Henners Gardners Street Classic

Intro to Henners Gardners Street Classic –

Henners Gardners Street Classic Bacchus – Gardner Street is the historic name of Henners’ home village of Herstmonceux. The old name captures the hand-harvested, artisanal craft of tending vines & wines down English country lanes. A modern marriage of fresh, floral Bacchus with a little barrel-fermented Chardonnay.

Full tasting note and wine making –

Henners Gardners Street Classic Bacchus has the classic floral, elderflower note we have come to know of contemporary Bacchus married with a touch of stone fruit from the Chardonnay. On the palate there’s an abundance of red apple fruit, a touch of wild fennel with the barrel fermented Chardonnay giving mid palate weight and structure to a wine that ultimately finishes with a brisk, present acidity.

In 2020 we harvested Bacchus from partner growers across Sussex and Kent, selecting harvest dates when sugars and acidity were in perfect balance. Following a warm, dry summer natural sugar levels were high and the fruit profile in the grapes was exceptional. We fermented the parcels separately to allow the expression of their respective sites to shine through (Wealden Clay vineyards in Sussex and a chalk-based vineyard in Kent). We selected 20% of the fruit to ferment in 5th fill French barrels for texture. The wines did not go through malolactic fermentation in order to retain the aromatic, floral and tropical notes characteristic of English Bacchus. The marriage of the different parcels, along with a small portion of barrel-fermented Chardonnay from our Henners vineyard gives the wine additional texture and palate weight.

The producer –

Henners is owned and run by Lawrence Warr and is the result of his long term dream to produce the finest English Sparkling Wine. Larry started his career as an automotive engineer in the exciting world of Formula One. Having left Formula One to set up an engineering consultancy, the search for the perfect vineyard site began. The search was a lengthy and dedicated one – as the ideal combination of soils, aspect, slope, altitude and microclimate was difficult to find. After about 18 months of searching, I found the site that would become Henners Vineyard, where free draining sandstone soils, a steep south facing slope, and low altitude combine.
The vineyard in Herstmonceux, East Sussex (just 4 miles from the sea and 24m above sea level), was planted in May 2007, with the winery following in 2009. Today, the 10 acre estate is planted exclusively with the traditional Champagne varieties: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier. As he says, My aim is to be large enough to do it professionally, but small enough to do it well. Larry named the vineyard Henners in honour of his French ancestor, Henners Dubois, who was forced to flee Paris for England during the French Revolution in the late 18th Century.

Drink with –

Pork tenderloins in cider with a generous helping of mash and buttery veg, a veggie lasagne or a hake in butter sauce with capers.