Hello English fizz! Ridgeview South Ridge Brut 2008

Ridgeview South Ridge Brut 2008 (Sussex, England)
12%, Cork, Approx £17
Source: Gift
www.ridgeview.co.uk

‘Product of United Kingdom’. Good to see

It saddens me to admit it but this is the first English sparkling wine I’ve tried. Not for want of trying however, but purely because almost no English bubbles makes its way to Australia. I’m hoping to rectify that in the coming months however, after lining up an English friend with a ‘UK sparkling wishlist’ for her next round trip home. Incidentally, Ridgeview are said to be distributed here in Australia by respected importers Mezzanine, though I’ve never seen wines sold locally in any capacity.

As for this particular sparkling, it is made exclusively for UK chain Laithwaite’s and is, from what I can gather, a Chardonnnay dominant blend produce from estate fruit, produced with a dosage of circa 8.5-9.5g/L (I know this purely as the mention that I opened it ultimately led to a response from the winery on twitter. Another twitter win).

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The style here initially looks a little broad and chubby, the dosage immediately fleshing out the nose and the fruit leaning more to the sherbety citrus meets green apple end of the spectrum. The more you look at this though, the classier it looks, with a chalkiness to the acid profile matched to a linear finish that is more than a little Champagne-esque.

An entry level wine that shows plenty of style, this is promising if nothing else. A question mark perhaps on the value (given that good supermarket NV Champagne is not much more expensive in English supermarkets) but still enough to keep me interested. 17/90