The Mount Vineyard Shoreham Kent

 My wife and I visited the Mount Vineyard, last week, situated in the small and charming village of Shoreham, in Kent. The entrance to the Mount is on the left side of the road as you walk or drive from the bridge, over the Darent river, towards the parish church. We decided to stop for lunch before taking a walk alongside the river. We just  turned up and did not have to make a booking.

The restaurant is situated right in the middle of 4 hectares of vines. The lunch menu was simple  but our pizzas were excellent. The waiting staff were also excellent and paid us the courtesy of not calling us "guys". My wife hates this more than I do but now we have got used to it. However, it was  refreshing not to be treated in such a familiar way. 

As you would expect the wine list was extensive. We chose The Mount Vineyard's 1918 Pinot Noir, we enjoyed this wine and this was the first time that I judged an English red wine to be of really good quality. I have been enormously critical of English red wine in the past  judging it to be too expensive for its quality. This wine is different and it deserves to be taken seriously. It reminded us of the Coteaux Champenois still reds produced in Champagne region of France - from the Pinot Noir and Pinot Meurnier grapes. Perhaps it is the chalk soil and the cool climate in Kent.  However, whilst the Mount Pinot Noir tastes similar it has a distinct style of its own which is the hallmark of a good wine which has not been produced in bulk in a wine factory. The Mount Pinot Noir should develop in the bottle to reveal more fruit flavour  and softer tannin - it is a wine to be savoured with food rather that be slugged back at a barbeque.

The Pinot Noir is not the only grape variety grown in the vineyards. The Mount also grows Chardonnay and grape varieties such as Seyval Blanc which are suited to a cooler and damper climate. The Mount produces sparkling wine and I expect their bubbly will be delicious. My wallet wasn't bulging after lunch so I did not buy a bottle. The price of English Sparkling wine is almost too much for me at around £50 a bottle. I can buy really good quality Champagne from France for a third of the price. However, most English sparkling wine is of high quality and perhaps it is where the future lies when the weather warms up to provide a good harvest every year. English producers cannot achieve the economies of scale available to French, Italian and Spanish producers to compete on price so they must produce high quality wines which have their own individual style.

Soon the Mount vineyard will tempt me to open my wallet again, so more of this later. The vineyard deserves a bit of support from me and other lovers of good English wine.

The Mount vineyard is well worth visiting and Shoreham station is nearby with trains to London Victoria and Sevenoaks.

http://www.themountvineyard.co.uk/the-vineyard/

1753 Château de Campuget 2016 Viognier White - L'indication géographique Gard protégée

 We ordered this wine in a local restaurant in the Orpington area of London. The wine was superb and went with fish.  Château Campuget is situated near the Rhône valley and not far from Nîmes.

The soil and climate in the Gard is well suited to the growth of the Viognier grapes to produce white wines with their own distinctive style but which reflect the region. Viognier based wines are some of my favourites and this wine is no exception, but it is not a homogenous and industrially produced wine. the wine is fermented  partially in mature oak barrels.

The  Château recommends that you drink the wine young but after four years in the bottle it still tastes fresh. It is a dry wine, but not bone dry, and feels silky and sumptuous in the mouth and has a medium body. I agree that the wine tastes of tropical fruits and it it is complex and long lasting on the palate. It reminded me of a banana taste but perhaps that is just me. The fruit character is balanced by the acidity. 

We paid over £30 for this wine with our meal but you can buy it retail for around £11 - c'est la vie.

The bottle was sealed with a glass stopper which helps eliminate the chance of the wine being corked and perhaps this helped to preserve the freshness. This is the first time I have seen wine sealed in this way: more of this in a later post.

This wine is well worth searching out especially on a trip to the south of France - you could get stuck in a virus initiated lockdown,but what better way to spend two weeks in quarantine than with a case of such good quality wine?

http://campuget.com/fr/vins/campuget-1753-viognier-2/