Court Garden Wine Library
We usually hold back a few cases of wine from each vintage, so we can compare one vintage to another and see how the wine has developed in our cellar. We had a vertical tasting a year or so back and were interested to find the most common reaction was they taste like an old champagne, often picking up a bit of colour. There are so many little variables that make every vintage unique, but primarily they reflect the weather in the vineyard that season, modified by the care of the viticulturist and winemaker.
We have been asked to make some older wines available, and can now offer customers the chance to purchase a little bit of vineyard history. It is of course a very limited resource.
In considering the 4 vintages offered the first thing to bear in mind in each case, is what was the weather like that season.
2010
In 2010 things got off to a good start with below-average rainfall in the spring with good levels of sunshine and temperatures peaking in June. A dry July is always a help, August was wetter, but September was drier. 2010 produced some excellent fruit and was our first really good harvest. Of no consequence to the fruit but an unusual weather occurrence happened on the last day of the harvest in the 3rd week of October. We awoke to a vineyard white from a heavy frost, initially there was a question of whether the fruit quality had been impaired, but although cold the centre of the berries were not frozen. The clear skies that had allowed the frost soon welcomed the sun to warm things up and by 10am the white had gone and by noon all looked completely normal, but by 4 in the afternoon the leaves had gone brown and crinkly, the next morning all the leaves were on the ground. We have not seen a frost at that time since, but it was a good omen as the 2010 vintage yielded a great crop of gold medals.
Blanc de Blancs
2010 Vintage
Our IWC 2015 English Sparkling Trophy, English Vintage Trophy & Gold Medal winning 2010 Blanc de Blancs.
- Bottle price:
- £85.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Blanc de Noirs
2010 Vintage
Our award-winning 2010 Blanc de Noirs, including 3 International Silvers plus an IWC 2015 Gold Medal.
- Bottle price:
- £85.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Classic Cuvée
2010 Vintage
Our award-winning 2010 Classic Cuvée, including 2 Decanter Silvers plus IWSC 2015 Silver & Bronze.
- Bottle price:
- £85.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Ditchling Reserve
2010 Vintage
Our award-winning 2010 Ditchling Reserve, including 3 International Silvers plus an IWSC 2016 Gold Medal.
- Bottle price:
- £85.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
2011
2011 followed a drier winter, an open autumn is always welcome on the farm, and the dry conditions allowed us to spread some compost in the vineyard. Modest rainfall in the spring was helpful, modesty may be the theme for 2011, temperature not as high and less sunshine hours than 2010, but the summer seemed to be longer. The fruit was smaller and ripened well, in fact we were surprised that smaller fruit ripened quicker. The pinot noir was so ripe we could not make a blanc de noirs it was too pink! Luckily plenty of 2010 to tide us through. Nice quality but modest quantity sums up the year.
Blanc de Blancs
2011 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £75.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Classic Cuvée
2011 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £75.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
2012
2012 was the year to forget. Too much rain and not enough sunshine. Nothing grew well except perhaps grass. The classic varieties struggled, but the still varieties planted in 2008 were looking promising, however the hedgerows were devoid of fruit and the birds were desperate and found the bird-scarers much less scary, they ate a good share of the classic grapes and the entire crop of the still varieties in one night. Some vineyards did not think it worth picking at all, but we managed a minimal 2 tonnes, which we vinified, but held it back to blend into the following year. Grapes are picked by our wonderful team of pickers and placed in boxes to be picked up and taken to the winery. In a year when grapes were so short it was frustrating to find a string of ducks had waddled into the vineyard and were helping themselves straight from the boxes.
2013
After a wet December and only average rainfall in the early months the vines made a good start. A dry June and July allowed a good fruit set, and a summer of modest average temperature and sunshine produced a worthwhile quality crop, but unspectacular yields.
Blanc de Blancs
2013 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £65.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Blanc de Noirs
2013 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £65.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 4 or more bottles:
- FREE
More information
Classic Cuvée
2013 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £65.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
2014
2014 followed a dry December, but plenty of rain in January and February made the vineyard pretty sticky, but only modest rainfall through March to May rescued the situation and then June was particularly dry. The summer was then warm, even if the August rain was a little challenging, overall it was a good year for the vineyard and produced a record harvest with great quality across all the varieties.
Blanc de Blancs
2014 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £55.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
Classic Cuvée
2014 Vintage
- Bottle price:
- £55.00
- Delivery*:
- from £5.00
- 2 or more bottles:
- FREE
* Standard 48-hour UK Delivery.
view basket
| Pay securely with: |
 |
Delivery
UK Mainland
48-hour standard delivery is FREE on orders of £100 or more. Next day delivery is also available at checkout – order by 10:30am for next day delivery, orders by 10:30am Friday will be delivered on Monday.
Please include a mobile number for the recipient of your order. Parcelforce will send a text to the recipient advising of the time window for delivery and the recipient can respond and change delivery details, for instance, to deliver to a local post office.
Saturday Deliveries for local area
For local deliveries (see quite large area below) we are able to offer Saturday deliveries. Customers within this area, whose orders are received by 2pm on a Friday can expect delivery on Saturday.
Local Area includes the following Postcodes: BN, KT, SM, CR, RH, and to London SW (excluding SW1 and SW8).
All other destinations
including UK Islands, Northern Ireland, Eire and Mainland Europe, please call 01273 844 479 or email to order.
Send a sparkling wine gift!
You can buy any of our wines as a gift and we will send directly to the recipient, with your gift message. We also offer our sparkling wine in a beautiful gift-box to send together with your choice of gift-card.