In a moment of reflection I have been remembering special visitors to Breaky Bottom. Two of these have been with me since the early days, Oz Clarke and Stephen Skelton. I first met Oz some forty years ago when he came for an all-day visit; we drank Breaky Bottom and went on to taste innumerable wines from all over the world that were sitting in my wine-rack. He had a chauffeur to drive him home safely. We both clearly liked wine, but found we also shared other interests (while the drinking continued) in the arts, music, literature and sport. I learnt of his original career on the stage and of the many roles he played which included General Peron in Evita.
Oz was developing a great interest in wine and decided to ‘jump ship’ and focus on this new passion. The BBC Food & Drink programme with Jilly Goolden ran for 20 years and they twice came to film for the series at Breaky Bottom. I remember Oz saying “Peter, you have three out of four” (I had made a very tasty late-harvest wine in 1995) “still, sparkling, and dessert, but no red.” Now of course there are some fine red wines being produced in the UK.
Oz has just published a new book ‘English Wine – From Still to Sparkling, The Newest New World Wine Country’. Acknowledging recent progress he insists that the best producers should now be ranked with the cool-climate wines of the world. It’s a great book and will increase the reader’s appreciation of what we have achieved.
Stephen Skelton visited us this month. A quiet lunch in the shade of ‘Rémy’s garden’ was a delight, heightened by his gift of a fine bottle of Burgundy, 2008 Chambolle-Musigny – delicious! Stephen helped pick my first harvest in the hot summer of 1976. In the following year he planted his vineyard ‘Spots Farm’ at Tenterden in Kent, now Chapel Down. He made some top still wines for many years, winning the Gore-Browne Trophy with his 1980 Seyval Blanc. He sold up in 1986 but has remained in the forefront of the industry, working with WineGB and writing eight books on UK wine. In 2003 he became a Master of Wine, winning the prestigious Robert Mondavi Trophy. So he knows a lot about wine! But it’s the friendship I value most - 44 years, with the occasional sparring! A much valued ‘sympatico’ between us.
What joy when Dermot Sugrue and his partner Ana also came here a few days ago. Ana, who has just been appointed Winemaker at Plumpton Agricultural College is charged with training the next generation of UK winemakers. I first met Dermot, (an Irishman, originally from Limerick) when he was studying winemaking at Plumpton College in 2005. We sat outside smoking roll-ups and chatting about the world, and I soon realised that we were destined to be mates. He has become a master winemaker but at this first encounter I felt an affinity with the man himself. Now, if I were to sit for 20 minutes with Dermot and a bottle of Paddy’s whiskey expressions like ‘tis fierce awful good‘, ‘ara things are grand’, and ‘go away wi-ya’ become commonplace. I am sometimes referred to as the ‘oul fella’ but my favourite has to be ‘shave a bullock’, a cry of surprised delight!
Dermot’s journey through winemaking has taken him to the top. He worked at Nyetimber, steering the ship in earlier days when it was just a fledging estate. In 2006 he left to create the outstanding Wiston Estate in West Sussex, owned by the Goring family, and also makes his own Sugrue South Downs fizz, wonderfully named ‘The Trouble with Dreams’.
PLEASE NOTE: Partial lockdown continues, so we are not able to offer full tours and tastings, but we are welcoming visitors by appointment who want to come by and collect wine from the vineyard.