Roebuck Estates
Blanc de Noirs
Sussex
2015

The producer

Roebuck Estates Winery is a distinguished vineyard located in the heart of the Sussex countryside, renowned for its exceptional sparkling wines. Established on prime viticultural land, the winery leverages the region's unique microclimate and chalky soils, which are ideal for cultivating premium grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier. The estate combines traditional winemaking techniques with modern innovations to produce award-winning wines characterized by their elegance, complexity, and balance. Roebuck Estates is committed to sustainability and quality, ensuring that every bottle reflects the meticulous care and craftsmanship invested in its production. Their wines are celebrated for their refined flavours and are a testament to the burgeoning reputation of English sparkling wines on the global stage.

They have six parcels of land which are blessed with a wealth of different soil types and microclimates, and are separated into 70 individual blocks of vines, each with its own clone and rootstock combination best suited to that soil. Using a sophisticated software system called Sectormentor, their team of expert viticulturalists keep a detailed record of how each block is faring so they can be precise in their approach.

The wine

Only made in exceptional years, Roebuck’s 2018 Blanc de Noirs is complex and refined with delicate bubbles, a silky texture, and a long, exquisite finish. Delightful notes of citrus fruits and baked apples are layered with generous notes of toasted brioche, honey and sweet spice.

2018 was a perfect growing season in every way. Favourable conditions at flowering and fruit set followed by an incredible summer filled with long, sunny, dry days encouraged a bountiful crop of high-quality fruit with exceptional balance and flavour. Picking started in early September with large yields of wonderfully ripe bunches sent to press. Undoubtedly, one of the finest vintages in England to date.

Carefully selected bunches were harvested by hand and gently whole bunch pressed. Partial fermentation in old Burgundian barrels followed by a generous lees-ageing in bottle for a minimum of 45 months imparts a wonderful richness and complexity on this exceptional sparkling wine.

Roebuck’s vineyards span the width of the beautiful county of Sussex, in the South of England. They are fortunate to have a variety of soil types giving them a multitude of stylistic elements to play with when it comes to blending their wines. All the fruit destined for their bottle-fermented sparkling wines is harvested by hand and whole-bunch pressed. Their Blanc de Noirs 2018 has been bottle-aged for a minimum of 48 months giving the wine additional richness, depth and complexity.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.