How it tastesA fine, seamless mousse and citrus aromas that unfold into pine nut and cinnamon. Generous and intense on the palate, the rich brioche notes of seven years in cellar held in tension by a stinging salinity, and dry at 6.8 g/l. Chardonnay 100%.The producerHoffmann & Rathbone is a boutique winery in England's Sussex Weald, founded by the husband-and-wife team of Ulrich Hoffmann and Birgit Rathbone; Hoffmann spent 22 years working from the Rolf-Willy estate in Baden-Württemberg to Châteaux de Fieuzal and Haut-Gardère in Bordeaux, Artadi in Navarra and Cain Vineyards in the Napa Valley before the Sussex countryside and its cool climate kept him there. The fruit comes from Ford Farm Vineyard in East Sussex, three south-facing parcels on a single farm at 50 to 80 metres, ringed by woodland that shelters them from wind and holds the heat, on clay over sandstone; the vines are Guyot trained and farmed without herbicides, with under-vine weeding, solar panels, boreholes and a wildflower meadow, orchard and woodland kept for biodiversity, and the harvest is picked by hand into small crates, often a fortnight earlier than most. The fruit was whole-bunch pressed and left to settle naturally for 36 hours, then fermented over 14 days at 15°C with a selected yeast called 'sleeping beauty' that dates to 1895, in stainless steel with 40% in 500 to 600-litre oak barrels for complexity and 40% taken through malolactic conversion. The wine was kept sur lie up to five months, settled, blended, filtered and bottled the following June, riddled periodically, and the cuvée was cellared for seven years.Food and drinkingServe at 8–10°C, in a white-wine glass. It goes with oysters, turbot in butter, smoked salmon or a young goat's cheese, and is drinking well now and for three to five years; no decanting. Suitable for vegetarians and vegans.
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