Intro to Henners Garden Street Rose – Henners Gardner Street Rose from Sussex – 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 bright Pinot Noir and plush Pinot Meunier. Full tasting note and wine making – Henners Gardner Street Rose has seaside salinity and mandarin zest on the nose and there is a beach pebble minerality texture to the palate along with a blood orange tang. Persistent zing and lift to the finish. It is made of 65% pinot noir, 35% pinot meunier blend of wine from fruit sourced 100% from Henners clay soils. The fruit was hand picked and loaded into the press as whole bunches before around 10% of the remaining fruit was manually destemmed and loaded into the press on top of the whole bunches for a 12 hours maceration to draw out colour and delicate fruit flavours. Following pressing the juice was fermented 100% in stainless steel and did not undergo malolactic fermentation. The warm 2020 vintage has delivered a ripe, round, fruit-forward rose packed with red fruit character. 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 – Clam linguine with a splash of Gardner Street Rosé in there, anything with prawns or a beef carpaccio.
