Hattingley Valley Entice English Dessert Wine

Dessert wine? From England? How do you do that? Good question, the short answer is, 'With difficulty'. Many dessert wines from around the world are simply left on the vine for longer periods to accumulate more sugar and in the case of ice wines, they are left out until the grapes are frozen. If we tried that here, we would produce a lovely bottle of rot.

Therefore, we harvest the grapes at a higher than usual sugar ripeness (so we leave them out for a bit longer than normal, weather permitting) then we put around 4 tonnes of Bacchus grapes in our walk-in freezer where they stay at minus 10 degrees for two weeks. Once the usual harvest is over, we take the frozen grapes out, put them in our press and press them extremely gently to extract the juice.

The result is a very concentrated, pure fruit liquid that has high amounts of sugar. The benefit of using Bacchus is that the sugar is balanced out by a wonderful fresh acidity, therefore the wine is not cloying. It's very popular and as rare as a foreign holiday in 2020.

Pale gold in colour, this decadent dessert wine has vibrant aromas of tropical fruits and ripe peach. Beautiful notes of elderflower and pineapple on the palate with a delicious honeyed character and a creamy mouthfeel. Its crisp acidity balances perfectly with the natural sweetness of the Bacchus grapes, leading to a pure, elegant and refreshing lasting finish.  

This is a luscious drink that can be paired with something decadent - blue cheese, foie gras or classic summer pudding.