Would you pay £100 for English fizz? Chapel Down launches the country's most expensive sparkling wine

England’s most expensive bottle of wine has just been released in honour of St George’s Day.

Leading British winemaker Chapel Down has recently launched a Coeur de Cuvée English sparkling wine at a price of £99.99, making it the most expensive English-made wine currently on sale, replacing Nyetimber’s Single Vineyard Tillington 2010, priced at £75.

Named Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2013, the wine is produced from the best blocks of Chardonnay in Chapel Down’s 98-hectare vineyard on the North Downs of Kent. Only 1,600 individually numbered bottles of the wine have been produced, which is said to raise the bar for English fizz.

Telegraph wine columnist Susy Atkins was one of the first to taste the wine, and describes it as "a delicious wine, notably dry and finely balanced with a fresh, crisp quality and richer notes of toasted nuts and baked apples.

"It will age beautifully, mellowing gradually and becoming toastier over the next 10 years."

However, she remains sceptical of the bottle's high price: "It's certainly a fine wine but this is risky and only time will tell if English fizz can be sold at £99.99 a bottle. This new, rapidly expanding industry will be watching Chapel Down's launch of a super-premium fizz with great interest."

Mark Harvey, Chapel Down’s Managing Director, told The Telegraph: “Our vision has always been to produce exceptional wines from the Kit’s Coty estate; to push the boundaries of what can be achieved in this country."

"Right from the start of this journey, when the first fruit from the Kit’s Coty vineyard was harvested in 2010, we knew this site was capable of excellence. We are thrilled with the results and are excited to now share these wines with the market and the growing number of pilgrims of Chapel Down.”

The conditions of the award-winning vineyards (a micro-climate on the south-facing slopes, limestone-rich chalk soil) results in intensely-flavoured fruit, with the Coeur de Cuvée produced from the first pressing, before being aged in French oak for seven months. The result is an exceptionally pure, fresh tasting wine, requiring minimal filtration.

Flavour notes are said to include green apple, tropical fruit, hazelnuts and brioche. Chapel Down recommends the wine as an aperitif or as an accompaniment to shellfish.  

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