It's an exciting time in the UK wine world!
Never have our home-grown sparklers been higher in quality or more exciting than they are today, attracting enormous interest and investment from around the world.
At Corney & Barrow, we are always on the lookout for star quality, and we are so pleased to find this in Breaky Bottom and Ambriel, whose exceptional wines are fine and distinctive in their own unique way.
Our Selection
“At Corney & Barrow we are always on the lookout for star quality, producers whose wines not only set the benchmark for their country or region, but also have that special something that marks them out. I was so pleased to find this in Breaky Bottom and Ambriel, whose wines are fine and distinctive in their own unique way."
Rebecca Palmer, Associate Buyer at Corney & Barrow
Our Producers
Ambriel
Ambriel was founded in 2006 by couple Wendy and Charles Outhwaite, self-professed wine lovers with the dream of producing their own sparkling wine. Alongside careers in law and finance, they embarked on a search for their ‘perfect’ vineyard. It took them 5 years to find it, a sunny, southfacing site overlooking the sweeping South Downs in Nutbourne, a small village in West Sussex. Its rare, green sand soil is prized by English viticulturists for its heat-retaining, light-reflective and free-draining qualities, well-suited to the vagaries of the English climate.
The Interview
Wendy Outhwaite, founder and winemaker at Ambriel tells us about her the origins of the winery, and her love of English Sparkling wine.
Breaky Bottom
Breaky Bottom is a tiny 6 acre wine estate in the South Downs in East Sussex, producing small quantities of high quality traditional method sparkling wines. Founder Peter Hall, now in his 70s, discovered Breaky Bottom in the early 1970s and saw in its micro-climate and chalk-rich soils – similar to Champagne and the Loire valley – the potential to produce high quality wines. While he initially produced still wines (highly acclaimed) from hybrid varieties including Seyval Blanc, over time he turned to sparkling wines and also to the Champagne varieties.
The Interview
We caught up with Peter Hall, founder and winemaker at Breaky Bottom, on a recent trip to the vineyard. Here he tells us about his philosophy and the meaning behind the names of his wines.