Gusbourne Estate Brut Reserve 2016

The vines responsible for this distinguished, heavenly sparkling wine hail from across the water in Champagne but, boy, are they thriving in Kent.

Yes the 'Garden of England', with its warm summers, tempered by the cooling North Sea breeze seems to agree very well indeed with these Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier cultivars, resulting in wines like this incredibly popular, lemony, nutty, toffee apple-esque corker. Channel hopping never tasted so good.

The vines are Champagne cultivars and Gusbourne Estate aims to produce the best grapes possible. These guys have big plans and are one of the friendliest and most beautiful vineyards in the UK, so keep an eye on them because they are great fun to visit. They used to produce the grapes and sell them to other brands, until they realised that their grapes were of such a high quality they could win the accolades for themselves. They use the Method Champenoise (cheekily called Méthode Anglaise on the bottle as a nod to the Brit that invented it).

Sparkling gold in colour, this Chardonnay-dominant blend offers bright lemon and white stone fruit with aromas of freshly baked bread, apple pie and toffee apples. The palate is again zesty and fresh with a good citrus structure fleshed out baked apples, pears, nuts and oatmeal. This wine is perfect for drinking now and will continue to develop well over the next two years. Far more than just an aperitif wine, the citrus flavours make it an excellent accompaniment to oily fish such as salmon.