Happy Halloween Happening Right Now Tasting - Cà dei Frati I Frati Lugana 2018

My Halloween “Happening Now Tasting“ tradition is back (at least this year). I guess an introduction for "this" is not really necessary! It is certainly highly famous. And the photo says more than enough … Let's get the job done ...

Oxney Organic Estate Rosé Brut NV, Sussex

Poor old Wiston – not Winston; I think I have mentioned his dire fate on numerous occasions, if not dosn't really matter - is still rotting away in a veritable dungeon in the persumed, alleged and very formal intellectual heavens of mankind – I know that's really cryptic – and I am not sure if I will be able to free him in the foreseeable future! Hence, I need to go for an adequate substitute in my rather fizzy year 2021. A fizzy year without some British bubbles wouldn't be complete, I suppose. That's why I sent my tongue out to East Sussex to Englands oldest and largest organic winery: Oxney Estate! The quite juvenile Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Seyval Blanc vines for today's Rosé Brut NV have been cultivated on Tunbridge Wells sand, which is a fine sand and silt loam above clay bedrock, just a few miles north the English Channel alongside the border to Kent. Sound quite fine and champange'ish to me so far. Well, sure about this old school proto hybrid-grape – so to speak - Seyval Blanc … whatever, let's give it a try ...