English Sparkling Wines
Sugrue South Downs The Trouble With Dreams MV
Restrained and fine, notes of flint, oyster shell, pineapple with crushed grains, hay and shortbread
Although 2021 was a challenging year, some well-timed warmth in September and October resulted in a small crop of excellent fruit across Sugrue’s South Downs vineyards, to which they have added 60% reserve wines (from 2011, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020), which they have built up over the past two decades.
As a result, this multi-vintage release is astonishingly layered and complex. With chalky minerality and bright acidity at its core, you will find a rich bass note emerge with further bottle age.
A bit of divine inspiration led to the creation of Sugrue’s signature sparkling wine. Father Paul McMahon – the head of a monastic order of Catholic priests at Storrington Priory, West Sussex – looked out one day and realised his land could have the potential for planting vines.
He proposed that Dermot nurture a small vineyard at the foot of the South Downs to make wine for the Priory. Dermot agreed, on the condition he could take a portion of the grapes to make his own wine. The grapes were a great success – so much so that the birds flying over the vineyard devoured them all, ending the hopes of the inaugural 2008 vintage. “That’s the trouble with dreams,” quipped Father Paul. The name stuck.
In 2013, Sugrue South Downs released the first bottles: the 2009, 2010, and 2011 rapidly gained critical acclaim. Since then, The Trouble With Dreams has become recognised as the highest-rated English sparkling and among the world’s top 50 wines.
