English Still Wines
Danbury Ridge Wine Estate Chardonnay 2023
Orange blossom, lemon verbena, and honeysuckle nose, zesty citrus and stone fruits, zesty citrus and stone fruits, lemon curd and gree apple
Crisp and precise, with aromas of orange blossom, lemon verbena, and honeysuckle. A subtle touch of vanilla from barrel ageing complements
the zesty citrus and stone fruits, adding structure and depth. Cooler growing conditions than 2022 have enhanced the wine’s bright acidity,
framing flavours of lemon curd and green apple. The finish is balanced, refined, and harmonious.
The 2023 growing season was bookended by warm weather in June and September but there were multiple plot twists in between. Taken in isolation, the mean values for precipitation and warmth suggest a straightforward vintage. The vines, however, had other ideas and the problem posed was how best to manage oversized bunches. Crop thinning was meticulous, the task requiring bunch-by-bunch appraisal. Only small clusters were retained to benefit from a high light environment. The final twist of the vintage was the high incidence of Asian fruit flies, though
Chardonnay and some Pinot clones were largely spared. Careful netting and triage ensured only clean fruit was harvested.
Fruit was handpicked and whole bunch pressed. With no settling, the juice was transferred to 228L Burgundian oak barrels with full solids for fermentation. The wine was then left on gross lees for 12 months, where malolactic fermentation took place. Bâttonage was performed once, as the wine was transferred out of barrels to tank to give the wine further time on gross lees before bottling 6 months later. The wine was bottled
unfined.
Danbury Ridge was founded by two generations of the Bunker family: Michael and Heather Bunker and their daughters, Janine and Sophie. The first vines were planted in 2014, with an unwavering focus on still Pinot Noir and Chardonnay clones to exploit the unique mesoclimate. After just a few seasons the vines were producing grapes of a ripeness previously unseen in the UK.
Estuarine Essex is smeared with a thick layer of London Clay, but at Danbury Ridge this tenacious deposit lies beneath a significant overburden of fluvial-glacial sand and gravel. It is this coarse aggregate, deep in some places, shallow in others, that makes Danbury Ridge so special. The Danbury Ridge mesoclimate comes into its own in late summer. Ripening does not stall with the autumn equinox. Natural woodland shelter belts, together with the light topsoils, magnify the effects of September sunlight.
