On your marques

An English sparkling wine to rival Champagne?

They said it couldn't be done, making a sparkling wine in England to rival Champagne. The very notion that England might produce a fizz of Grande Marque Champagne class probably seems about as realistic to most as a Reliant Robin winning the French Grand Prix. But Stuart and Sandy Moss were unfazed by the doubting Thomases.

After falling in love with England when they came over from Chicago in the 1970s, the Mosses embarked on an ambitious plan. "From the outside looking in, it seemed there was an obvious gap," says Stuart Moss. "Sparkling wine was completely untried. We set out to show that a top sparkling wine could be made in England. That was the challenge."

English producers at the time were using early-ripening Germanic grapes, but Stuart and Sandy Moss thought only the classic grapes of Champagne would work. "We knew we had to find the right geological and climatic conditions," says Sandy Moss, who, with Stuart, searched for five years for the best possible site. Chalk was not a requirement. According to Stuart, "the Champenois have made a virtue of their soils from necessity. But it's not magic."

They eventually found the dilapidated manor of Nyetimber - a medieval priory given to Henry VIII's fourth wife, Anne of Cleves - at West Chiltington in West Sussex. So much restoration work was needed the Mosses were initially discouraged. At last in 1987, they decided to buy the estate with 105 acres of land.

They sought advice from the Champenois on all aspects of planting a vineyard. At the same time, they equipped themselves with a sprayer and tractor. The Champenois, for their part, seemed to regard the mild-mannered but determined Mosses as more intriguing than threatening. "They really took us under their wing," says Sandy Moss.

The first grapes were planted in 1988. Then, in 1990 and 1991, the vineyard was increased to 50 acres - mostly with chardonnay, but also with seven and half acres of pinot noir and pinot meunier. After taking a wine-making course, Sandy Moss engaged Jean-Manuel Jacquinot, from the eponymous Champagne house, to advise on the winemaking and all-important blending side. A Magnum press, the only one in the country and one of only 30 in the world, was installed to ensure a gentle pressing of the grapes.

To date, the Mosses have been delighted with the clemency of the late autumn weather. Apart from 1995, a disastrous frost year throughout England, yields have been almost embarrassingly good.So much so, that this year they had to prune back the vines.

The wine spends three and a half years on its side in heavy-duty Champagne bottles in purpose-built winery. The first release, the 1992 Nyetimber Blanc de Blancs, was recently launched to a fanfare of praise. Tom Stevenson, a Champagne specialist, placed it top of 42 English sparkling wines in a blind tasting, while other experts declared they couldn't tell it apart from vintage Champagne. The Mosses have even sold it to Champagne itself, where - at one blind tasting - it sparked a debate about whether it came from the Aube or the Cote de Blancs district.

Is it worth all the praise? The answer, quite simply, is yes. It's not just that it looks classy in the Nyetimber livery of green and gold, but the wine in the bottle is genuinely impressive: a fizz with a rich mousse of tiny pinhead bubbles, an aromatic toasty character and a firm backbone of acidity lending genuine elegance and finesse.

"We held our breath at the first pressing of the juice," says Sandy Moss, "but when we got the thumbs up from the experts, we thought it would turn out well." The Mosses are delighted, of course, but the most gratifying aspect of Nyetimber's success has been in achieving the goal they set themselves 10 years ago: to produce an English sparkling wine of which England could be proud

Nyetimber, at pounds 180 a case, is available from Nyetimber Vineyard, West Chiltington, West Sussex RH20 2HH (01798 813989/fax 815511)