A Field (Trip) in England: Domaine Hugo & Offbeat, July 2024

 

A beautiful visit (on an otherwise drizzly July day) to see Hugo, Nicola, Daniel & Paris in Wiltshire on Monday!

It's always a privilege to take the teams from restaurants, shops and bars to visit growers & winemakers. Travelling less than 100 miles in a couple of rented minivans to bring passionate, like-minded people together to share ideas, stories, food, and wine remains quite the thrill.

It's a vital part of what we do: to offer the opportunity to learn about the commitment to soil health, biodiversity, and winemaking happening on our doorstep.

Monday was a chance to take a wander through the vines and see how the 2024 vintage is progressing (less rain, more sun, please); to taste the latest Domaine Hugo and Offbeat releases, and to enjoy lunch together in the shelter of the winery: salads from the garden, very good hummus, homemade bread, and the second biggest love on the farm: cheese!

A big thanks to the guys for having us down on Monday, and a huge thanks to the teams from Gnarly Vines, Ducksoup, Primeur, Westerns Laundry, Gladwells, Klose & Soan, Highbury Library, Joyce, Salthouse, Jolene, Carmel and Ploussard for joining us for the day!

WE HAVE THE FOLLOWING WINES AVAILABLE FROM EACH PROJECT NOW:

DOMAINE HUGO

SPARKLING

2020 - Hugo - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris

2021 - Botley's Col Fondo - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris

WHITE

2020 - Two Times A Half - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris

PIQUETTE

2023 - Loose Juice 2 - Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Honey

CIDER

2022 - Sunbeams and Rainbows - Orchard Nlend

WINE/CIDER HYBRID

2021 - Combo - Apples, Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay

WHITE

2021 - Field Notes 3 - Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay

2020 - Many Moons - Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay

RED

NV Magic Number - Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc

FOR WHOLESALE ENQUIRIES: HELLO@WINESUTB.COM

 

To The Moons and Back: New Offbeat Wines

 

We are so pleased to be able to finally release two very special wines - both years in the making - from Nicola & Daniel at Offbeat. 

Many Moons is a thrillingly elegant and mineral white, the result of perfect 2020 fruit and four years of age. Magic Number is a detailed, pretty red with complexity, length and substance - they are a testament to the rewards of patience.

These two wines are an important step in their journey: representative of the direction they have been guiding the project towards, in styles they love to drink and have become incredibly accomplished at.

Each is a proper labour of love, the beneficiary of delicate, considered winemaking and a watchful eye in the cellar during their lengthy gestation.  

We caught up with Dan to discuss the journey of the wines, where they fit into the project and the story of the new labels - one most of the wines will now feature. Scroll below to read more on the wines, and the story from Dan.

Both wines are available now, we truly hope you enjoy them.

2020 - Many Moons - Pinot Blanc, Chardonnay

MANY MOONS marks significant milestones in their journey. From the exceptional 2020 vintage, it was the first fruit into their winery and through their traditional Coquard press. We can still remember the joy in the winery as they received this Essex fruit.

It was also the first wine into their 1500-litre Stockinger foudre, a vessel perfect for the longer ageing methods they were eager to explore. As Offbeat transitioned from a side project to a full-time endeavour in 2020, Nic & Dan looked to the high-acid, long-aged wines of the Jura, reflecting on the possibilities open to them with similar varieties and growing conditions.

Tasting the foudre over its two years, they loved its direction. Honing its focus, Dan remembered a Pierre Overnoy quote - that a wine is best spending equal time in bottle as in wood - so the wine was bottled and tucked away for two years before release. Time well spent.

A field blend of Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay grown on the blue clay soils of the Crouch Valley, Essex. Slowly pressed through the Coquard, fermented and aged for two years in foudre. The wine was bottled directly from the vessel via gravity, to the lunar calendar and with no additions.

Loading up the Coquard for the first time, October 2020

NV - Magic Number - Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Blanc

MAGIC NUMBER is emblematic of Nic & Dan's journey with red varieties - it's been a road of discovery, learning how best to develop their ideal characteristics with UK fruit. With Magic Number, they had tapped into a vein of possibility they are still following.

The wine is a one-off by nature: a masterful assembly of different barrels, where outliers from certain vinifications find balance in each other. Featuring three Pinots from the 2021 and 2022 vintages: grown by Lucie & Jules at Ham Street (2021 Pinot Noir) and in the Crouch Valley in Essex (2022 Pinots Meunier and Blanc).

The Pinot Noir had a two-month semi-carbonic maceration and aged in oak for 19 months. Essex fruit macerated together semi-carbonically, before pressing off to oak barrels. Roughly an even split of the two years and vineyards, the wine was assembled and bottled by gravity in July 2023, to the lunar calendar and with no additions.

First juice off the Coquard press, October 2020

LUNAR PHASE: A chat with Daniel Ham, July 2024

"It's really exciting for us to be releasing these two wines that show the direction we're aiming towards. Many Moons is a very momentous one, as it signifies so many firsts for us, and also feels like a real achievement, capturing that year. 2020 was one of the best UK vintages in a decade, we were fortunate to begin the journey in the new winery with that fruit."

"But it was also the year Nic & I started drinking more widely, looking at the wines we love from similarly cooler climate regions - particularly the Jura. With the white varieties, there are so many regions that translate and crossover when you compare with the UK. There's a wealth of inspiration that has helped guide us in where we'd like to go. Less so with the reds, there's certainly not as much crossover or variety, and it's been crucial for us to cut our own path a little more in that regard. We've utilised quite a few different methods in trying to find where we can push things, playing with VA, all sorts of different types of macerations and extraction and ageing."

"There were lots of different barrels that went to Magic Number, perhaps wines that weren't topped up, or were stylistic outliers, things that have been brought together to paint a clearer picture. It's really the story of our journey learning how we want to handle red fruit."

"With the two wines really being a marker of where we're at, and where we're going, we wanted to work on new labels for the whole project: something that represents us a little better, looking to simplify the visual so there's a clear theme through everything."

"For a long time we'd been following the work of Man In The Woods - an artist who used to live around Wiltshire, and has been doing six years of these 'Friday Walks' walking 18km into the countryside, having a pint of ale at the end, then catching the bus to that journeys end-point the following week and picking up the walk from there. He's interested in lots of the same things we are: rural history, ancient folk traditions, standing stones and pubs. I really like his connection to nature, his surroundings, and their history. Stonehenge, which is quite nearby, is of mutual importance to us. "

"We asked him if he would do some illustration ideas based on those shared interests and how they overlap with our winemaking. He brought a few round and there was one little one, on this two-inch square piece of paper. Together, we picked it as the one instantly! He asked if we wanted any revisions or a bigger version of the sketch - but it was perfect as it is."

"It's the 12 phases of the moon around the sun: which are crucial to what we do here. Obviously the sun for the vines, and the moon dictates everything we do in the cellar, it just felt very grounded and connected."

"So nearly all the wines going forward will feature this lovely drawing, with their name on the front. Many Moons is named for its long elevage, a wine that has seen many lunar cycles. Magic Number is three Pinots, and I'm a big De La Soul fan, so it felt right to give a nod to three being the magic number."

The original Man In The Woods sketch

 

Real Wine Fair 2024

 

In little over a week we're very pleased to be taking part in the 2024 edition of the Real Wine Fair!

Here's who will be joining us this year:

Andi Weigand will be pouring a full range of his juicy 2022 wines, farmed on the keuper slopes of Iphofen, Franconia - the land where Silvaner (and techno) reign supreme.

Vincent Alexis will be on hand to pour through multiple vintages from his Barouillet domaine, a rare chance to try his experimental cuvees alongside heavy-hitting crowd favourites.

Hugo Stewart will be on hand to represent the eponymous Domaine Hugo, pouring his pure, invigorating sparkling wines and if we're lucky, he may have a little of his very limited still cuvée: Two Times A Half under the table!

Nicola & Daniel Ham will be pouring through all their new Offbeat releases, wines with prolonged foudre ageing, experimental macerations and cider/wine hybrids - we can't wait for you to try these!

Looking at the map for this year's RWF, it looks like Andi will be waving distance from the UK growers in the Main Gallery, with Vincent a few tables behind, splashing wines around the sea of France.

Let us know if you're attending on either the 28th or 29th so we can introduce you to the growers! Looking forward to seeing you all there.

If you haven't booked yet, you can do so via the button:

 

A British Wine Fair: 03/03/24 - Offbeat

 

The countdown continues to the British Wine Fair on March 3rd with ISCA , Where The Light Gets In and Bedrock - 10 days to go! Tickets are available via the link in our bio, the fair is open to all, and we can't wait to welcome you there.

A handful of some of the most exciting producers working on our shores today gathered together to pour their wines in celebration of a blossoming community of enthusiastic and passionate makers & drinkers!

Among our producers joining will be Nicola & Daniel at Offbeat - who we're very excited to release brand new cuvees from later this year. Watch this space!

📸 Nic & Dan at Bedrock at Ham Street, Summer 2023.

For those unfamiliar, Offbeat is the exciting project from Nicola & Daniel Ham, started in 2018 as a creative outlet, quickly becoming a full-time family operation. Both marine biologists, Dan was bitten by the winemaking bug while living in New Zealand as Nicola completed her PhD.

Since 2020 Dan and Nicola have been making the wines in their own cellar, a converted barn just outside Salisbury. They produce delicate and dynamic wines with no additions, using fruit from trusted growers with shared values. Since 2022, all fruit is organically or biodynamically grown.

 

Notes from the Field.

The latest release from Dan & Nic at Offbeat is here: introducing Field Notes 1.

The first instalment of Field Notes is the by-product of their experimentations with maceration techniques and ageing, a supple and pretty blend of Pinots Noir & Blanc from a plot on clay soils in Crouch Valley, Essex.

Read more

Introducing Offbeat Wines

 
 
9547c66f-cec2-4583-9b43-a445852c3e5c.jpg

Offbeat Wines – Daniel Ham


Cloudy Pet Nats, sparkling reds and an amphora-fermented skin-contact wine. Not exactly what you would expect when you think of wine from the West Country.

It never even crossed our minds when we started Under the Bonnet that we would be working with wines actually made in the UK, it is really cool that we are now working with an English wine producer.

Offbeat – the project of young winemaker Daniel Ham – started in 2018, we first tasted the debut vintage during a lock-in/power cut at 161 towards the end of last year.

The project has a true garage feel to it. Small-scale, simple production, letting the grapes speak for themselves. Just a 2,000-bottle production, hybrid varieties, grapes sourced from unsprayed or practically wild vineyards, macerations, amphora and pet-nats. Wild yeast and sulphur only when he really has to.

Dan isn’t just making wines a-la-mode for the 2020 harvest. He has bought a 50-year-old, two-ton square Coquard basket press, shipped from Champagne, and is investing in old oak. The plan is to make the wine in the way that best suits the raw material he has to work with at the time the grapes are picked, the idea evolving on return from the vineyard to winery.

There is a clear identity that runs through the wines and we can’t wait to see this project develop. The fruit selection on these wines was rigorous which has led to great stability in the bottle.

Skinny Dip and the amphora

Skinny Dip and the amphora

2019 Mind Over Matter – Siegerrebe, Solaris

Field blend of Siegerrebe (36%) and Solaris (64%). 10% of Siegerrebe hand-destemmed then foot-trodden in amphora. The rest was whole-bunch pressed, naturally settled then racked to the same amphora. Bottled via gravity after 15 days, lightly disgorged to remove the heaviest lees.

The fruit used for this wine was grown by Kathy Archer at her vineyard just outside of Ottery Saint Mary in Devon. Kathy is an organic grower (uncertified) and uses no pesticides or herbicides, relying on hard work and spending time amongst the vines to produce grapes of extraordinary quality.
 

2019 Wild Juice Chase – Triomphe

100% Triomphe d’Alsace, handpicked, carbonic maceration in stainless steel vat for five days. Gently pressed, left to ferment for a further eight days. Bottled via gravity, with a small amount of natural sugar remaining to finish fermentation. Hand-disgorged to remove the heaviest deposits.

Grapes come from a small plot of 35-year-old vines grown on clay over chalk in Hampshire’s Test Valley. A relaxed, lutte raisonée management approach is adopted and the vines grow with little human manipulation.
 

2018 Skinny Dip – Solaris

Ripe Solaris grapes from Kathy Archer’s vineyard were destemmed into an 800-litre amphora and left to naturally ferment. Three months of maceration, skins were pressed, and added back to the free run. Rested on full lees in stainless steel for a further ten months before bottling via gravity. In our eyes, a really accomplished wine considering it was Dan’s first vintage.

We have limited quantities of these wines so if you are interested please let us know ASAP so we can try to make sure we save some for you. NB: There will be no further discounts available on these wines.

WHOLESALE ONLY

FOR PRICE LIST ENQUIRIES, EMAIL hello@winesutb.com