A particular parcel of Pinot Noir in the Tillington Vineyard caught the winemakers’ eyes – or shall we say tastebuds – and gave birth to Nyetimber’s first single vineyard wine.
“We make Tillington as a vintage wine and we make it when we can,” says Brad Greatrix who is the winemaker alongside his wife Cherie Spriggs at Nyetimber. The house is just about to release its fourth iteration of this single-vineyard wine: the 2014 vintage. The previous vintages were 2009, 2010 and 2013.
While many sparkling winemakers in England make single-vineyard wines by default, i.e. because they have only one vineyard they make wine from, the inaugural Tillington vintage of 2009 was England’s first single-vineyard-designate wine.
Nyetimber owns 260ha/640 acres of vineyard across West Sussex, Hampshire and Kent and makes wine exclusively from estate-grown fruit. It has built its name on being able to blend, so a single-vineyard wine was not really in the business plan. But the warm vintage of 2009 changed that. Brad remembers: “It really came to be by tasting grapes. Leading up to harvest, we spend a lot of time tasting grapes in the vineyard, deciding which parcels should come in. In 2009, Cherie said you have to come over and taste these grapes. There is a particular parcel of Pinot Noir in Tillington that has a flavour like no other, like nothing from elsewhere in Tillington or anywhere on our sites.”
“It’s this beautiful combination of pure red fruit with a floral element that we absolutely love. This was discovered in the vineyard in 2009,” Greatrix says. “We harvested it separately and the juice tasted very good, so we turned it into wine and that tasted very good, so we discussed it with Eric [Eric Heerema, owner of Nyetimber] and eventually it became our Tillington Single Vineyard wine. The point is to show off the Pinot Noir but Chardonnay – also from Tillington – is always added to give balance, structure and longevity to the wine, but always in a supporting role.”
The 2014 vintage is composed of 78% Pinot Noir and 22% Chardonnay. It spend four years on lees before being disgorged in September 2020 with a dosage of 8.5g/l.
“Einstein talked about time as the fourth dimension,” Greatrix says. “Over the years, our feeling of Tillington is that it is this forward, very giving vineyard that brings generosity and power to our wines. One thing I find particularly interesting is the tension between what the vintage gives and what the vineyard gives. 2009 was a warm, generous year and with the generous site, you get an amplification of that. 2010 and particularly 2013 were cooler vintages, more reserved, so you have this exciting tension of a vintage that wants to hold back and a vineyard that wants to give and lead forward. I love that. The 2014 is more like 2009 – it was a warm vintage, the wines tend to have a generosity so you have vintage and vineyard going in the same direction.”
Nyetimber Tillington Single Vineyard will be released on 23 March 2022.
