We make the best wine in [insert location]

We make the best wine in [insert location]

Social media is a wonderful place for making grandiose statements. A top trend among a few UK wineries is to claim that they’ve “made the best wine from [insert location]”. 

It might be the whole of England or a particular county. It could be the best sparkling wine or best rosé. But whatever it is, it’s “the best” and it gets under Ben’s skin. 

Ben, Founder and Winemaker, on why there’s no such thing as the best wine

Wine is a story.

When I graduated as a student of Oenology and took my first full-time job making wine in Beaujolais, I was full of confidence and topped up with knowledge. I had a dangerous amount of experience - enough to think I was proficient but not enough for me to realise that I knew nothing.

I remember a conversation with a Chef du Vin (Head Winemaker) at the top of his game and in the twilight of his career. With an air of smugness, I raised the fact that French wines had been categorically beaten in the now infamous ‘Judgement of Paris’, a competition held in the 1970s which pitted them in a blind tasting against new pretenders from California.  

How could he possibly defend this most objective of results? 

His response was simply: ‘Wine is a story - you cannot judge it on a single day’.  I walked away safe in the knowledge that this was a sure sign of bluster. 

What little I knew.

Fast forward ten year and I have now spent many vintages making my own wines and feeling a personal attachment to each of them. I have won some awards, been lucky to receive some kind praise and am hopefully less precocious.  

People often ask me which of the wines I’ve made is the best and this is genuinely impossible to answer. Our Silex blend, for instance, is different every year and what makes it so interesting. It was also the first wine we made with grapes from our Vineyard, so Silex encapsulates the story of Flint. 

In 2003, the Chardonnay was really singing and so Silex 2023 is about 40 per cent Chardonnay with Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir. Silex 2024 will also be Chardonnay dominant. We've got some really nice Chardonnay sitting in a concrete egg, which will add a very different edge. 

Is the Silex the best?

Well, that depends, you could buy a bottle to drink today or hold it back for 10 years, and it would just age beautifully. ‘Wine is a story - you cannot judge it on a single day’ – wise words.

The point is that if I can’t answer the simple question which of my wines is the best, then how can anyone else claim to have made the best wine in the UK? The answer to this is that they cannot and should not because there is no such thing. Wine is a story - end of.

Which of our wines do you think is the best?

The only way to find out is to book a Vineyard Tour with Tasting of course: Book here