After discovering the secret of greensand, reported on in Five apsidal locations, my research led me to Albourne Estate. This is a small vineyard near Brighton. Crucially, for our interest, it lies on the greensand ridge of Sussex.
Greensand, you will recall, is a markedly different soil type from the chalky soil most English fizz is grown on. It holds the heat of the sun for longer, allowing grapes grown on it to get riper than those on chalk soil. This particularly benefits Pinot Noir ripening.
Albourne Estate produce a variety of still and sparkling wine. The sparkling wine range currently includes a Blanc de Noirs 2018 – a fizz made from pure Pinot Noir. I was wildly interested in trying this!
What really caught my eye about Albourne Estate’s Blanc de Noirs 2018 was that it spends a whopping great six years resting on its dead yeast lees after the second fermentation in bottle. This is a long time!
In England, most of the base wines that undergo second fermentation in bottle to become sparkling wine simply lack the stuffing to survive with such long lees ageing. If treated as such, they would lose all their fruit and life and simply fall apart within minutes of opening. Pinot Noir grown on greensand, however, should be amply powerful enough to not only survive but improve with such treatment. I was rabidly keen to buy and drink!
Now we come to a “TL;DR”! I did buy and drink… I encountered Albourne Estate and their Blanc de Noirs 2018 nigh on one year ago and I am reporting on the sixth bottle I have consumed; you can guess that I like it!
Anyway… here I am six bottles in reviewing a Blanc de Noirs 2018. Yes! Yes! I know! I should have said something sooner, but I was distracted, busy, ill, in prison, dead or something… The important bits, the link to Albourne Estate’s website and the quite brilliant price for this wine – £36.95 a pop minus 5% when you buy six, are in this sentence if you cannot be bothered with my note below.
I do apologise I have not informed you about an absolute gem of a purchase a lot more quickly. In my multiple, refulgently positive emails to the lovely proprietor of the vineyard, Alison Nightingale, I promised her I would give her Blanc de Noirs 2018 and Blanc de Blancs 2018 a proper review. This is the first review. I guarantee the next will follow with alacrity. Do not worry, they still have stock of both!
Let us finally review this wine!
English Sparkling Wine Blanc de Noirs 2018, Albourne Estate
A glorious, sun-drenched nose of deliciously ripe and powerful orchard fruit – it is wonderfully solar and intense. There is more than a hint of citrus peel to it as well, and those flavours are also knockout rich, bawdily ripe and throbbingly complex. Phwoar!
This wine also pulses with an abundance of flavours that my favourite English Sparkling Wine, Black Chalk, lacks in all but its prestige cuvées; namely autolytic characteristics.
The long time on lees this wine enjoys has given this wine an involute, labyrinthine biscuity, nutty set of aromas that are delightful and charge the nose with a real perky freshness. Furthermore, the autolytic characteristics combine with the powerful fruit to give it even more dimension and make the citrus aromas seem slightly candied. It is, verily, a beaut.
The base Pinot Noir wine for this wine is perfectly powerful enough to benefit from the long lees ageing. The fruit and autolytic aromas show no signs of decaying as The Editor and I have an extended wallow in the pure passion that is the nose of this Albourne Estate Blanc de Noirs 2018!
What rapture is the palate! It has layers and layers of delicious, voluptuary fruit that you would have to have some worryingly serious problem with ‘fun’ not to love. The degree of sophistication to the fruit for a sub-£40 fizz is a real school(-dinner = winner).
It has great acidity for a fizz this ripe, and the mousse of the Albourne Estate Blanc de Noirs 2018 is as soft as silk. Long lees ageing in a cool environment will increase the fineness of the mousse.
The autolytic flavours, together with the acidity and mousse, keep the palate vivacious, and, unlike a lot of English fizz, it is not encumbered with clumsy dosage-levels. That and the fruit make this a pretty, perky, playful number to launch into with uninhibited joy. Every mouthful of the lascivious love liquid leaves you electrified, gratified and satisfied!
When I first tried this wine, I felt sure that the wine had the power and density to allow it to be aged for five-ish years. However, this bottle is the perkiest, most libertinous one I have had, and all components just sit together with impressive panache and style – could this wine be peaking?
Not all long lees-aged wines last forever, so it is quite possible I am telling you about this Albourne Estate Blanc de Noirs 2018 when it is at the towering height of its delightful, charming powers.
Eeerr… That’s exactly how I planned it! There is still plenty of summer left, does not August demand quality fruity fizz? Whilst I foresee no problem leaving this for a year or two, this bottle is so good I will ravish some more soon.
It is fruitsome, it is fresh, it has enough power to stand up to food, it is not expensive – you will be missing out if you do not have this at your next barbecue! Get buying and get popping!
Albourne Estate’s website is here. A review of their Blanc de Blancs 2018 will follow as soon as I can twist The Editor’s arm into letting us have a bit of fun. I want it now!
Fab note and fab wine – indeed your enthusiasm for it prompted me to buy a six pack.
I have a sense that long lees time is the key to make these high-acid, low ripeness wines really special.
English Fizz often seems overpriced and to rely on novelty and patriotism to get one to buy it. As you point out – this is worth the money…
The great Jacob Leadley would argue that short lees ageing is necessary to maintain the brilliant fruit that the long hang-time of English fruit results in. This wine would seem to suggest he’s not always right, and he does make three wines that have extended less ageing, so I cannot say what is the truth.
This wine, certainly, is extremely successful and a total bargain.
This wine may not be better than Collection, but it is GOOD, and at this price obvs passes the Collection-test. You were not only right, you were damned-right to get a six-pack.
A very interesting piece, Davy. Particularly the explanation of why most English fizz lacks the yeasty, toasty complexity one looks for in great Champagne.
Hi Peter, see my reply to Leon to explain why a lot of English fizz producers eschew long lees ageing – they say it preserves fruit. They also say they are not trying to make Mini-Bollinger. Nor should they, but this wine is English, lees-y and very good!