WINE REVIEW
Balfour Winery has been quietly and surely making waves and huge progress in Pinot Noir over the last ten years that I have been covering English Wine.
Balfour Pinot Noir 2013, then known as ‘Manor’, was the first English red wine I tasted in the weeks leading up to the launch of Great British Wine. I wasn’t entirely enamoured with it, but the follow-up vintage, the 2015 Pinot of the same name, was one of the early English reds that caught my attention and put then-named Hush Heath Estate on the map for me (along with their brilliant ‘BBR’ sparkling Rosé).
In more recent years, their Suitcase Pinot Noir from the great 2018 vintage really left an impression, and their Luke’s Pinot Noir has gone from strength to strength. This first entry in their new Signature line is another huge step up for Fergus Elias and the winery team.
The Signature Pinot Noir, a blend of 91% Clone 828 and 9% Clone 777 (the same clones used in the aforementioned Suitcase Pinot Noir) comes from the Springfield plot on the Hush Heath Estate. The resulting wine was aged in French oak for nine months and then cellared for 18 months before release.
The resulting wine has a lifted, almost perfumed nose of vibrant cherry, dried rose petals, smoky graphite notes, evocative spice and forest floor.
On the palate that red fruit vibrancy really jumps out with tangy but ripe cherry, cranberry and just a touch of winter berry. The oak is spicy and prominent, but superbly integrated with the soft tannic structure and overall harmony of this beautiful wine.
This wine shows significantly better after a couple of hours in a decanter and was a redolent beauty 24 hours later following a re-bottling the previous night — both strong signs of an English Pinot Noir that has serious ageing potential.
