The 2022 harvest was a good one for English winemakers and so it proved for Cambridge-based Gutter & Stars, whose winemaker Chris Wilson is also a writer for The Buyer (when he finds time!). He managed to source almost three times the fruit that he did the year previous year which has meant the wine portfolio is now eight wines strong, and the quality of the 2022 fruit has led to some stylistic changes in the Pinot Noir.
Wine journalist – and regular Buyer writer – Chris Wilson has added another string to his bow as he launches his own urban winery Gutter & Stars in the heart of Cambridge. Before Christmas he was updating us on the wines he is making, including a foot-stomped field blend Rosé. In this latest instalment of his column for The Buyer, as the wines are literally chilling out, Chris is taking inspiration from his love of music and design to give him a steer on the winery’s brand image and what he is going to call his wines. Oh, and home-schooling his two daughters in the winery at the same time.
Wine journalist – and regular Buyer writer – Chris Wilson has added another string to his bow as he launches his own urban winery in the heart of Cambridge. In the latest instalment of his column for The Buyer he extols the virtues of doing the bare minimum in a white jacket and reveals the details of a guerrilla rosé that’s crept into his cellar. To geek or not to geek? That is the question he is asking himself this month as the cramped space limits what science he can apply on site, and the wines themselves start to take shape – in thrilling fashion.
Wine journalist – and regular Buyer writer – Chris Wilson has added another string to his bow as he launches his own urban winery in the heart of Cambridge this autumn called Gutter & Stars. In the third instalment of his column for The Buyer the Pinot Noir and Bacchus have arrived at the windmill-based winery, Chris puts his DIY cellar tools to the test and the stereo is turned up to 11.
Wine journalist – and regular Buyer writer – Chris Wilson has added another string to his bow as he launches his own urban winery in the heart of Cambridge this autumn. In this instalment of his column for The Buyer he goes into more detail about the type of wines he’d like to make this year and unravels some of the red tape involved in setting up a winery from scratch.
Wine expert Chris Wilson turned winemaker last year with Cambridge’s first ever urban winery, Gutter&Stars. His first vintages were so good they found their way onto many critics’ Best of 2021 lists and also made a case for British still wine really being a thing. In another ‘missive from the front’ Wilson takes us through the thinking behind his next two wines – a field blend of Ortega and Bacchus, and a second vintage of his 100% Bacchus from Missing Gate Vineyard in the Crouch Valley. Nerdy music references abound and there’s some exciting news about more new wines in the pipeline.
A vintage that ended on December 30… welcome to winemaking in England and one of the most challenging vintages in history. For Chris Wilson, wine scribe turned winemaker and owner of Cambridge’s first urban winery Gutter&Stars, 2021 was a vintage which threw everything possible at winemakers; he did, however, get some decent juice out of the year along with plaudits for his inaugural wines, including from Roger Jones who made Gutter&Stars’ first Chardonnay his Christmas pour.
Whilst sparkling wine has set the benchmark for just how good English wine can be and helped put the whole industry on the global wine map, there are now major strides taking place with English still wines. To assess the potential of Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc Simon Huntington hosted an extensive tasting featuring wines from 15 producers with a panel of 10 professional buyers and industry experts with Marasby, his platform for high quality English and Welsh wine. Here are the results.
Jamie Goode corking every bottle of the orange Bacchus; why bottling a wine favours the boutique winery; an Open Day with customers bringing picnics; the state of the 2022 English harvest; what to do with 100s of kilos of Ortega; a special reserve version of his much-lauded Chardonnay – all this and more has been happening since Chris Wilson last brought us up to speed with what’s been happening at his boutique winery, Gutter & Stars which is Cambridge’s first urban winery… and housed in the bottom of a windmill.
Chris Wilson always felt that his Bacchus 2020 – the first wine he has ever made – would be a popular choice, but in just a few days the entire allocation had sold out. Wine scribe-turned-winemaker, Wilson describes the first day of letting ‘strangers’ into his tiny windmill winery, Gutter & Stars; the power of media; some cute marketing ploys and the ‘2nd album syndrome’ – the old music industry fear that it is all well and good charting with your debut album, but what are you going to follow it up with?
