Freedom of the Press Paradox White Pinot Noir 2021

This unusual and quite rare still white wine is made by pressing (red) Pinot Noir grapes very gently so as not to extract colour from the skins – the flesh itself is green-white. It was fermented and aged for 10 months in old (mellow) oak barrels. The resulting wine, which is a lovely light copper colour, has notes of baked apple and pear, some red fruit and roses, spice and something a bit more ‘earthy’. The palate is fairly full with a hint of creaminess, and balancing but not overbearing acidity. It will age well, and certainly will develop over the next year or two.

Only just over 1000 bottles were made, and the number of bottles per tonne of fruit is much lower than most wines. The grapes came from two Essex vineyards, Martin’s Lane and Bromley Brook. It is a fascinating, unusual and beautiful wine.

Freedom of the Press is an urban winery on a hill in the Cotswolds. “That makes no sense” you might reasonably say. The original plan was to establish an ‘urban winery’ in Oxford with no vineyards of their own, buying the best grapes from across the country. They would operate more like an in-town micro brewery or boutique distillery than what most people think of as a vineyard. So that was the plan – they had a venue selected and everything. That was early Spring 2020. Covid took control of everybody’s lives, and the Oxford venue fell through. But just as it looked like it was curtains for the project they found a new home, a unit on a beautiful farm above Minster Lovell in the Cotswolds, 15 miles from Oxford.