Danbury Ridge Wine Estate Chardonnay 2023

Danbury’s 2023 Chardonnay is 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.

The 2023 growing season was bookended by warm weather in June and September but overall offered cooler growing conditions than during 2022, enhancing this vintage’s brightness.

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.