England white wins ‘wine-off’ against Australia

An England versus Australia “wine-off” held by the WSTA saw a “shock” win for an English Bacchus against its Aussie Chardonnay counterpart.

Hosted by the Wine and Spirit Trade Association (WSTA) and former England rugby star Andrew Sheridan, the head-to-head blind tasting pitted three English wines from Bolney Wine Estate against three Australian counterparts from Wolf Blass. The wines were tasted by four English and four Australian rugby fans.

The Aussie red and sparkling wines came out on top but the Chardonnay was upended in a surprise result, losing to Bolney Estate’s Bacchus.

The two teams are squaring up against one another this weekend at Twickenham in what is a make or break game for England should they wishto continue their World Cup campaign after a narrow loss to Wales last week.

A former England, Sale and finally Toulon loosehead prop, Sheridan retired from professional rugby last year and has drifted into wine.

Having already passed the WSET’s levels 2 and 3, he is currently midway through his diploma. Living in the south of France with his family, he has also turned his hand to more practical viticultural work.

“This harvest, I volunteered at the Bandol wines vineyard in Castell-Reynoard,” he said.

“I want to learn about this industry from all sides. Hand picking the grapes was hard work. I didn’t come out of the vines as battered as I was from the rugby pitch, but it was certainly back breaking work.”

Speaking of the tasting he added: “The Australian wines were consistently good and very drinkable.  But what seemed to unite both sides and what impressed me, was how aromatic and sophisticated the English white wine was.

“It is an exciting time for English wines. They are showing that the cooler climate wines can be complex and compete with their more established New World cousins.

“England will be hurting from the loss against Wales, but they will be going into the Australia game highly motivated and hungry. I hope I will be cracking open a bottle of English sparkling to celebrate a win on Saturday. Come on England!”