The Grange, and the Quiet Rise of English Sparkling Wine
Here at Glassette, we like knowing about things early. The restaurant before it's booked out, the hotel worth the flight, the bottle nobody else at the table has had yet.
English sparkling wine is at that point now - quietly, and without much fuss about it. The Grange is where that's most obvious. A family-run Hampshire estate, 210 years old, with vines in the ground since 2011: 52,000 of them across 30 acres of downland, an hour from London. The method is Champagne's. They just aren't allowed to call it that.
If you're also the sort who likes finding it first, this one's for you. We spent a day on the estate and came back with two tablescapes, built around what's actually in the glass…
Why does Hampshire chalk matter?
The chalk under Champagne doesn't stop at the Channel. It comes back up in Hampshire, and under The Grange there's four hundred metres of it.
Cretaceous chalk, the same sort that runs under Montagne de Reims. The same south-facing slopes. The same flint. The same river-valley logic - theirs is the Itchen, not the Marne.
Everything Champagne needs, and almost nobody had planted on it. The Grange did, and bottled it under a name of its own.
What do you serve with English sparkling wine?
The Pink NV is the richer of the two. Somewhere between onion skin and white peach, with a fine, persistent mousse. Wild strawberry and cherry, summer flowers over the top, all of it in a soft, bready frame - and reserve wines from 2015 and 2016 underneath, bringing toasted nuts and sweet spice. Long on the lees, so it's round and creamy, with enough acidity to keep it upright.
For the Pink we leant into the wine's own palette - blush, coral, cream, colours that also happen to be everywhere right now. Charcuterie layered on crisps. Manchego cut into triangles. Melon wrapped in prosciutto. Elevated pairings, but nothing that takes itself too seriously.
The Classic NV is the sharper of the two. Pale straw, and bright with it. Apples and citrus first, then something richer underneath - almonds, buttered pastry. The finish is long and faintly savoury, closer to salt than sugar.
The Classic asked for more substance. An elevated grazing table set up next to the vineyard: bread, olives, cheese, grapes still on the stem. The sort of spread you graze at for an afternoon rather than sit down to.
How do you serve English sparkling wine?
Not as cold as you’d think, and opened more gently. The Grange's two NVs are made by the traditional method, so everything that's true of Champagne is true of these.
Three to four hours in the fridge, or twenty minutes in a bucket of ice and water, which chills faster than ice on its own. Never the freezer. The target is 8–10°C: cold enough to hold the bubble, not so cold that everything else disappears.
No decanting. But pour a few minutes before you drink it, don't fill past halfway, and when you open it, turn the bottle rather than the cork with a hand over the top. A sigh, not a bang.
Trending: playful table centrepieces
The centrepiece is where a table stops being tidy and starts being worth looking at. None of ours were difficult. A tower of grapes, still on the stem. A wine bottle sculpted out of butter. Cheese cut into cubes and stacked into a Rubik's cube, echoing the check of the tablecloth. A tower of cheese topped with a fig. Bread rolls doubling as place card holders. The kind of table that rewards looking closely.
Eleven stages, four years
A vineyard's year starts nervously. A late frost in spring can take the buds off the vines, and at The Grange the answer is hundreds of candles, lit between the rows on the coldest nights. They aren't there to warm anything - frost only settles when the air goes completely still, so the flames keep it moving. Someone is out there in the dark, lighting them one by one.
Harvest comes in September, and it's over in a few weeks: the first of eleven stages, and by far the shortest. Everything after that happens out of sight. The wine is blended through to early summer, then goes into a shed at the back of the estate for three years, quietly developing the flavour it will have in the glass. Four years between the frost candles and the first bottle anyone is allowed to open.
Visiting the Estate
Thirty acres of downland seven miles east of Winchester, in the Upper Itchen Valley. Which is the part Champagne can't offer: you can turn up. The Cellar Door is open six days a week with no booking at all, for a bottle or a tasting at the counter.
The tour is the best version of the day. Fifteen people at most, two hours, eleven o'clock sharp and rain or shine - a walk through the Burges Field vines, the winery itself, custom-built in 2022 and run by Zam Baring, who owns the place. Thursday Lates bring food trucks in for the evening. The Evening Canapés start in the winery and end with a paired tasting in the vineyard as the sun sets.
Where and when: The Winery, Itchen Stoke, Alresford, SO24 0QW
Cellar Door: Monday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm. No booking needed.
Tours and tastings: select Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 11am or 5pm. Booked in advance through The Grange’s website. Bespoke tours available by arrangement.
Getting there: Trains from London Waterloo to Winchester take around an hour, and the estate is seven miles on from there.
A magnum is for a long table, or it’s the thing you take to someone else’s - pure generosity.
