Old Vine Pinot Noir 2020
£52
Red · 13% · Members first
Dark cherry, Fig, Leather, Spice
Red · Vintage 2023
Vale Pinot Noir 2023
£29 / 75cl
4.8 (640)A light, fragrant red from the two oldest Pinot blocks. Red cherry and forest floor, gentle tannin, drinks well slightly cool.
- Red cherry
- Cranberry
- Forest floor
In stock: ships next working day
- Tasting fee back. Buy six bottles on the day and your tasting fee comes off the bill.
- Next-day delivery. Order by 1pm Monday to Thursday; free on 12 bottles or more.
- Corked? We replace it. Any faulty bottle, any vintage, replaced or refunded. Just send a photo.
In the glass
Silky and fragrant; red cherry and cranberry with an earthy, savoury edge and soft tannins.
With food
Roast duck, mushrooms, a cheeseboard.
How it's made
- Grapes
- Pinot Noir 100%
- Made
- Hand-sorted, 20% whole bunch, eleven months in seasoned French oak.
- Alcohol
- 12.5%
- Bottle
- 75cl
- Serve
- 14–16°C, a little below room temperature.
- Production
- 3,600 bottles
About this wine
English red wine has changed faster than anything else we make. When the first vines went in here in 1979, a ripe Pinot Noir was a once-a-decade event. Now, in a good year like 2023, the two oldest blocks on the estate ripen fully most autumns.
We sort every bunch by hand, keep a fifth of the fruit as whole bunches for fragrance, and age the wine in older French barrels so the oak stays in the background. The result is light in colour and body but long and perfumed, closer to a village wine from the Côte d’Or than to anything from further south.
Serve it just below room temperature, and give it half an hour open before dinner.
“Walking the 1979 block with the person who prunes it every winter is a different thing from reading a label. We joined the club in the car park.”
