English Sparkling Wines
Renegade Urban Winery Roger Col Fondo Rondo 2023
Cherries, blackcurrants and sloe berries – a super deep, unusual wonderland of a wine
Cherries, blackcurrants and sloe berries. This is a super deep, blackcurranty, unusual wonderland of a wine. Soft and lovely but given it’s been made like a red and fermented in bottle (without being disgorged) it is fizzy but loses it’s fizz quicker than most wines.
So Roger is made in what many call the Col Fondo method (Col Fondo means ‘with the bottom’) a wine made just like a Champagne but not quite the same. Here, the secondary fermentation happens in the bottle in the same way as Champagne but, rather than disgorging and removing the lees/sediment you let it sit, as the Italians say with/at the bottom. With this wine, the grapes were destemmed by hand over wire by the Renegade team and a few local helpers!) then went to the tank to ferment on skins, just the way a red wine would. Rather than leaving the grapes in contact with the skins for weeks and weeks, Renegade pressed the wine/juice off the skins slightly earlier so as to not extract too much of the tannins and fullness that you would want in a red wine. The wine was then refermented and transferred to the bottle to finish the process.
Roger is now retired, he was 89 when we picked the grapes, he’s now 90! He is an architect and has had a fascinating career taking him across the globe. He now lives in Cheltenham!
When Renegade started making wine in 2016, they were copycat winemakers, asking the growers how they should make wine with their grapes. They soon realised this was a mistake. Taking advantage of the relative lack of legislation in the UK over terms and styles of wine, and drawing on London’s history of innovation, they sought instead to lead the charge on new wine styles and winemaking approaches, using both ancient and modern techniques. Renegade now make around 12-14 wines a year, from classical
styles with a twist to wines that are entirely unique. Alongside the core range, they make a variety of new styles each year.
And who’s on the bottle? As a UK producer, Renegade wanted to celebrate the best thing about the UK. The weather? No. The people! Each label shows the eyes of a different person who lives in the UK. They may not be born in the UK, they may not have gone to school in the UK, but they’re part of this country. They each form a key part of the rich tapestry that makes the UK special. As as urban winery based in London, many of the faces are Londoners. But anyone can apply to be on the labels. Faces of Renegade have been students, plumbers, researchers, the unemployed, the retired, newspaper editors, receptionists, teachers and HR executives. They are aged between 19 and 70+. They are white, black, Asian, mixed race. They are straight, gay, transgender, queer. They are from all walks of life. Could it be you next?
