Wine of the week: Wiston Estate Cuvée 2009

We at team db want to celebrate the very best bottles from our Global Wine Masters. Every Wednesday, we’ll select a wine that picked up either a Gold or Master from our competition series, and tell you why the judges loved it.

If you’re ever looking to convince a sceptic that English sparkling wine is a serious quality fizz, then the wines from Wiston Estate are a great, safe pick. If we look across our Global Wine Masters competitions, this producer – based in Sussex – has consistently picked up top scores when judged blind by Masters of Wine against the world’s great sparkling wine regions, above all, of course, Champagne.

In our latest sparkling wine competition, it was the 2009 vintage expression that picked up a Gold medal from our exacting judges, a beautiful mature expression of bottle-fermented wine using grapes from the chalk slopes of the South Downs, carefully crafted by highly-respected English fizz winemaker, Dermot Sugrue.

The sparkling is showing wonderfully now, with flavours of toast, grilled nuts, cream and citrus, finishing with all the refreshment of a freshly-sliced apple – a hallmark of English fizz.

If this appeals – along with the bold and beautiful packaging – then you can buy the wine direct from Wiston for £35.50, and serve it ‘blind’ to those who still think that England can’t produce a great sparking wine