Our winemaking has always been ambitious, detail-focused and unrelenting in its pursuit of perfection. This is as true of the way we approach our pleasure-focused still English Rosé as it is of our most treasured cellar-worthy wines.
But there’s one detail that sets certain bottles apart.
Time.
This is one of the greatest – and most overlooked – ingredients in luxury winemaking. It could be the long months which a wine spends on lees (the dead yeast cells), gaining complexity and delicious biscuity tertiary flavours. Or the time that the wine rests in bottle under cork or crown cap, allowing its flavours to develop and integrate.
Part of the art of the cellar is knowing when to intervene in a wine’s development and when to step back. It’s a diligent job. Along with his team, Charlie Holland, our Chief Winemaker, keeps each bottle under his watchful eye and astute palate. His team check in, assess and – eventually – judge the wine ready for release.
In autumn 2022, we felt the time was right to launch our first prestige bottling, Fifty One Degrees North 2014. This is the finest expression of our winemaking to date; an extraordinary wine from a watershed vintage in English wine.
For critics and customers, Fifty One Degrees North demonstrated that our wines had truly come of age. Described by one critic as “a mini Krug”, the wine’s reception was even better than we’d hoped – and the limited allocation was quickly fully subscribed.
And Fifty One is just one element of our prestige wine portfolio. It’s the first amongst equals, sitting alongside complex, ageworthy and fine limited-edition bottlings.
Our late-disgorged wines, such as our current release Brut Reserve 2015 Late-Disgorged, are sumptuous examples of wines crafted for those who love the complexity which comes with age.
Late-disgorged wines are prepared for release with minimal contact with oxygen – rather than extended cork age. This means that they retain the freshness and buoyant acidity for which English wines are so renowned. Of course, you don’t need to be interested in the intricacies of crown cap versus cork ageing to appreciate these decadent wines. You can simply uncork your Gusbourne safe in the knowledge that abundant thought and time has been lavished on each bottle.
Our Brut Reserve 2015 Late-Disgorged is available by the bottle or case, with complimentary delivery, here. Or you can read more about the process of crafting this wine here.