We are fortunate at Chapel Down to have invested in the most up to date winery equipment and a great team of highly skilled winemakers. It's their dedication and passion that enables us to produce such consistently excellent wines. Great winemaking is a cocktail of skills. A sound base of modern, scientific know-how; a hefty dollop of good old-fashioned experience; a slurp of intuitive palate and a topping of creative flair.
We utilize the latest membrane presses which exert the gentlest of pressure onto the whole-bunch hand picked grapes. Each pressing is separately programmed depending upon the characteristics of the variety and source. The juice is tasted as it comes off the press and the winemaking team decide where the best quality juice (the ‘cuvée') and any remaining pressings should be allocated for fermentation.
Fermentation takes place in stainless steel tanks and lasts anything from 7 to 21 days. Over the following weeks, the winemakers come into their own and have the opportunity to use their experience, knowledge and creative skill to put together wines that embody what Chapel Down is all about and which show the fruit off to most advantage.
Some maturation of sparkling base wines and red wines occurs in French and American oak barriques. These wines are topped and tasted regularly throughout their maturation to ensure freshness and homogeneity. The wines are then racked, blended, stabilised and filtered before bottling.
Our sparkling wines spend up to 3 years on lees, "sur lie" as part of our house style. After the desired period of maturation the bottles are hand transferred to our modern Gyro pallets for riddling. The riddled wines are disgorged on our new bottling line and packed and labeled
Chapel Down's modern winery enables our winemakers to produce smart, varietal and fresh wines that display the best of our English Vineyards. It is our aim to produce the best wines in the UK.
Whilst every vintage will be slightly different to any that have gone before, the winemaker's expertise is to ensure that the style and quality remain consistent over the years. England produces both unusual and classic grapes with distinct aromas, flavours and characters. The winemaker's art is to blend them to get the best from the fruit. Every vat is tasted and analysed methodically and blended in such a way to maintain Chapel Down's unique house style for our non-vintage wines, or to create something truly special for the vintages.
Chapel Down conducts guided tours of the winery and vineyards. One of our guides will take you round and explain the winemaking, riddling, disgorging and bottling processes. It is an experience not to be missed.