Estate Wines

The still wines of Danbury Ridge offer a quiet yet confident expression of the estate’s distinctive setting in the Crouch Valley, Essex. Here, a convergence of warm, dry conditions and complex soils—from rich London clay to sand and gravel—create an environment uniquely suited to ripening Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, vintage after vintage.

Viticulture is precise yet measured, with a focus on soil health, canopy balance, and the pursuit of low yields. In the cellar, a restrained, minimal-intervention approach guides the winemaking: gentle extraction and the careful use of oak allow each parcel to reveal its own character. The resulting wines are poised, finely textured, and intimately rooted in the landscape from which they emerge.

Reviews

2022 DANBURY RIDGE CHARDONNAY

"The 2022 Chardonnay has a taut and linear bouquet with clementine and apricot. Fresh and vibrant, the wine opens up gradually in the glass. The palate has a lovely texture, which marks it out from the previous vintage, much more weight. With very fine delineation and minerality, it’s beautifully balanced, deepening towards the finish with a prickle of stem ginger that feels more pithy and, therefore, has greater umami than the previous vintage. Superb."

Neal Martin Vinous

2022 DANBURY RIDGE PINOT NOIR

"Concentrated, dense and vivid with powerful black cherry fruit with some raspberry. Intense and bold with good structure showing lovely fruit intensity. Grippy and intense, this will be amazing with a few years in bottle. And it should live a long time."

Jamie Goode Wine Anorak

2022 DANBURY RIDGE PINOT NOIR

"The 2022 Pinot Noir has more concentration that the previous vintage. It shows a mixture of red and black fruit and veins of blue fruit that I have not noticed in previous vintages. It’s riper but still very well-defined. The palate is medium-bodied with juicy, ripe black fruit, perhaps a little more New World influenced than Burgundy. Grainy tannins are well integrated with impressive grip towards the finish, with a touch of white pepper on the aftertaste. This will require a couple of years in bottle."

Neal Martin Vinous

2022 DANBURY RIDGE CHARDONNAY

"Subtly oaked, creamy, mealy, with tight, bright, stony citrus fruit. Sophisticated, elegant and persistent."

Julia Harding MW jancisrobinson.com

❮ ❯

2022

2022 was a vintage of anomalies. A maximum temperature of 41.43°C was recorded in the Polo Field on the 19th July, whilst cumulative precipitation for the three summer months, June - August, was a miserly 10mm. Temperatures in September and October fell back to normal values, slowing the ripening, and rainfall remained low. We saw no botrytis and bunches and berries for both Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were small. The team had it easy on the sorting table, but punch downs were brutal given the high percentage of solids. Pump overs and délestage were a salve for aching harvest limbs.

2021

2021 was a tale of two halves. Low yields and extremely vigilant vineyard management were essential due to the cool start to the growing season along with Spring frosts. We needed recorded highs in September and October, and we got them, with a very dry November to follow.

On the Danbury Ridge estate, growing degree days were higher than 2018. Sugar levels were lower than usual because of a cold summer, but phenolic ripeness and flavour profiles were extremely good.

2020

Following one of the wettest winters of the past decade, the growing season began with potentially devastating frost events at the end of March and into April. Despite these cold night-time temperatures, very warm, dry, sunny daytime conditions resulted in the earliest veraison seen in the region in the past decade. Record levels of ripening were achieved as the start of September experienced a late summer heatwave before rain arrived, replenishing soil nutrients and producing healthy, vigorous vines.

2019

The 2019 growing season began well with unseasonably warm weather and low rainfall during flowering, bunch closure and veraison. The low yielding Pinot Noir vines responded well and reached good ripeness levels. At the end of August, the potential for another exceptional harvest was promising. Even with the amount of rain that fell during September and October the grapes had the ideal amount of time on the vine to achieve full maturation of the grape tannins and complex phenolic development.

2018

The 2018 vintage was an excellent growing season. The intense cold and heavy snowfall brought on by the “Beast from the East” delayed the growing season and crucially meant frost at bud-burst was avoided. The warm temperatures and dry conditions prevailed into summer and our vineyards’ experienced 1,039 growing degree days. This long vegetative cycle allowed for slower grape maturation, enhancing flavour development. Near perfect conditions at harvest has resulted in wines that exhibit elegant textures and a generous fruit profile making 2018 a vintage of an exceptional nature that will allow for cellaring.

ESTATE GROWN, PRODUCED & BOTTLED