Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs 2011
- Decanter
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Wong
Wilfred -
Enthusiast
Wine
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Decanter
Wonderfully evolved wine with intense and captivating baked apple nose with secondary notes of lemon and greengage, and powerful rich, round and creamy-textured palate to follow. Exuberant ripe fruit flavors and bounteous buttered toast and honey notes harmonize well with the restrained acidity and tangy, savory undercurrent.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Tasting the 2011 Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs was a fun experience. Over the years, some wine pals have told me that the English make excellent sparkling wines. I faintly remember tasting one or two in the 1990s, but today was my first real look at a bubbly from England, and I concur with the Brits that their local vintners do indeed make excellent sparkling wines. The 2011 Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs is elegant and lively. The wine's bright green apple flavors, taut palate, and crisp aftertaste pair it perfectly with raw oysters. (Tasted: November 10, 2016, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Creaminess and stone are all that is signalled on the nose. The palate opens with a generous spirit that unites green apple crispness, lemon freshness, shortbread richness and chalky depth. There is an undertow of lemon oil and lasting length. There is something generous and rounded about this wine that does not stem from dosage. Intriguing, wonderfully dry, grown-up and totally lasting. This is still taut and will gain from bottle age.
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Wine &
Gusbourne takes its name from John de Goosebourne, owner of the estate back in 1410 when it bordered the sea in the South East of England. In 2004 our founder Dr Andrew Weeber planted the first vines with a clear vision and a single goal: to create English Sparkling Wines that would stand up alongside the very finest offerings from across the globe.
Focusing on just the classic grape varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, all the grapes used in our winemaking are sourced solely from Gusbourne vineyards, and we only make Vintage wines. Though England is very much cool climate territory, in relative terms our vineyards benefit from an exceptionally warm and dry maritime climate, which enables us to achieve full ripeness every year – whilst still being classically fresh, our wines tend to display an extra level of roundness and approachability. Our vines are tended with great care and attention to the environment, using only organic fertilisers, whilst time and complexity are the name of the game in the winery, where 250-300 wines are made each vintage (some under wood), with our key Cuvées ending up being assemblages of up to 120 wines each.
Gusbourne is the only three-time winner of the International Wine & Spirits Challenge English Wine Producer of the Year, and we are the proud recipients of over 200 awards at international competitions - in 2019 alone we were awarded 23 gold medals and 8 trophies. Our wines are not in widespread distribution, but can be found in leading restaurants, top hotels and luxury department stores. They are also served in the Royal Households.
Representing the topmost expression of a Champagne house, a vintage Champagne is one made from the produce of a single, superior harvest year. Vintage Champagnes account for a mere 5% of total Champagne production and are produced about three times in a decade. Champagne is typically made as a blend of multiple years in order to preserve the house style; these will have non-vintage, or simply, NV on the label. The term, "vintage," as it applies to all wine, simply means a single harvest year.
The limestone soils of England’s southern end have proven ideal for the production of British sparkling wine. While it might seem too damp and cold for grape growing in England, recent warm summers and the onset of global warming signify great future growth for the British wine industry.