Tasting the fruits of their labour
The Vintage of ‘20 got together in our tasting room to taste through the wines that they had a hand in making.
The evening began with our most interesting wine of the vintage - the Pinot Gris PétNat with its luminescent peachy robe and light effervescence. The PétNat was disgorged just over 6 weeks ago allowing it just enough time to settle in bottle. The nose is clear and attractive with notes of rhubarb, the palate refreshing and tart with gooseberry and lemon sherbet. Its a playful wine with bags of character and energy and has a lovely liveliness that’s perfect to start off any soirée. It was positive feedback all round from the Crush Club, a perfect start to the evening.
Bacchus was up next, a grape variety that Alex has had great success with, receiving the top score in the country with his 2019 from Decanter. The quality of this vintage encouraged Alex to use skin contact maceration for 3 days to amplify the great fruit character. It seems to have worked with the 2020 showing more complex and even tropical notes on the nose, a reassuring weight on the mouth that finishes with pointed freshness. A very well structured wine, great on its own served chilled as we enjoyed at the Crush Club.
On to red and what a beauty it is. The Pinot Noir Précoce came out with a natural ABV of 13.2% and it would be very difficult to pin this down as an English Still Red - a category which has yet to produce consistently high-quality wines. Beautifully vibrant ruby colour is matched with a pretty fruitful nose and perfumed palate, it really is delicious and drinking it in the cellars tasting room at about 12 degrees gave it an extra freshness.
Alex received a silver medal from WineGb for both his 2020 Bacchus and Pinot Noir Précoce.
We decided to take advantage of our captive audience by introducing them to our latest edition to the LDN CRU family - LDN SPRITZ a white wine spritz in can. It raised a few eyebrows and provoked some hard questioning from our discerning Crush Club members. However, once we enjoyed an ice-cold can at the London Wonderground pop-up across the road from the winery all doubts were put to rest. The can was created with these types of outdoor events in mind, where glassware is rare and single-serve plastics frowned upon. The can chills down quickly and stays cooler for longer, the fizz stays fresh and it’s easy to move around with. Added, its vegan, gluten-free, locally sourced credentials make it a real winner, and with Alex being its creator you know it tastes great too.
The Crush Club brings a diverse group of people that come together to share first-hand in the process of getting in touch with nature and creating something special from that connection. I spoke with a Crush Club member who works in Law, who had joined our tasting having been at a bread making course earlier that day. This was their day off and they valued the purity of the processes involved in wine/bread making that are in stark contrast to their work. They lit up enthusiastically telling me how deeply satisfying and simple it was kneading out an oily pillow of focaccia earlier that day.
Winemaking and the harvest in particular have a fundamental purity that we can all connect with. I’m reminded of a quote from Voltaire “Il faut cultiver son jardin” “We must cultivate our garden”. We all need a project to keep our minds off our minds, within such a project perhaps we can find happiness in the simple logic that it offers.
I raise my metaphorical glass to all our Crush Club members, thanks for your valued support and we hope to see you for another harvest soon to focus on the small details of goodness that come from the land.