Winemaker Notes
A wine that typifies the linear purity of classic Blanc de Blancs. We select the finest lots of Chardonnay, exhibiting natural minerality, ensuring that the wine has both the finesse and elegance that one would expect in this style, but also the requisite qualities for extended ageing. A bright golden color with a delicate mousse, our Blanc de Blancs has classic Chardonnay aromas of green apple, citrus and mineral notes combined with buttered toast and Tarte Tatin richness from extended lees ageing.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
The nose bursts with ideas of lemon and lemon zest, whipped cream and spiky green apple. This vivid aromatic spectrum is replicated on the slender palate where the foam bubbles up to reinforce that sense of weightless freshness. But deeper down the wine is anchored in depth, with subtle yeast and chalkiness sending their balancing, cool smoothness to unite with that lemony verve. Lovely and fresh now but this will reward cellaring.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Disgorged in February 2020, Gusbourne's 2015 Brut Blanc de Blancs bursts with aromas of crisp green orchard fruit, freshly baked bread, nougat and white flowers. Medium to full-bodied, pillowy and incisive, with a fleshy core of fruit, tangy acids and a youthfully frothy mousse, it concludes with a saline finish. Rating: 92+
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
The limestone soils of England’s southern end have proven ideal for the production of British sparkling wine. While it might seem too damp and cold for grape growing in England, recent warm summers and the onset of global warming signify great future growth for the British wine industry.