A simply perfect English white

published 19 June 2020

2018 Oxney Organic, Chardonnay, East Sussex, England

£20, oxneyestate.com, brooksteedbottlejugdeptltd.selz.com

Before I talk about my featured bottle I must mention another Oxney wine, which is sensational – 2016 Oxney Organic, Limited Release Classic Rosé (£40). Only 500 bottles were made of this epic wine and, while neither this nor my featured chardonnay are on the Oxney website, at the time of writing, Kristin Syltevik, the mind behind this peerless property, assures me that they will both appear soon. Kristin gave me a list of indie retailers who will stock these two brand new wines, but only one confirmed that they did.

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Anyway, this sparkler is packed with sensational freshness and vitality and it has a wondrous, amaro twist of acidity that runs the length of the palate. Reticent and tremulous, intellectually intriguing and ever so slightly demanding, it asks questions of the drinker and I love this bold approach in a serious sparkling wine. My featured wine comes from the Thomson Block on this unique property and it is hand-picked and then barrel fermented, using 50% wild yeasts. This is the first time they have entrusted fermentation to indigenous yeasts and the results are nothing short of epic.

This is, without doubt, the most resonant and beautiful English wine I have ever tasted. I have waited a long 34 years for a perfect English wine and this is it. I cannot find a molecule out of place. It is the first English wine I have ever scored 20/20.

• Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition’s Communicator of the Year (matthewjukes.com).

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Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. 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, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

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.