grown in Germany (where it was made in 1933 by crossing a Sylvaner and Riesling cross with a Muller-Thurgau).  This had an unusual but very aromatic nose of elderflower and cut grass with notes of asparagus and gooseberry, in fact reminiscent of a Sauvignon.  Very nice depth of fruit and the wine is beginning to flesh out after 6 months in bottle.

But then.....:

We tasted some samples from tank of 2011 Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for making their top Sparkling in a few years time.  We are so going to have some of that!

And finally, we were taken in a special side room..........and I thought I was in France....!

2011 Pinot Noir

Only four barrels from this amazing Pinot Noir.  They don’t have any idea what the clones are as there was no record made when these vines were planted in 1985.  Lovely deep colour, a simply stunning pure Pinot Noir on the nose, deep, darker fruit – the Vosne Romanee of Surrey!!!
Admittedly I’m over-egging this a bit – but this was simply stunning!

2011 Merlot

Using bought in fruit from a vineyard in Gloucestershire that grows their grapes under glass, allows Merlot to actually ripen in this country.  It was really good with a deep rich red fruit and notes of capsicum on the nose, surprisingly big and rich on the palate, was there a hint of Pomerol on the finish and coming in naturally at 12.8%, those glasshouses are sure doing the right thing!

2011 Cabernet Sauvignon

Good colour again but not a varietally characterful as the other two, this has perfect components of ripe tannin, fruit and good supple acidity.  This means it will be great when blended to the Merlot.  I reckon this will retail around £25-30 and whilst that is expensive, in relation to English wine production and quality vs price, it will be one of the best red wines to have come out of the UK!