Hundred Hills First Edition 2018

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.

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.

The base wines were created without a malolactic fermentation to preserve freshness and purity, fermented and aged in a combination of traditional oak casks for Chardonnays and stainless steel for Pinot Noirs, each undergoing battonage. The wine was bottled and spent over 48 months aging on lees before disgorgement.

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 the exceptional English chalk valley terroir, as it evolves to fully express the memorable 2018 vintage.

Technical Information:
Grape Varieties: 70% Pinot Noir & 30% Chardonnay
Region: Stonor Valley, Oxfordshire
Lees Ageing: 4 Years
Dosage: 5 g/l
Malolactic Fermentation: None
Bottling date: May 2019
Disgorged: April 2023
Drink: Now to 2030

Tasting Note: The 2018 Brut First Edition, a blend of 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Chardonnay from south- and southeast-facing vineyards, avoided malolactic conversion and spent 48 months on lees, resulting in an unusually pale wine. A touch of dried white and redcurrant on the nose creates lift and signals ripeness. The palate is vividly juicy, full of tart white currant brightness and lemon-edged stone fruit. The fine, steady mousse energizes the wine with its lovely interplay of tartness and ripeness. - Tasted by Anne Krebiehl MW