Nyetimber

There is a useful way of understanding Nyetimber's place in English wine history: everything that came after is, in some sense, the consequence of what happened here. When Sandy and Stuart Moss — Americans, crucially, unencumbered by the British tendency to assume inferiority — planted Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier on the chalk and sandstone of West Sussex in 1988, and then had the nerve to make their wine by the traditional method and age it properly on the lees, they were making an argument the English wine establishment had never quite dared to make: that England could produce sparkling wine that did not need to apologise for itself.

The 1992 Blanc de Blancs proved them right. When it won gold at the International Wine and Spirit Competition — beating established Champagne houses whose winemakers had been refining their craft for centuries — the wine press took notice in a way that years of polite English sparkling had failed to achieve. The wine was extraordinary: pale gold, with fine persistent mousse, aromas of brioche and white flowers and the faintest chalk-mineral signature that spoke unmistakably of the South Downs. It set a standard that Nyetimber has maintained ever since.

Today the estate is owned by Eric Hereema and managed by one of England's finest winemaking teams, led by Cherie Spriggs — the first non-Champagne winemaker to be named Sparkling Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge, a distinction she has achieved multiple times. The estate spans 372 acres across West Sussex and Hampshire, with multiple soil types that give Spriggs the complexity of material she needs to produce wines of genuine depth.

The Classic Cuvée — Nyetimber's flagship multi-vintage blend — is the benchmark against which all English sparkling is measured. Toasty, persistent, with a fine acidity that ages with grace, it is the wine that wine educators use to demonstrate what English fizz can be. The Tillington Single Vineyard, produced only in exceptional years from a single West Sussex site, is England's most sought-after prestige cuvée — a wine that any serious cellar should contain at least one bottle of, if it can be found.