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Hattingley and MWs Susie Barrie and Peter Richards launch English wine initiative

Published:  02 October, 2017

Hattingley Valley has joined forces with TV presenters Susie Barrie MW and Peter Richards MW to launch a charity-focused English wine initiative.

The Big English Wine Adventure will see the married duo and Hampshire-based Hattingley Valley winery launch 1,000 limited bottles of English sparkling Blancs de Blancs.

The base wine, sourced primarily from the Hattingley Valley managed Cottonworth vineyards near Winchester, the base wine was part-aged in oak and is destined for considerable ageing on lees and under cork, with release pencilled for 2021/2022.

Made from the 2016 vintage - the warmest year ever recorded, the wine was made from a “promising vintage” in the UK from a quality point of view, said Barrie.

The initiative, which was intended to be fun, but also “fundamentally collaborative in nature”, had been introduced to benefit good causes, said Barrie, adding to make consumers feel involved, it was asking for help  finding a name for the wine and a charity to support, with all profit to go directly to the chosen charity.

“We want to help people get more involved in the process, as well as make some noise about the fantastic job being done by the many brilliant winemakers in this country,” she said.

The duo would also be looking to design a label and packaging in a collaborative effort with local students, said Richards.

“As for the wine name, we’re looking for inspired suggestions and hopefully we’ll come up with something a bit more original than Winey McWineFace - we’ve have already had some great shouts, which have proved both amusing and thought-provoking,” he said.

Once all votes are in, and a final decision has been made on the charity to support, Susie & Peter will randomly draw a name from those who proposed this charity to receive six bottles of their wine. The same procedure will apply to the selection of the wine name.

As part of the initiative, Barrie and Richards have produced two short films documenting their attempts at harvesting, with further such videos poised to be made on an on-going basis.

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