Image above: Hundred Hills

Last year for English Wine Week we listed eight incredible vineyards and wines available in the area, well we can now add two more. What with scare stories of a shortage of wine this Christmas, we need not worry as we have it in abundance on our doorstep.

Introducing Hundred Hills in the Stonor Valley and Kingwood Estate on the edge of Kingwood Common. The fact that we sit on the same chalk hills of Champagne that briefly duck under the Channel and reappear in southern England has lent itself to the Chiltern Valley producing excellent English and sparkling wines.

And as it appears English Sparkling wine just keeps getting better and better, enough to rival the ubiqituous Champagne producers.

Image: Hundred Hills

In just over 20 acres Hundred Hills is planted with 67,000 Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines, all sourced from a nursery in Champagne and their first releases have garnered many plaudits creating ‘A New Era of World Class Sparkling Wine’.

Simon Larkin MW, managing director of Atlas Fine Wines saying in the Evening Standard of Hundred Hills First Edition 2016, “The 2016 First Edition is to date by far the most impressive English sparkling I tasted, revealing riper fruit nuances which aren’t yet typical of wines made in England – peaches, plums, greengages and apricots. For me, a reference point and hard to believe this is the first release!“

Hundred Hills say, great wines are made in vineyards, not in wineries, and from grapes that can slowly grow and ripen in the cool climates that allow them the time to express the hundreds of delicate aromas and flavours that ultimately deliver the fine wines we love.  We only ever make wines from the finest grapes from our own vineyard and tightly control quality at every stage along the road, from planting vines to popping corks.

We make ‘clean, clear’ wines that aim to reflect a sense of time and place in the way the very best Burgundies seek to do.  Our wines will vary year by year and our winemaking will always be minimalist in style allowing as pure a vintage expression of our vineyard as possible.

You’re not able to just visit the vineyard, though Hundred Hills is now open to their annual and Hundred Club members. Your annual £600 membership gives you an exclusive two hour tour of the vineyards and winery including a private wine tasting for up to six people, Pre-Christmas members drinks reception invitation, Delivery of twelve bottles of the first wines released from Hundred Hills including Preamble No. 1, Preamble No. 2 and the Preamble Rosé and fifteen percent discount on all Hundred Hills wine purchases.

For more information visit hundredhills.wine and if you’d like a try before you buy or sign up to membership, Crockers of Henley are now pouring Hundred Hills wine from their cellars in Market Place, Henley.

Image: Kingwood Estate

“At Kingwood Estate we aim to revive the proud British values of care and quality and put it to the craft of creating English Sparkling Wine, hoping to recreate that perfect piece of England for a new generation, captured in your own time and memories.”

The Kingwood Estate on the edge of Kingwood Common, a small hamlet just outside Henley where the vines have been planted on a flinty south facing slope with rows to benefit from the prevailing wind have produced their inaugural wine, their 2018 Classic Cuvée, a combination of Chardonnay (50%), Pinot Noir (35%) and Pinot Meunier (15%). Kingwood say that their rootstock have been chosen to perform well in the chalky soil and ripen early to maximise the sugar content and that 2018 has been hailed as possibly the largest ever harvest of UK grapes and promises to be an extremely good year.

Their 2018 Classic Cuvée is descibed as having soft bubbles with light apple and cream on the nose, calling it delicate and modern.

Visit Home | Kingwood Estate to find out how to can get to buy and taste some of this brand new Henley sparkling wine. You can also buy Kingwood by the glass at the Hart Street Tavern in Hart Street.

Henley really is punching high in the English wine and vineyard stakes.

Image: Kingwood Estate