Drink with Roger Jones | Rosé

Pinot Noir Rosé 2024, Carvers Hill Estate, Wiltshire

Carvers Hill is one of the UK’s youngest wine estates, brought to the fore by the Griffiths family. Based in the Wiltshire village of Shalbourne, and planted in 2021 mostly to Pinot Noir, with the aim of making still rosé and Pinot Noir, they not only now have a fully operational winery onsite but a bonded warehouse and hospitality facilities to match the best in France.

Although a small batch of rosé was produced in 2023, this 2024 is the first commercial release. Pale salmon-pink with great clarity, this has a fresh rose bud and red berry nose; a touch of wet stone to give a savoury mineral note, fresh on the front. This reminds of a Sancerre rosé, which comes from the Loire in France and renowned for its savoury dry notes. The Pinot Noir rosé is made from 95% Pinot Noir and 5% Pinot Precoce and was bottled in April this year.

As the vines age, the wines from this estate will grow in structure and become fuller in depth, allowing them to produce Pinot Noir further down the lane.

Managing director Jack Bartholomew says: “We are delighted with how the first vintage has turned out and shows the potential of Pinot Noir from Wiltshire, with Carvers Hill the county’s first winery and vineyard.”

Gutter & Stars Punka MVB Rosé (Multi-Vintage)

Chris Wilson is a maverick winemaker who makes his wine from the basement of an old windmill one mile away from Cambridge City centre, which he set up in 2020. Wilson began his professional career as a music and newspaper journalist, before he saw the wonders of wine and in 2010 uncorked a wine degree at Plumpton College in Sussex.

This is a multi-vintage blend, using grapes from both 2023 and 2024 vintages, and made from four different grape varieties, Sauvignon Blanc 65% (for the backbone), Ortega 18% (depth), Bacchus 9% (fresh citrus notes) and Pinot Noir 8% (for colour and red berry fruit).

The whites came from the 2024 vintage, while the Pinot Noir was from the 2023 and this was aged for 12 months in oak. Interesting, too, are the origins of each ingredient. The Sauvignon Blanc is from Creeksea Place Barns in Essex, the Ortega & Bacchus from Yew Tree Vineyard in Oxfordshire, with the Pinot from the Missing Gate vineyard in Essex.

Pure clean taste with a nod to some flamboyant fruit, giving it a fresh but exciting taste, and a fresh focused mineral finish.

Dear Noodles Rosé 2023

This rosé is made by the leading light of the English sparkling wine scene, Dermot Sugrue. His Bee Tree Winery is based near Wivelsfield Green in East Sussex. Sugrue’s achievements have helped put English wine on the world map.

“Taking inspiration from the great rosé wines of Bandol, Rioja, and Corsica, my wife Ana and I wanted to craft a dry English rosé that was deep in colour and character – the antithesis to the ubiquitous, industrially made, and flavourless pale pink wines of a certain corner of France – but not lacking in refreshment,” says Sugrue.

“So, we blended barrels of perfectly ripe, gently macerated Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grown across all our vineyards during the incandescent 2023 vintage – a fabulous year for viticulture in the south of England.”

Showing an elegant red berry character and beautifully supple texture, Dear Noodles crackles with energy and juicy acidity on its bone-dry finish.

“Dear Noodles is a love letter in a bottle, with a label viewed from a different perspective.  Or rather lack of label, as the colour and the flavour – as well as a few words from a stolen moment – tell you all you need to know.”