Gusbourne Estate – Appledore, Kent
Gusbourne Estate was started in 2004 by South African-born entrepreneur Andrew Weedon, with the sole purpose of producing England’s finest sparkling wines.
Their debut vintages of Brut Reserve 2006 and Blanc De Blancs 2006 were immediately highly acclaimed on release in 2010.
All the grapes which go into Gusbourne’s wines are grown on the estate’s own vineyards – they own 60 hectares in Kent and 30 in West Sussex – meaning that they have complete control over the quality of the grapes being produced. This combination of meticulous care in the vineyards, a state of the art winery, and lengthy ageing of its sparkling wines on their lees during the all-important second fermentation in bottle, has already won the winery many top awards – from The Wine Advocate, Decanter Magazine, Jancis Robinson and many other experts.
This is a hugely exciting and ambitious estate which will surely produce sparkling wines on their English chalk soils which will rival the best of Champagne for years to come!