What is Flint Charmat?
Flint Charmat is a bright, fresh and easy-going pair of sparkling wines, made from aromatic, sustainable PIWI grape varieties and tank-fermented for energetic fizz.
Simple when put into one sentence, but as with all things Flint, there's plenty more detail for the curious.
England's first Charmat
Flint Charmat is England's first fizz made using the Charmat method. Also called the tank or Prosecco method, this process uses pressure safe tanks to complete the secondary fermentation that gives our Charmat its signature energetic bubbles. Traditionally in England you'd do this fermentation in each bottle like Champagne, but we're paving a new way!
We're also using a completely different set of grape varieties, called pilzwiderstandsfähige or PIWI for short. These grapes thrive in England’s cooler climate, are wonderfully disease resistant, and ripen easily for an intense aromatic character and abundant natural colour. You can’t miss our deliciously deep pink Charmat Rosé!
Is Charmat more like Prosecco or Champagne?
Neither, exactly.
If you smashed the fun fruitiness of Prosecco into the refined elegance of Champagne (and traditional English Sparkling), you’d land about halfway to Charmat. We borrow the tank method from Prosecco, but that's as far as the similarities go, as we're using PIWIs for more character and colour and producing a fizz that is deliberately much drier like Champagne.
Charmat is not an English Prosecco, and it's also not traditional English Sparkling (you can tell by the colour!). We're tearing up the rulebook of English fizz.
How Charmat is made
Vinifying PIWI grapes into sparkling wine through tank fermentation sounds simple, but in practice it takes high-tech equipment and a lot of science to produce.
First we blend an intensely aromatic dry base wine from mainly PIWI varieties, aiming for fruity character and depth of flavour. The rosé is built around dark red varieties — Pinotin, Cabaret Noir and Cabernet Cortis. The white uses Souvignier Gris, Callardis Blanc and Solaris.
Then, rather than fermenting bottle by bottle (like English Sparkling), we ferment 4,500 bottles at once in large, pressure-safe isobaric tanks. We're one of the only wineries in the country equipped to produce sparkling wine this way.
The principle is identical to the traditional method — sugar ferments into alcohol, releasing carbon dioxide that dissolves into the wine as bubbles — but we're not relying on years of yeast contact to build character. Our grapes already have all the character we need.
Charmat can go from still wine to in-bottle and ready to drink in a few weeks, retaining the vibrancy and freshness of the fruit.
Why PIWI grapes are at the heart of Flint Charmat
PIWIs have been deliberately bred over the last 150 years to combine the best qualities of European and American vines. European vines grow delicious grapes but are prone to disease in cooler climates (like the UK), whereas American native vines are resistant to disease and are incredibly vigorous, so by crossbreeding they can distill the best traits into varieties that are perfectly suited for England.
The resulting PIWI vines are naturally disease-resistant and therefore require minimal intervention in the vineyard. They are vigorous, resilient in cooler climates, and reliably able to ripen grapes with intense aromatic character, whatever the English weather throws at them.
We've planted 60,000 PIWI vines across 2025 and 2026 — one of the largest PIWI plantings in the UK — because we believe they're the future of sustainable grape growing in this country. They also happen to taste fantastic, which helps.
The Flint way
We're always pushing at the edges of English winemaking with the aim of producing more interesting wines each year. A lot of science and careful intention go into making wine that feels effortless to drink — whether that's our lively, colourful rosé or our elegant, energetic white.
Charmat is a sparkling wine designed for every day. No fuss, no stress, no need to wait for the ‘right’ occasion to open a bottle.
Charmat FAQ
Is Charmat as nice as Prosecco? If you like fizz that's vibrant, fruity and easy-drinking, yes. Charmat is built for everyday enjoyment rather than a specific occasion.
Is Charmat the same as Prosecco? No. Charmat uses the same tank-fermentation method popularised by Prosecco, but with different grape varieties (PIWIs bred for the English climate) and a drier, more complex finish.
How long does Charmat take to make? From still base wine to bottled and ready to drink typically takes a few weeks, compared to years for traditional-method sparkling wine.
What grapes are used in Charmat? A blend of PIWI varieties. Flint's rosé uses Pinotin, Cabaret Noir and Cabernet Cortis; the white uses Souvignier Gris, Callardis Blanc and Solaris.
Is Charmat sustainable? Yes. PIWI grape varieties are naturally disease-resistant and require minimal spraying.
