We stock a mixture of different method sparkling drinks, including Traditional Method, like our own wines, Charmat method Prosecco and Lambrusco, non-alcoholic sparkling teas and many more. Each drink has been carefully selected because there is something extremely special about it, and we want to share this with you.
Carefully selected Collection Packs are available on our website, or visit us at the winery to view the full collection.
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This defines everything that is so special about vintage wine – once it’s gone, it really is gone!
She’s clearly been a popular one and we shall greatly miss her… But hopefully in not too long our 2020 Rose will be ready to be introduced to you all. Until then, we still have our 2019 White From White available, as well as a range of sparkling wines in our ‘Hall Of Fizz’ – if you haven’t visited yet, it’s definitely worth a browse.
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We’re vegan…
If you’re vegan, or if this is something you’re looking to consider as we enter a new year, it’ll please you to know that our wines are completely vegan friendly. You may be thinking, surely all wines are vegan, being made wholly from grapes and their juice, but there can be other additions used in their production. Winemakers often use animal-derived products, such as gelatine or isinglass, as fining agents to clarify the wine. By ensuring gentle pressing and careful handling during the winemaking process, we keep fining and filtration to an absolute minimum, and these processes are often not required at all depending on the vintage. Where fining agents are used, we opt for vegan alternatives, such as vegetable pea protein.
We’re Sustainable
As consumers, we are rightly becoming ever more aware and interested in what goes into our food and drink and how it’s made, as well as the environment being in our thoughts more than ever. We have recently acquired sustainability accreditation for the winery, but we’re not stopping there, always reviewing and looking for ways to improve and reduce our impact on the environment. Our grapes travel just a couple of miles from vineyard to winery where we then transform them into our sumptuous sparkling wines, which are sold from our cellar door shop, or can be drunk in our taproom in view of the very tanks in which they were made - you can’t get much fewer ‘wine miles’ than that!
And Our Wine Surpasses The Taste Test
Most importantly of all, the proof is in the tasting. Whether Veganuary is for you or not, enjoy a world-class sparkling wine simply for what it is, knowing that there has been absolutely no sacrifice to the quality and exquisite taste of our wine in making it accessible for everyone.
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So we’re starting off with Ginuary – Whether you’re already a gin fan or not, we have 2 very different gins to capture your imagination, and we’d love you to pop up to the winery this January and try one for yourself!
Banish the January blues with a fresh and fruity pink Harvest Gin. Not just for Summer, our Harvest Gin is deliciously smooth and seductively sippable, with the flavours of the strawberries, raspberries and orchard apples grown in the fields around our winery.
Our Oak Aged Gin is not your usual gin. With the finest of oenological oak bringing warming nutty and spicy flavours, with hints of nutmeg and vanilla, this gin is best mixed with a ginger ale to bring out all its smoky flavours, although I enjoy it best sipped neat over ice.
Time to give them a try!
]]>We want to give a huge thank you to those of you who have followed our journey from the very beginning, regularly returning to us and recommending us to your friends and family. And thank you also to those of you who have discovered us over the past year, championing our drinks and our new ventures with such enthusiasm.
A huge step for us this year was consolidating our product range, and rebranding all of our bottles. With the release of our 2nd vintage of sparkling wines, it was important for us that the outside of our bottles truly reflected how very special the contents are within. We printed our original labels ourselves on a pharmaceutical label maker, in order to release our first vintage at the start of a global pandemic, so our new branding really is a step up. So many of you have commented on the beautiful simplicity of our bottles and we hope you’re now proud on every level to share these with friends and family.
We have, this year, released 2 new gins, which we hope you’ve been lucky enough to try for yourselves, as well as reinventing our previous Marourde Spritz drink in its fresh, modern and versatile Aperitif style. The new branding has allowed us to bring together our full range of drinks in alignment, to reflect the fact that our 2 gins and our Marourde Aperitif are intrinsically linked to our work as winemakers.
One of the main highlights this year, alongside the continued success and enjoyment of our drinks, has been the introduction of hospitality here at the winery. Works to expand our production and tank rooms have freed up space in our winery, allowing us to create an intimate and authentic space for you to enjoy a drink, as well as space for tours and tastings, dining experiences and private events. This has given us more of a chance to meet you all in person and share some fantastic evenings with you. We’ve been honoured to work with some fantastic chefs, and we’re already working on plans for lots more events next year, so make sure you keep an eye on your inbox – any new dates will come straight to you first on the mailing list!
Our harvest this year was our most difficult yet, but has taught us that Scott’s hard work throughout the year, maintaining the vineyard with meticulous care and attention always pays off, harvesting a great crop despite the unfavourable weather. We embraced machine harvesting this year and found it worked really well for us, getting fantastic quality grapes harvested and up to our winery for pressing at impressive speed.
So it has been a busy year for us to look back on, reflect and continue moving forwards. We are a small team but brimming with pride and passion for what we do. Each time one of you walks through the door, places an order, tells us you’ve loved our drinks, recommends us to someone else - it means an awful lot to us.
From myself and the team, we wish you all the best for 2022, and we hope next year is a positive one. We hope to see you up at the winery very soon and we can’t wait to share with you all the plans we have in the pipeline. Thank you for sharing the journey with us every step of the way.
]]>Our deadline for orders for delivery is 5pm on Tuesday 21st December. Remember we offer free mainland UK delivery on both of our sparkling wine case deals, and on any orders over £100.
]]>Strikingly simplistic, we have designed our bottles to represent the classic elegance which comes with drinking a glass of our English Sparkling Wine. In contrast, the back label represents all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes, packed with all the details from varietals to harvest and fermentation dates. Each bottle is labelled by hand by a member of the team here at the winery, to pass from our home to yours.
Make it a Christmas worth waiting for with a bottle of Mereworth. Case deals available in store and online.
]]>Winter Warmers…
Now that it’s getting cold outside, you’ll want something to warm you up from the inside, and we have the perfect pair…
Oak Aged Gin…Using time-honoured winemaking techniques, we use the finest toasted oak to bring warming nutty and spicy flavours to our gin, with hints of nutmeg and vanilla. Enjoy sipped neat over ice, or compliment its flavours by mixing with a ginger ale.
Marourde… Our exploration into the history of wine has brought us to this fantastically modern aperitif. We make our own wine, steep it with an abundance of fruits, herbs and botanics to bring you our unique and temptingly aromatic MAROURDE. . Serve it as it comes over ice, or try one of our suggested cocktails.
But for a real taste sensation, we recommend combining the two. If you haven’t tried it before, our very own Mereworth Negroni is super smooth – bitterness, balanced out by a fruity sweetness with deep, smoky flavours from our oak aging.
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White From White
Our elegant and sophisticated White From White is fresh and crisp, made entirely with our Chardonnay grapes. Delicate citrus flavours and gentle toasted notes compliment the honied apricot and almond aromas. Pour this alongside your white fish starters or roast turkey main course, and the ideal match for that indulgent Christmas cheese platter
Rose
Delicately pale but with hidden depths, our brut rosé brings English hedgerow fruit aromas to the table with juicy berry flavours and hints of morello cherry and red grapefruit. The perfect partner for salmon, with the texture and body to even pair with darker meats. The berry flavours carry this through easily into desserts.
]]>As growers and stewards of the land here in Kent, it has always been important for us to minimise our impact on the environment and maximise our contribution to environmental conservation and biodiversity. All the energy we use comes from renewable sources and we will continue to review and improve wherever we can, working harmoniously alongside nature to get the best out of our grapes.
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As with all decisions, there are pros and cons between machine-harvesting and hand-harvesting, but the quality of the resulting wine is not one of the defining differences. There has often been an argument that hand-picking grapes, as we have done with our previous vintages, provides a more artisanal approach to winemaking, with a supposed reputation for higher quality wines. In reality, machine-harvesting can produce the same, or even better results, as long as it suits the circumstances of the individual vineyard. Advancements in the technology of harvesting-machines have come a long way over the last decade, making them much more gentle and precise in their approach, negating the argument that this method is detrimental to the grapes.
This option allows us to choose the optimum time for picking, when the grapes are at perfect maturity, and get it done in a much shorter space of time. We are lucky that our vineyard is a very short distance from our winery, and with this method we receive cool, freshly picked grapes with their quality preserved, which can then be pressed immediately, yielding the highest calibre of wine. When it comes to the crunch, the proof is in the tasting and the quality of our wine is always our highest priority. Our method of harvesting is just one of a great number of factors we consider in order to produce the very best of ‘Mereworth’ in each bottle, so we can assure you that in this sense, nothing will change!
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We have moved our beloved press “Willma” outside for this Harvest. As the ‘ship’ that sets us on our way for the journey of each year’s grapes, we have given her an honourable christening in her new position with a bottle of our White From White. As you can see, the bottle broke, so hopefully the tradition stays true and this will bring us good luck. We will now have a lovely new flow to the operation, with our grapes being pressed, then the juice being taken straight to the tanks in our new production rooms.
You may have noticed if you’ve visited or driven past recently, we have lots of construction work underway. We are expanding our production area into the middle corridor of the Oast, ready for this year’s harvest. The floor and ceiling are in place in our new ‘corridor’ with lighting now installed and a new roller shutter door at the side of the building.
The arrival of big, shiny new tanks is always an exciting moment that puts a smile on our face with the realisation of the progress we’re making. 3 brand new fermentation and cold stabilisation tanks are now in. This will give us the tank space to create all of our ‘Mereworth’ wine as well as doing some contract winemaking for other vineyards.
Expansion into our new corridor gives us more space for this increased tank capacity, and storage space as we add another vintage to our collection of wines in bottle awaiting disgorgement. It also frees us up more space in the winery for wine tours and tastings, dining and events going forward, which we can’t wait to share with you.
At the moment, we are powering through to have all of the works done in time for our upcoming Harvest which is creeping ever closer thanks to the sunny weather we’ve had for the latter part of September (our prayers to the Sun Gods were answered, although we wouldn’t have minded if it had lasted just a little longer)
It has been a monumental achievement so far, and we can’t wait to see all of the hard work come to fruition. There is plenty of work still to be done so we will keep you updated. Hopefully in not too long we will have the honour of showing you around our transformed winery.
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Oli from Allium Events will be cooking up a 5-course feast at the winery and we have a limited number of tickets remaining for Nov 11th and Nov 25th
Oli specialises in open fire cooking, inspired by his Middle Eastern heritage. Oli's imaginative menu, which he has put together for his pop-ups at the winery, focuses on taking fantastic, local produce and creating dishes packed with big flavours and colours. This could not be more of a perfect match for the creativity and passion for local ingredients which we hold dear.
Tickets available through the 'Events' page of our website. Join our mailing list to hear first about any future events.
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It's great to finally see some flashes of purple as we walk through the vines. Veraison is where the grapes transition from berry growth to berry ripening, most visible on our black Pinot grapes.
We are running about 3 weeks behind where we were at last year, so we're hoping to be harvesting mid-October. We have our fingers crossed for some glorious sunny weather between now and then to speed the ripening process along.
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We wanted to create spirits which echo our work as winemakers and the time-honoured techniques this encompasses, as well as the importance we place on the land that surrounds our vineyards and winery here in Kent. It’s extremely exciting to now be sharing with you our new gins, which do just that.
Our fruity, pink Harvest Gin, made in recognition of the jubilance of Harvest time, uses the fruits and botanicals that grow in the fields surrounding the winery, including home-grown strawberries, raspberries, orchard apples and meadow flowers.
Our Oak Aged Gin brings an English vintner’s touch to a timeless spirit, using some of the finest winemakers oak, which imparts nutty, spicy and citrus flavours to our amber-gold gin. Delectably smooth, with hints of nutmeg and vanilla, and a long finish of warming spices. Perfect mixed with a ginger ale.
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If you've been given the daunting task of planning your Christmas work party, we could have the perfect solution. We will be offering our winery as the perfect space for canape and drink receptions, full 3-course meals or wine tasting evenings on selected days and evenings in the lead-up to Christmas. If you'd like to be one of the first to secure a date at our unique winery location, please pop us an email with your numbers and requirements, and we'll happily provide you with some options and prices.
]]>Dare we say it, inevitably as we arrive at the warmest week of the year, we've started thinking about that festive season. Today we held our Christmas photoshoot, sheltering from the 30 degree heat outside. We are in the midst of putting together some fantastic gift packs which bring together all of the drinks we make right here at the winery, including some new ones which we will be introducing you to very soon!
It looks like the vines haven’t been affected by the frosts in early Spring, but now flowering is underway, it’s a vital time for temperatures to rise and for the rain to ease off. Some warm, dry weather will help the vines to pollinate, leading to seed development and fruit set – this is where a percentage of the flowers on the vine become berries, and we hope for these to grow into good-sized and well-ripened grapes.
To see the full itinerary of upcoming masterclasses and to book your tickets, go to the 'Masterclasses' page under 'Our Events'
]]>Mereworth Winery & Taproom is open. If you’re looking for somewhere unique and welcoming to drink, we’ve got the perfect solution. Now you can drink our wines in the very room where we transform our grapes into exquisite English fizz.
If you’ve popped in to see us at the winery recently, you may have noticed that we’ve been making some changes here to create a space where you can drink our wines with us. This unique space means you can enjoy our newly released sparkling wines in the very room where they were made, sitting amongst the tanks, and under the watchful gaze of our press.
Inside and outside tables are available for walk-ins, with drinks served from our fully-stocked bar during shop opening hours.
Come along – we can’t wait to share our wines with you here at our winery.
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