Coates & Seely’s remarkable La Perfide

england sparkling wine

Coates & Seely’s remarkable La Perfide

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This is one of the UK’s best sparkling wines yet, I reckon. It’s a newly released vintage bottling from Coates & Seely, and is a blend of 60% Pinot Noir/40% Pinot Meunier grown on Hampshire chalk. This vintage wine was subsequently aged for four years sur latte before disgorgement in March 2014. Christian Seely has this to say about it:

Although most of the Coates and Seely wines are blends from several years, with significant stocks of wine being laid down each year as reserve wines for future blends, we decided that from time to time we would set aside small amounts of exceptional wine to be bottled as Vintage Coates and Seely, to age sur latte for a minimum of three years, or more if we felt that the wine demanded it. In this case the exceptional character of the wine seemed to merit four years ageing sur latte.
Following disgorgement earlier this year, we believe that La Perfide is now ready for release. We in fact chose the name of this cuvee back in 2009 when we made the wine, and have been longing to use it ever since then. It is of course inspired by the traditional French perception of England as “La Perfide Albion”. Although the notion of our perfidy does have certain negative connotations and is clearly based on a misapprehension, we have decided to embrace this idea in a positive way, on the basis that the mutual mudslinging between French and English is always mingled with a certain amount of respect and affection, and a term that might have been intended as an insult can quite easily be considered to be in fact a backhanded compliment and a sign of respect.

Coates & Seely Britagne Rosé La Perfide 2009 Hampshire, England
12% alcohol. Salmon pink colour. Lovely perfumed nose with a sappy cherry quality, subtle herbiness and appealing fruit, as well as some faint toast. The palate fresh, rounded and generous with toast, spice and leafy cherry notes. Real finesse here. 93/100

2 Comments on Coates & Seely’s remarkable La PerfideTagged ,
wine journalist and flavour obsessive

2 thoughts on “Coates & Seely’s remarkable La Perfide

  1. Many English sparkling wine producers have shied away from extended lees ageing on either stylistic or working capital grounds.

    Wiston, Hattingley, Gusbourne, Ridgeview and Nyetimber all making some excellent fizz, I will have to try C&S as well.

  2. Annoyingly, only on general release in the early spring. I was hoping to bag a few bottles now!

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