“There were so many unknowns going into this project but I’m delighted with the results. I am so happy with the whole team here for running with the idea and bringing it to life, and now we’re looking forward to see how we can push it further,” says winemaker Grimshaw.
English sparkling wine on draft? It was only a matter of time. Inspired by an on-tap ‘Prosecco’ spotted in a branch of Wetherspoons, Langham Wine Estate last week launched Zig Zag, the first English fizz in key keg. But this is not just any old cheap sticky fizz; this is col fondo, the traditional method of making Prosecco whereby the second fermentation takes place in the bottle which is sold un-disgorged under crown cap; in the case of Zig Zag the second fermentation will take place in the keg. It’s an exciting project from this exciting estate that already has several noteworthy feathers in its cap.
Winemaker Tommy Grimshaw filling the first of the kegs of Zig Zag
In 2020, Langham won the IWSC Sparkling Wine Producer of the Year award, beating over 700 entrants including many of the most prestigious champagne houses. This year brought more IWSC success, with a gold, three silver and a pair of bronze medals in the results announced last month, including 95 points for their 2017 rosé, the only gold awarded to an English pink fizz. Quite some achievement, especially for a small estate that’s a relative newcomer on the English wine scene, and one whose head winemaker, Tommy Grimshaw, is the youngest in the UK.
The base wines for these prize-winners were actually made by Grimshaw’s predecessor, Daniel Ham, whose reins he took over in 2019, but Zig Zag is very much Grimshaw’s project and Langham’s success looks set to continue in his young but capable hands.
Justin Langham (centre) with the team. © Lara Jane Thorpe
Buying into youthful enthusiasm
Justin Langham runs the estate which covers more than 1000 acres of mainly arable crops in the dreamy Dorset countryside. His father planted vines here in 1980 – “it was a total disaster” Langham says cheerfully – which were uprooted in 2009 when Langham began to plant 30 acres of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. “I wanted to create a direct-to-customer product that’s more interesting to grow than wheat and barley,” he goes on as he drives me through the leafy lanes to the estate. Langham Wine Estate released its first wines in 2011 and now produces around 60,000 bottles a year.
25-year-old Grimshaw started in the wine business with a holiday job at Devon’s Sharpham Vineyard. “I left school aged 17 and did my first harvest in 2013,” he tells me. “I went travelling for six months before coming back to Sharpham and getting completely captivated by wine production.” He now heads Langham’s impressively young team which oozes enthusiasm for low-intervention, forward-thinking winemaking.
Grimshaw: knowing when to be hands off is critical. © Lara Jane Thorpe
“When I started out, budgets were very tight and I simply couldn’t afford to employ a very experienced winemaker with a string of awards behind him or her,” says Langham. “Since then, I’ve found that everyone I have employed over the years has been relatively young – Daniel was pretty young when he started here, too. I appreciate their fresh and uninhibited approach, bringing new ideas without some of the “baggage” that experience can bring. And being small and working with tight purse strings perhaps actually helps us,” he goes on. “We’re forced to be keen and nimble, and have to make every decision count.” It’s a strategy that seems to work very well.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to have two outstanding mentors in Duncan Schwab at Sharpham and, for a short while, Daniel Ham here,” Grimshaw says modestly. “Daniel made the first steps towards a hands-off approach here and now I’m able to see how far we can push it whilst maintaining our extremely high quality. Daniel taught me to trust my gut instinct – as humans, we want to control everything but to create the wines that we do here we have to trust that the quality fruit will lead us to excellent wines in time. My style is focussed on creating complex, layered and very well made wines whilst intervening as little as possible.”
Langham Wine Estate vineyard
A tight-knit crew
The vineyard, planted on south-facing chalk soils is looked after by Olly Whitfield, 31, who trained at Plumpton following a stint at Barker’s Marque Vineyard in Marlborough, NZ and has since worked at Exton Park in Hampshire. “Although we’re not certified organic, we follow best environmental practice to encourage biodiversity, promoting biological control organisms and minimising the use of chemicals to keep disease at bay,” he says. Whitfield’s assistant, Becky Bowyer, 33, cut her teeth at Rathfinny Wine Estate in Sussex before being drawn to Langham. “I love the fact that they are bold enough to buck the trend and make totally unique styles of wine. It’s a very exciting place to work,” she tells me.
Grapes are hand-harvested and sorted in the vineyard before being taken to the on-site winery housed in an old barn. The 90-odd parcels are vinified separately using wild yeasts in a mixture of temperature-controlled stainless steel tanks, submerged concrete vats and old French casks of various sizes, and there is also a 500l puncheon of reserve wine named Judy (geddit?) that’s topped up each year, similar to sherry’s solera system.
Vineyard manager, Olly Whitfield with his dog, Wilson. © Bournemouth News Picture Service
Grimshaw is fastidious about tracking and recording data for all of these. “I’ve learnt that it’s possible, vital in fact, to be meticulous and hands off at the same time,” he says. “Barrel management is key,” he goes on. “I like to use the curry analogy when I’m doing the blending. When you make a good curry, you build layers of flavours from the start rather than just chucking in a spice mix. I create structure and complexity from these different base wines; it’s a knife edge which requires a lot of tasting and a great deal of understanding of the fruit.”He is assisted in the winery by Lauren Brewer, 27, another alumni of Plumpton, while the rest of the team comprises 34-year-old Georgina Crawshaw in the vineyard, and Fiona Wright, 32, who heads up marketing.
They are clearly a tight-knit crew who look out for each other, as well as for the wines they make together. “Being a working vineyard and winery, there are always things to be done on site, and with wine being a somewhat essential commodity for many people during lockdown, we were all able to keep coming into work so made our own little Covid bubble.” Wright tells me. “We are all of a similar age, and get on well outside of work, so coming to the vineyard every day meant we managed to keep each other sane and provided some much-needed human interaction, especially during the very isolating winter lockdown.”
On-tap fizz to appeal to new customers
Tommy has made both a white and rosé col fondo. The white is a 50:50 blend of Madeleine Angevine from Sharpham and Langham’s own Chardonnay, while the rosé is a saignée method blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier from another Dorset vineyard just three miles away. Both are naturally fermented in stainless steel then kegged with some of the dormant natural yeasts and a small addition of sugar to produce the second fermentation.
“Our aim with this is to open up to a new audience while not taking anything away from our world-class traditional method sparkling wines,” he says. “There were so many unknowns going into this project but I’m delighted with the results. I am so happy with the whole team here for running with the idea and bringing it to life, and now we’re looking forward to see how we can push it further.”
The col fondos were launched at Terroir Tapas in Southbourne and currently are only available at a handful of outlets, including the Dorset Wine Company in Poundbury, The Bottle in Newquay and Lyme Regis’s Lilac, but Grimshaw has set his sights on wider horizons in the future. He initially made 30 kegs of the white and 10 of the rosé, and will make the same again in the next couple of weeks to keep up with demand, while planning to scale up from that next year as they expand their distribution.
So far reception to Zig Zag has been highly positive. “Zig Zag has been an absolute hit with our customers, especially the die-hard Champagne fans,” says Rob Palmer, owner of The Bottle in Newquay, “It has such a fresh flavour – green apples and a light acidity – and is smoother than a traditional sparkling wine.”
I’m keen to know what other projects are on the cards at Langham’s. “I come up with a fair amount of ideas, although they are not all great ones,” grins Grimshaw. “I have got one or two new ideas up my sleeve at the moment but you’ll have to watch this space to find out more…”
Consider this space well and truly watched.
