Article by Douglas Blyde

September 2006

From The Outer Rim:

A New World Mentality?

© Douglas Blyde

My introduction to the wine trade back in 1999 left me regularly soaked.

I worked at Chilford Hall vineyard, Cambridge, under the supervision of winemaker Chris Durrant, a former pig farmer. His philosophy was to look upon – not incorrectly – the 18 acres of Germanic varieties as agriculture, not art. Apart from chasing partridges away from the tractor, I spent a large chunk of my time stuffing leaves back into trellises, the vineyard having been planted the wrong way up a hill so that the wind constantly blew my efforts out the other side. Some of the rows were a particular bind - the 'Scott Henry' system had high trellises involving a moving wire, the intention of which was to manipulate the leaves of the vine to maximise every last ounce of sunlight and convert it into sugary grapes. Such a fussy, high maintenance approach didn't seem very British to me, and indeed it wasn't, the system having new world origins.

Since then I've visited many more English vineyards. One particularly entertaining outing was a 'school trip' to Denbies, Britain's largest vineyard, organised by my employer Vinopolis. Our guide was winemaker Marcus Sharp, a former shipbroker chartering oil tankers. As the fibreglass people mover plodded past, Marcus posed a question that got me thinking, "Is English wine New World or Old?" Of course not one person said New - how could it be? Grapes grew here in Roman times, plenty of vineyards were catalogued in the Doomsday book and what about all those retired colonels who charmingly maintained vine populated allotments? But then again, the purpose built winery I was standing in didn't seem at all connected to those vignettes. Here were banks of temperature controlled stainless steel tanks and expensive filtration systems. A mechanical harvester was parked outside. Marcus was keen to discuss the finer points of winemaking chemistry, too, including cultivated yeasts and ‘micro-oxygenation’. Surely this was rather more Napa than Dorking?

Over the next few months I got talking to a number of people about Marcus' question. Sommeliers at top restaurants were badgered, the most obliging pointing out that Old World means a continuous grape growing history and English commercial production is in fact as recent as the early 1950s. Experts behind Vine Canopy Management were e-mailed, one in particular, a ‘cool-climate guru’ simply said that yes, England was a New World producer, and if I wanted qualification "pay my consulting rates (attached)". I also visited many more English vineyards - a useful way, it transpired, of pinpointing the conference centres, petting zoos, craft fayres and Vino Therapy centres which invariably sat alongside. Even Oz Clarke was harangued (in a micro-brewery) and was found keen to push forward the notion of a "New World mentality", the theory being that the best producers are, like uber Italian émigré Robert Mondavi in post-prohibition California, possessive of a "can do" mentality, a combination of craft and tradition with the latest technology, management and marketing.

The end result, a taste test.

Thirty wines were tasted blind at Vinopolis, 'City of Wine'. By then, on the advice of the marketing board of English Wine Producers, I had narrowed the comparison to the wines of New Zealand, another small, green, generally maritime country. Both cool climes had little reputation for their vinous offerings twenty years ago with most vineyards planted over to Liebfraumilch staple Muller Thurgau. Nowadays experimentation and investment are restoring the status quo, typically New Zealand with its razor sharp Sauvignon Blancs infamously described by Jancis Robinson OBE as “cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush”, and England for its crisp, new wave whites from Bacchus and its classy sparkling fizz.

 
The results between some of the world’s most northerly vineyards versus some of the most southerly revealed some startling similarities, with a trained New Zealand winemaker fooled into thinking Marcus' Bacchus had a "slightly tropical" Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc nose. Pelorus, New Zealand's flagship sparkling wine was thought by half to come from Sussex. Many people couldn't believe that a French oak matured sparkling red from a heat-wave in Ditchling wasn't Barossa Shiraz. A Rondo/Pinot Noir from Hampshire replete with a “hint of squab pigeon” was mistaken by half the panel for Hawkes Bay Pinot Noir. Prejudice also surfaced - wines which were thought unappealing were automatically assumed to be English, when they invariably weren't. Another wine, which really stood out for its cleanliness and subtlety, and fooled everyone into thinking it was a top Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc was a passionflower, sweet pea and nettle scented Bacchus from Cornwall.

I tracked down the mind behind this, Bob Lindo of Camel Valley, a former RAF pilot who survived a mid air collision at 600mph. What did he think of the results?

"You're right about Bacchus and the similarities with New Zealand wines. My son Sam has just returned from doing the vintage with Kim Crawford in Blenheim. New Zealand Sauvignons are usually well made, reliable but not complicated.

“In my humble opinion many Old World wines which could potentially be better are let down by poor equipment and wine making. An example would be anybody trying to make wine, without being able to control fermentation and must temperatures, is unlikely to make the best wine from the fruit at their disposal."  

On the subject of the often cited old world preoccupation with place, Bob stressed the importance of “objective assessments of wine making practices rather than settling for off flavours and describing them as terroir.”

In contrast, an estate which resolutely refused to be anything other than Old World was Nyetimber, England’s most critically acclaimed sparkling wine from West Sussex. I rendezvoused with winemaker Dermot Sugrue at the recent UK Winegrower's Association annual tasting, patriotically held at the RAF club, home to the Brylcreem boys.

"What needs to be kept in mind is that during Roman times, and up to medieval times, vines flourished all over England as far north as Yorkshire. The climate was much warmer then, and there is evidence of winemaking throughout the country. Then the UK experienced a mini-Ice Age, and the vineyard area contracted to all but the warmest parts of England – Sussex and Kent.

“In recent times, as global temperatures have increased (following the end of the mini-Ice Age) the conditions for growing grapes have returned, and in the last two hundred years – following the Industrial Revolution and the rapid acceleration of global warming, we now have the situation you see today.

“So our wine-growing heritage is much, much older than that of New World countries."

 
When I persisted as to the American grit, not to mention finance involved in establishing the vineyard, Dermot stung me back.

"It is true that it took two Americans to realise that to make a premium sparkling wine in the image of Champagne they should ask the Champenois for help, rather than ploughing into it themselves without experienced advice, like other English growers did."

 
Certainly Nyetimber's expansion from 15 hectares to 75 last year has had an impact on the statistics, with the traditional Champagne varieties, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier now accounting for those most widely planted in England, something that would have seemed surreal only a few years ago and perhaps emphasises Oz Clarke’s view of a “new world mentality”.

I also spoke to Will Davenport of the eponymous organic vineyards in Kent and East Sussex, who trained at Roseworthy Agricultural College, Adelaide. He believes English producers have several styles, some old, some new. Like Mondavi forty years ago, he feels a fledgling industry “tries to learn from anyone who has something to teach”. A non-interventionist, he steers clear of oak whilst some English wineries persist in the unattractive New World urge of oak-chipping their wines into submission. He harnesses the aromatic qualities proffered by natural yeasts with almost no chemical intrusion and only light filtration.

There is less of a difference between New World and Old, he claims, “the real gap in the wine industry globally existing between large industrial scale producers and smaller growers making handcrafted wines”.

New Zealand is comfortable to be recognised for a true regional style where artisan winemakers feel relatively little oppression, unlike Australia finding a market for almost every oeschle. By contrast it seems swathes of England lurk in the shade of other parapets. Will sees English wine as a chameleon.

“Our wine has been compared to New Zealand, Chablis, Muscadet and Sancerre in blind tastings, so where does that put us?”

I think producers will have come of age when they can pinpoint and publicise with pride a true English style, harnessing a refined palette of technology but expressing a sense of place. Certainly a market exists to enjoy these wines, which is not one simply born out of patriotism.

A New World mentality looks beyond the thatch of a cottage industry and I look forward to seeing what an eager attitude will do to for the British viticultural landscape in the next 50 years.

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