{"product_id":"2022-walgate-pinot-blanc-sussex-england","title":"2022 Walgate, pinot blanc, Sussex, England","description":"\u003cp\u003eBen Walgate grew up on a farm in rural Lincolnshire, studied Classics at university, and spent his early working years in London wine bars before a restlessness drove him back to the land. He restored a vineyard on the Isle of Wight, then became CEO of Gusbourne in Kent, helping build one of England’s most admired sparkling wine estates before the scale of it pulled him too far from the cellar. In 2016 he found Dew Farm in Peasmarsh, a semi-derelict 70-acre property near Rye, and co-founded Tillingham, a winery, farm, restaurant and hotel that became one of the most talked-about addresses in English wine. He left in 2023, settling into a converted warehouse on the site of a former boatyard in Rye, and began making wine under his own name. He owns no vineyards of his own. Instead he draws fruit from a small circle of growers across the southeast of England. He ferments with indigenous yeasts in fiberglass, concrete, amphora, qvevri and older oak, a deliberately restless cellar where each parcel is matched to the vessel he thinks will suit it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe pinot blanc comes from organically farmed vines in the Crouch Valley in Essex, growing on London clay over sand and a thread of limestone, within reach of the estuary near Burnham-on-Crouch. The clones are old German selections whose peachy, almost viscous fruit character is juxtaposed with striking natural freshness, a throwback to an earlier and largely forgotten tradition of English white wine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe wine spends time in concrete and older oak before six months on its gross lees and further time on fine lees, then bottled with low sulfur and without filtration. The lees work gives it a textural fullness rare in English whites: baked apple, preserved lemon, ripe pear, a curl of mandarin, and a long pulpy finish with a faint tannin grip throughout.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yes Society","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51730618384680,"sku":"AT22WALGATEPB750","price":55.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/1794\/6152\/files\/Walgate_pinotblanc.jpg?v=1787863758","url":"https:\/\/yes-society.com\/products\/2022-walgate-pinot-blanc-sussex-england","provider":"Yes Society","version":"1.0","type":"link"}