Gusbourne Estate Blanc de Blancs 2019 750ml

2019 has turned into one of the top vintages yet for this wine, consistently one of England’s top blanc de blancs sourced both from the Kentish clay and the Sussex chalk sites. The restraint of the vintage is certainly evident in the 2019 Blanc de Blancs, but it’s far from austere—over pure, ripe grapefruit and charred lime notes are white pepper top notes and pale shortbread richness, presented a little more reductively than some of the warmer vintages here. This manages to weave in a beautifully delicate thread of old oak and lees aging richness without swamping the purity of the fruit, finishing long and citric.

• Country: England
• Size: 750ml
• Alcohol by Vol: 13.0%

Varietal

Champagne Blend

The sparkling wines of Champagne have been revered by wine drinkers for hundreds of years, and even today they maintain their reputation for excellence of flavor and character, and are consistently associated with quality, decadence, and a cause for celebration. Their unique characteristics are partly due to the careful blending of a small number of selected grape varietals, most commonly Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. These grapes, blended in fairly equal quantities, give the wines of Champagne their wonderful flavors and aromas, with the Pinot Noir offering length and backbone, and the Chardonnay varietal giving its acidity and dry, biscuity nature. It isn’t unusual to sometimes see Champagne labeled as ‘blanc de blanc’, meaning it is made using only Chardonnay varietal grapes, or ‘blanc de noir’, which is made solely with Pinot Noir.