Hattingley Valley's Entice 2020: 100% Bacchus Dessert Wine

Tasting Notes

Pale gold in colour, this decadent dessert wine has vibrant aromas of tropical fruits and ripe peach. Beautiful notes of elderflower and pineapple on the palate with a delicious honeyed character and a creamy mouthfeel. Its crisp acidity balances perfectly with the natural sweetness of the Bacchus grapes, leading to a pure, elegant and refreshing lasting finish. Download the full tasting notes here.

A Very Hattingley Innovation 

Our Entice dessert wine came from Simon’s willingness to send our winemakers to experience a harvest in other wine regions to learn all of the latest techniques and skills needed to become a world-class winery. In this instance, the technique of cyro-extraction (a fancy name for freezing grapes) was learnt from a winery in the Central Otago in New Zealand.

By sheer luck, a large fridge freezer had been purchased at the beginning of the winery build in order to keep grapes cool if they needed to be kept overnight (never needed it, it's cold enough in October!). As we had planted a small plot of Bacchus in the vineyard, we felt that this was the best option to try as it is a fragrant variety. We freeze the grapes for around two weeks at minus 10 degrees before emptying them into the Coquard press (no sniggering at the back) at the end of harvest to begin a very gentle press cycle that has to be restarted every 4 hours for 72 hours! The result is a beautifully sweet, fragrant wine that retains a refreshing acidity which comfortably avoids being overly sweet and cloying. English dessert wine made by cryo-extraction, a niche within a niche!

If you would like to learn more about the winemaking process from grape to glass, why not visit us for a Winery Tour and Tasting experience and peek behind the scenes of one of the UK's largest working wineries.

‘The super-ripe and warm vintage of 2020 has given us our 4th vintage of Entice –a unique and sweetly delicious dessert wine that is a testament to Hattingley’s innovative character’ - Emma Rice, Head Winemaker

Click here to try our new vintage! Or check out our range of English Still Wines