Wine of the week: a ravishing white from England

2016 Plumpton Estate, Single Vineyard Chardonnay/Pinot Noir/Meunier, England (£15, Marks & Spencer).

Plumpton College is the UK's most important seat of learning when it comes to grape-growing and wine-making. This fascinating wine was made by Plumpton College student Joseph Arthur, who won Marks & Spencer's 2016 Scholarship for outstanding academic performance.

Joseph crafted this wine from grapes grown in a single vineyard, using French oak barrels to ferment the wine in. Essentially, Joseph has made a still version of a sparkling wine, for his is the recipe for 90% of champagne. This is nothing short of inspirational because it allows us to look beyond where the bubbles might have been and see the wine, shimmering in all of its naked glory.

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And what a sight it is, with floral notes, moments of honeysuckle and briar coupled with the subtle, vanilla coming from the oak. This all makes for a hedonistic, pheromonal scent. The palate is searingly dry, as you might expect from a white wine from our climes, but it is very long and rather masochistically ravishing.

It reminds me of a top-grade Juranon Sec a French wine made from obtuse grapes, loaded with acidity, but with an equally mesmerising perfume. Good work, Joseph this will get the industry talking and the consumers licking their lips. We are starting to find our feet in the English wine trade and it is looking very tasty indeed.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006.

He has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.