A Visit to Chafor Wine Estate English Sparkling Wine

Amongst the many English Sparkling Wine growers across the country, I was particularly pleased to receive an invitation to visit Chafor Wine Estate as here is a relatively new label to the industry and I’d heard some good things about their wines so I wanted to get a better idea of who they were and what methods were behind their wine making.

English summer time can sometimes throw you some grey miserable weather and this is what challenged me mostly at my visit to Chafor Wine Estate, but this thought quickly subdued upon seeing the pizza oven blazing away and a line up of fresh toppings ready to be roasted on my arrival… “Pizza pairs well with our vintage rosé sparkling wine” Tim Chafor, founder and owner, shared as he prepared the home made pizza and as you know, wine and its relationship with food is always an important topic to discuss and a firm reason behind which label we go for.

“I try and make all our wines food friendly, it’s one of my philosophies as a wine maker” states Tim and you certainly feel that each of his labels would pair up well with varied courses at meal time. A boldness to the wines from a new and ambitious winery making a statement in the English Wine industry and certainly having every chance of a growing name both within wine professionals and everyday wine lovers.

New to the scene of wine making yet this is no gallant Eddie the Eagle jump at Calgary, it’s more of a Bucks Fizz refreshing impact on the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest. We have wines here that have their own identity and a very relaxed and smooth tasting experience, no hard hitting acidity or sharpness to blight your enjoyment, but yet still leaping out at you with freshness and taste. Not only do their wines sell locally into the community, they are also already supplying wine to Waitrose.

A window of opportunity allowed us to take a tour of the vineyard at Chafor Wine Estate and capture some footage of the estate along with some interviews with Tim. I was very impressed with the varied soil types around the vineyard and much variation was evident as you went from higher ground down to lower of which Tim explained in the video below. You can certainly see that grapes would be producing a variety of flavours which will be giving Chafor Wine Estate a great variety of tastes to charm us English wine lovers with.