Tillingham

Tillingham sits in the flatlands of East Sussex near Rye, on a working farm that smells of woodsmoke and fermenting grape must and, if you're lucky, the salt air drifting in from the nearby marsh. Ben Walgate founded it in 2017 with a clear conviction that English wine's conversation with natural winemaking was long overdue, and the first vintages demonstrated he was right. The farm grows about ten acres of its own vines, supplements these with fruit sourced from trusted growers across southeast England, and produces wines that bear almost no relationship to the traditional-method sparkling canon that dominates English wine's public image.

The centrepiece of Tillingham's winemaking is its qvevri room. Qvevri are Georgian clay amphorae, buried in the earth to maintain constant temperature, in which wine ferments and ages on its grape skins in the ancient Caucasian tradition. Tillingham is one of perhaps three vineyards in Europe to operate them, and the wines produced there, including the Qvevri Rüllem from Müller-Thurgau and Qvevri Dark from Chardonnay, have an amber depth, a tannic grip, and a savoury complexity that no other English producer is approaching. Jamie Goode of Wine Anorak, a critic not easily impressed, awarded them 93 to 94 points from the outset.

Beyond the qvevri, Tillingham produces skin-contact whites, a flor-aged wine in the style of fino Sherry, pétillant naturel, still Pinot Noir, and a sparkling cuvée called Col that happens to be made by the traditional method but tastes nothing like the county's mainstream fizz. Walgate farms biodynamically, and the vines respond with a liveliness that you can taste in the glass: there's a saline, almost seaweedy precision in the sparkling, and a wild-cherry exuberance in the Pinot that speaks of the Kentish border marshland rather than the chalky downs to the south.

The hospitality at Tillingham matches the winemaking ambition. Eleven rooms in a converted hop barn, done up with a designer's eye and a farmer's practicality, look out over the vines. A restaurant serves seasonal farm food that would embarrass any London establishment charging twice the price. During English Wine Week, the courtyard fills with live music, and the bar pours things you will not find anywhere else in the country. For those who find the standard English vineyard tour a little repetitive, Tillingham is a genuinely different proposition.