Hundred Hills Blanc de Blancs Library Release 2018

Hundred Hills is a boutique winery located in the Stonor Valley, Oxfordshire. This is a longer lees aged version to the original release, spending 6 years on lees that has really balanced the acidity and created a softer texture.

Hundred Hills produce vintage English sparkling wines from their boutique winery and vineyards located in the Stonor Valley, Oxfordshire. They only ever make wines from the finest grapes from their own vineyards and tightly control quality at every stage along the road, from planting vines to popping corks. From the outset Hundred Hills have chosen to produce low yielding, high quality Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and have focused hard to create outstanding chalk valley vineyards, where grapes can slowly grow and ripen on the vine every year for more than the magical hundred days. From the wooded chalk valleys of Hundred Hills emerge clean, clear wines that truly reflect a sense of time and place in the way the very best Burgundies seek to do. The wines from Hundred Hills vary year by year and their winemaking is minimalist in style allowing as pure a vintage expression of the vineyard as possible.

The initial release of the 2018 Blanc de Blancs from the tiny Hilltop single parcel has long since been consumed and enjoyed. That wine, aged on the lees for three years, was incredibly complex with notable ageability. A small tranche was wisely held back, gently aging on the lees in Hundred Hills cool dark cellar for six years.

Vineyards: Steep chalk slopes, warmed gently through the English summer, and soils poor enough that every year the vines must struggle for survival and produce the most enticing grapes they can. From the outset Hundred Hills focused on the low yielding, high quality forms of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that had produced so many great wines in Burgundy and Champagne during the twentieth century, now the climate of Southern England in the twenty-first. Hundred Hills carefully segmented their vineyard into ten parcels, each with their own aspect, slopes and soils, and now all filled with different Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines.

Weather in 2018: An early budburst, peak flowering on 20th June, and an excellent ripening season combined to yield a perfect harvest on 30th September. Using these grapes with over 100 days on the vine, the base wines were created without a malolactic fermentation to preserve their acidity, fermented in traditional oak casks, and then kept for 36 months on lees. This artisanal wine will age beautifully and reveals the enormous potential of our exceptional English chalk valley terroir, as it evolves to fully express the memorable 2018 vintage.

Technical Information:
Grape Varieties: 100% Chardonnay
Region: Stonor Valley, Oxfordshire
Lees Ageing: 6 Years
Dosage: 5 g/l
Bottling date: May 2019
Disgorged: April 2025
Drink: Now to 2030

Tasting Note: This second ‘Library Release’ retains all the initial charm and bright fruit, now layered with beguiling new aromas and flavours. Citrus, oak cask influence, lees contact, and time have melded into a creamy sweet smokiness. Freshly baked buttery shortbread and croissant notes fill the glass alongside candied lemon, toasted hazelnut, fresh beeswax, and a subtle hint of honey.