16th June 2022 | Cork Talk | 3 minute read
This week has seen a momentous achievement in English winemaking history as Sussex was granted official PDO status. In layman’s terms, this means that (just as with a bottle of Champagne or Bordeaux) wine produced in the Sussex region is now protected, and therefore a sparkling wine named ‘Sussex’ will now carry a huge amount of significance.
Following this milestone, Sussex joins other geographically indicated wines like Champagne and Prosecco. We’ll cheers to that!
Sussex is an English wine region that shares a similar climate and terroir to the Champagne region in France, so, understandably, winemakers here are able to produce sparkling wines of incredible finesse and quality.
Going forward, still and sparkling wines produced in the Sussex area must abide by a set of strict rules that have been put in place to ensure that the quality and reputation of Sussex wines are protected and never drop. Only wines produced within a certain area will be able to proudly display Sussex on their label, and any winemaker based just outside of the zone boundaries will have to label their vino as English.
Generally speaking, in the wine world you get wines that have a geographical indication (GI) and wines that do not. The European Union then divides GI wines into two smaller categories:
Sussex has achieved PDO status, which is the more prestigious of the two above categorisations.
This is certainly a big moment for the English wine scene, and English sparkling winemakers, as the legal protection of wines produced in Sussex indicates to the world that this is a wine region of outstanding quality. We couldn’t agree more, and are prouder than ever to be stocking so many premium sparkling wines from the Sussex region.
So, next time you’re celebrating a special occasion, why not pop open a bottle of Sussex!
