Pop the corks on a Court Garden vineyard tour and find yourself on a lovely working farm estate on the sunny slopes of Ditchling! We think the setting for this tour is really quite lovely and it’s very much a family affair on this vineyard so expect a warm and friendly welcome.
Court Garden can trace its farming roots right back to Saxon times and the farmland has appeared on maps since the early 18th century. With the changing times the Corney family decided to diversify and dedicated fields in the heart of their sheep farm to growing vines and the first fruits of their labour came in 2007 with some rather impressive sparkling wine.
Now boasting four different varieties of sparkling wine the Court Garden ethos is still very much to keep to the traditional method of creating those lovely bubbles using bottle fermentation. Now that might not mean very much to you at the moment but go on a Court Garden vineyard tour and you will soon be enlightened.
We are offering two different tour and tasting packages for you. There are both morning and afternoon tours starting at a very civilised 11:00 and 15:00 respectively and both start with a welcome and introduction. The ‘Vineyard Tour’ will see you have a wander around the vines as they bask in the Leas of the South Downs before heading to winery to learn the basics of sparkling wine production over a comparative tasting session where you get to sip and procrastinate over two of the estate’s finest sparkling vinos.
If you want a more in-depth insight into how wine with bubbles is made we can highly recommend the ‘Sparkling Wine Tour’. It starts in the same way as the standard tour but rather than heading outside to the rows of vines it’s straight to the winery to observe in detail just how all that lovely effervescence gets into the bottle. This is a truly fascinating insight and a real eye-opener for anyone whether a glass of bubbly is your favourite tipple or not. You will also get to sample the full range of Court Garden sparkling wines during the tutored tasting.
And what a collection of sparkling wines it is! Having all won awards the Court Garden Classic Cuvee is a blend of Chardonnay Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes that makes for a delightfully fruity petilliant whilst the Blanc de Blancs is nicely smoky and the Blanc des Noirs boasts a fine fizz whilst the very palatable Rose wines are creamy and palatable and all together we think the Court Garden has got wines with a bit of a fizz all sewn up!
So take our advice head to Ditchling for a morning or afternoon Court Garden vineyard tour and discover just how good British sparkling wines are – after all the geology of the land round these parts is very similar to a certain area of north eastern France famous for another type of fizzy white wine!
