English wine: a rosé future? Camel Valley’s Sam Lindo makes the case for still and sparkling

Last night I attended one of seven “Best of English Meet the Winemaker” series of tasting dinners being promoted at Artisan and Vine in conjunction with DrinkBritain.  The timing could not have been better for two reasons. 

First, the winemaker in question was Camel Valley’s Sam Lindo (pictured with DrinkBritain’s Susanna Forbes and Artisan & Vine’s Kathryn O’Mara), who has just been crowned Winemaker of the Year in the English & Welsh Wine of the Year Competition (click here for details of the trophy winners). 

Second, last week Decanter.com published a controversial news item headlined “Balfour-Lynn: No real future for English still wine,” based on an interview with English sparkling producer Richard Balfour-Lynn of Hush Heath winery (click here to read it). 

Though Camel Valley’s still wines, especially the deliciously svelte 2009 Camel Valley Rosé, forcefully made the case for english table wine, here’s what Lindo had to say about the Decanter news piece:

“For us at Camel Valley it is absolutely imperative to make both still and sparkling as both types are in effect by-products of maintaining quality for each other.  Some years we make more sparkling and other years we make more still wine. We feel with both types of wine we are making something that is distinctly English, with characters that are unachievable in warmer places.  It is misguided to think you are competing with other countries.  New Zealand thought they had to worry about Chilean wine flooding the market with cheap Sav Blanc when it was themselves they had to worry about.”

I liked Lindo’s take on what makes english wine so distinctive – “a weightlessness.” He attributes it to the fact “sugar and acid is OK, but flavours are always underripe” and, as he observed, “it  just so happens that underripe flavours are really nice.” 

And he’s not wrong when he says this quality is sought after elsewhere.  Take Australian producers like Mac Forbes and Ocean Eight who are picking earlier, sometimes on the cusp of ripeness.  Perhaps, like Lindo, they’ve been inspired by Australia’s renowned wine guru, the late Len Evans who said “flavour is best enjoyed at the lowest perceptible threshold.”

What’s more, as Forbes points out, the tasting dinners have shown that english wine’s characteristic freshness and restraint works particularly well with food.  Like Lindo, she’s a firm believer in the future of english still wine “as long as you have the right people in the right spot.”  Which is, of course, true for any country.

My notes on the wines, including brand new 100% Seyval Blanc cuvée Annie’s Anniversary sparkling wine, to follow.