1. Home
2. News

Pushing English boundaries: Hampshire’s Black Chalk unveils 89.6 magnum

The numerical name comes from the 89.6-million-year-old chalk upon which Black Chalk’s Test Valley vineyards are planted. Retailing at £165 and limited to 953 bottles, it channels the Black Chalk philosophy that seeks to produce wines “that have an English identity”, as Leadley put it.

“This idea of English chalk soils and the long growing season that we have, producing a style of wine that has purity, precision and this freshness to it, creates a wine – as far as we’re concerned – that is unique in terms of what the world of sparkling has to offer”, said Leadley.

• Read more: Familia Torres has seen 47% emissions reduction since 2008

He continued: “I cannot reinforce enough how much we believe that that is where Black Chalk needs to go in order to establish itself on the global stage.”

Lockdown vintage

The wine itself was produced from the eventful 2020 growing year. Living in London at the time, Driver told Harpers that she had to explain to the police, when queried, about her travels to Hampshire to tend Black Chalk’s vines.

“We had really bad frost in 2020 much like this year. I think Jacob and I were up at night frost fighting right up until 16 May”, she added. Temperatures dropped as low as minus six degrees celsius during May of that year in the Test Valley.

This resulted in the estate losing 40% of its crop. “Having said that what we did have ripened beautifully because the rest of the year was so lovely and warm,” said Driver.

Using specific clones of Chardonnay from its Upper Levels, HiDE and Rivers vineyards at Black Chalk’s Hampshire home, for the wine the pair “pick[ed] all of our clones separately, press[ed] them all separately, and ferment[ed] them separately”, commented Driver. “This is a really cool way for us to learn which clones work really well in a given year on different parts of soil, and for us to build up some information on those kinds of things”.

For fermentation, 80% of the juice was added to stainless steel tanks while the remainder was placed into four different “old, fourth-fill barrels” each containing four different yeast strains.

Driver detailed that CX-9 yeast gives the wine “more tropical, stone fruit” elements; the IOC 18-2007 strain “is a bit more neutral but really good for texture”; while both VL-1 and VL-2 “gives it mouth feel and the depth you want on the mid palate”.

Bristol’s Chase Design Group were tasked with creating a label for the limited 89.6 bottling, that evoked these four different strains and their influence upon the final liquid (see above image).

The wine was “blended specifically for magnum”, bottled in April 2021 and disgorged in January of this year. Each wine has a minimum of 56 months on the lees. With six months under cork to date, Driver explained she is interested to see how the wine develops, with the winemaking duo having chosen to use Amorim NDtech champagne corks as the closure.

All in all, the aim with the new magnum was to “create a wine that is very Black Chalk in style” with its trademark brightness and vibrancy. But also, a wine “that has still got that precision and some complexity”, said Driver.

She concluded: “And because it's from magnum, we knew that we obviously have a little bit more time on the lees. But even with that amount of time, one of the things that you'll get is still that real bright freshness”.

Grounding philosophy

Black Chalk “began in the back of another winery” where Leadley, Driver and assistant winemaker Andy Wiles were working. This was in 2015, with its first vintage being released in 2018.

“And since then we've now got our own winery, 30 acres of vineyards, 36 different clone and rootstock variations, and last year bottled 14 different sparkling wines," added Leadley.

The attendees to the event were lucky enough to try some of these early vintages – Black Chalk Classic 2015 and 2017. With eight and seven years under cork, respectively, the wines have evolved in complexity and texture while maintain an acidity that has become a hallmark of the producer’s wines.

“Black Chalk was originally an idea about trying to create wines that are not chasing that Champagne picture,” commented Leadley.

“We've obviously gone to extreme lengths at Black Chalk to try and emphasise that, and we do lots of crazy things in the winery in terms of using clones and using the intricate level of winemaking that we do.”

This creativity and meticulous winemaking endeavour has not been without reward. The 89.6 magnum was a gold medal winner at the IWSC awards, while last year at the Wine GB awards, Black Chalk took home the Best Sparkling Rosé for its Wild Rose 2021.

At Tavern, the 89.6 wine was paired with oysters from Ireland’s Carlingford. The culinary strength of Black Chalk’s magnum offer was exemplified in this pairing, its acidity alchemising with the seawater salinity of the Irish molluscs.

Siobhan McAuley, general manager at the 10-week-old venue – a sister venue of Restaurant St Barts – was on hand to pour.

In charge of the wine list at the boutique eatery, she channels the restaurant’s British ingredient philosophy in this regard. The venue has a growing English wine selection – Dorset’s Langham amongst them too. Black Chalk will be optimistic venues similar to Tavern will be champing at the bit to showcase boundary pushing English wine like 89.6.

• English wine
• winemaking
• Premium Wine
• Viticulture
• Black Chalk
• magnum
• test valley