The CLASSIC NV

This iteration of the CLASSIC NV is made predominantly with grapes from 2022, the eighth harvest from the Burge's Field vineyard, and represents a real landmark for the estate - it is the first release of a sparkling wine made at our own winery rather than at Hattingley and made by our resident winemaker, Harry Pickering, rather than Emma at Hattingley.

2022 was a wonderful year in which to christen both the winery and the winemaker with the weather playing ball throughout and a just sized yield of nicely ripe fruit duly arrived in the press in the second week of October. As per normal we hand harvested whole bunches and the base wines for this blend were vinified 80% in tank with 20% going into fifth and sixth fill barrels from the Tonnelerie de Champagne. After primary ferments were finished, 84% of the harvest went through full malolactic fermentation. We blended this CLASSIC using at least 9 base wines as well as our 7 year old solera reserve and ended with a mix of 45% Chardonnay, 28% Pinot Meunier and 27% Pinot Noir, with the reserve comprising about 10% of the whole.

Secondary fermentation in bottle was followed by 32 months ageing on lees before the wine was disgorged in March 2026 and dosed to around 8g/l of residual sugar with 12% alcohol by volume.

We were gambling that building a winery and bringing the whole wine-making process in house would lead to improvements to the already fantastic product our grapes produced in the hands of Emma Rice and this first wine has shown the gamble has paid off. It seems to have a greater focus of citrus and orchard fruit combined with brilliant energy and length.  As the first example of what Harry's arrival is going to do for The Grange we could not be more thrilled... enjoy this as the judges at the IWC 2026 did when they gave it 95 points and a Gold medal.