Helen’s blog

I’ve already commented about the successful partnership of two English wines from Chapel Down with Chinese food. Here are my notes on all the Chapel Down wines I tasted at Tenterden with Frazer Thompson, the Managing Director of the English Wines Group:

Vintage Reserve Brut NV

A slightly an odd name, I think, for a non vintage wine, but this blend of around 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Reichensteiner and Muller Thurgau is skilfully done and will surely only get better in future years as more premium grapes are included in the blend.  It has had 18 months on the lees – just enough to give it a little creamy complexity alongside the slightly floral character of the fruit. It’s fairly dry (around 9 g/l dosage), clean, fresh and rather appley.

English Rose Brut

A palish, salmon pink bubbly based on the Vintage Reserve Brut. It manages to taste significantly different, with a definite hint of redcurrants and fresh, clean, but softer fruit .

Brut Rosé NV

A very delicate onion skin rosé, with a distinct red fruits character – raspberry and strawberry. It’s 100% Pinot Noir and though non-vintage, the present release is actually from the generous 2006 harvest. It has an attractively long, biscuity finish.

Pinot Reserve 2004

A blend of 72% Pinot Noir and 28% Pinot Blanc (Chardonnay will feature in future releases). It is quite a deep straw colour and has a distinct Pinot Noir nose – rich and biscuity, but is balanced by clean citrus acidity with hints of apple. It’s remarkably fresh for a wine that has spent five years on the lees (it isn’t Chapel Down’s policy to cork age – wines are disgorged and sold).

Bacchus 2009

I’m much taken with this: it’s clean, slightly floral and has more than a suggestion of exotic fruits, guava and passion fruit as well as peach. It’s relatively light in the mouth, clean, fresh and juicy and with quite a mineral finish. I’m delighted to see that its already on Waitrose’s shelves – just a few weeks after bottling.

Bacchus Reserve 2006

A selection of the best grapes. It’s certainly more complex than the simple wine and has with greater length, but is, I think, a little less fun than the outstanding 2009.

Flint Dry 2009

Another success. The 09 blend includes around 30% Chardonnay and has good, lean, apple and peach fruit, with quite a creamy texture. It is softer and fruitier than its name suggests.

Pinot Blanc 2006

The outstanding still wine of the tasting – a lovely, gently, smoky apple aroma matched by a ripe apple flavour, and a much more substantial mouth-feel than its 10% alcohol might suggest.

English Rose 2008

The wine that really came alive with fine Chinese food is perfectly nice  on its own: perfumed, spicy and a little herby, with strawberry fruit.

Cinque Ports Classic 2006

An English classic in the catty, slightly sweet style. To be more polite, it has quite a pungent aroma of grapefruit and elderflower and a medium-sweet flavour that finishes a little short and bland.

Rondo/Regent/Pinot Noir Non-Vintage

Quite deep coloured, soft, easy, juicy, but not a lot of definition.

Pinot Noir (Tenterden) 2008

What a difference! A perfumed, spicy, true Pinot Noir, with real complexity. It’s every bit as good as some more expensive cool-climate  Pinot Noirs coming out of Germany and Alsace.

The story of my first meeting with Henri Jammet and his extraordinary wines will appear, I hope, in The Journal next Friday (and online).

There won’t be enough space there to fill out a few more technical details, or full tasting notes. So here goes …

Jammet has been making wine for over twenty years and as president of the St Sornin Co-operative was responsible for its expansion and  its  reputation for quality. St Sornin produces some of the best red table wines in the Charentes.

His own small vineyard high on the limestone hill to the east of St Sornin at La Fenetre is planted with Chardonnay (his favourite grape) and Chenin Blanc. He is also keen to try Pinot Gris. He uses a horse to plough and work between the vines, which are planted at high density: 10,000 vines per hectare. His yields are fairly low, around 50 hectolitres per hectare. His approach is sustainable rather than organic – he does not believe that organic viticulture would be easy to sustain in his situation, and he also points out that some standard organic practices are of questionable sustainability – like the use of copper sprays.

The 2009 crop was tiny. So far he has only released one wine from it, a moelleux Chenin Blanc. It was made from the tiny secondary bunches that developed after the initial buds were wiped out by a severe hail storm in May. The grapes are extremely scented (a product of the tiny secondary fruits?). They had a potential alcohol of around 16%. Fermentation was stopped (using sulphur) to leave around 50 g/l residual sugar. The wine shows lovely crunchy fruit, balanced by zingy acidity and finishes as it began, with an unusually musky, perfumed intensity. It is a very good wine, though slightly disconcerting.

His 2008 Chenin (his first) was vinified dry – to 14% alcohol. It has a reparkable depth of ripe, spicy, peachy fruit. It was vinified in oak (half in new barrels, the rest in year-old barrels), but the fruit dominates. Weekly batonnage (lees-strirring) during the ten-month stay in barrels certainly helps. It is, I think, the best wine he makes, and a superb bottle by any standard.

He made two cuvéés of Chardonnay in 2008. Both are barrel fermented – in true Burgundian fashion. One from fruit grafted on predominantly riparia stock which ripens first, has a slight musky character. It is otherwise fairly ripe and peachy, with just a little oak at the end. The other cuvée from older vines, planted in 1988 is both more tart and also more  pineapple-like. The oak is also pretty well integrated. Henri believes that it will age longer, though it is less immediately attractive now.

These last two wines have not yet fulfilled Henri’s dream of being the ‘best Chardonnay in the word’, but they are quite the best Charentais table wines I have ever tasted. Unfortunately to buy them you’ll have to visit – La Fenetre is about 20km east of Angouleme. Henri’s phone number is +33 5 45 70 40 06. If you visit the region, make the effort to go, see and taste for yourself. You’ll not be disappointed – unless Henri has sold all his stock!