Welcome to the Flint Wine Cub

A reimagining of our Venn Club, which was one of the first English wine clubs of its kind.  As ever at Flint we like to innovate and so we’ve updated the offerings for this year which I hope you’ll really enjoy!

Experimental wines, the chance to get involved, early bird offers, behind the scenes access and now all geared towards making it easy for you to pick and choose what you want to see.

Not just a wine club: a community for wine lovers, wine nerds, people who want to experience and learn or just those that want to glug some lovely wine!

Thanks for being a part of Flint

Ben

The Experimental & Everything Case

The case for the interested, the nerds and those prepared to take a bit of a chance on what I do here at Flint.  But it'll always be fun and relevant.

This case is an interesting one as it showcases a diverse range of Bacchus styles that I would boldly suggest is not found anywhere else in the world.

There are three wines included which are detailed below and they can be enjoyed separately or in parallel. You have our classic Fumé made the Flint way by blending across multiple sites and methods to produce the most expressive Bacchus we can. Then comes Labs 2: a slightly wild experiment where we produced a sweet wine by stopping the fermentation early.  And finally the Ampohora 2023: low intervention, oxidative Bacchus from the previous vintage that some of you may have already tried but deserved a place alongside these other two. 

So you can taste Bacchus ranging from the mineral Riesling style of the Fumé alongside the developed Amphora which shows signs of how Bacchus develops those petrol-like notes as it ages.  And then finish with a snapshot of Bacchus as it tastes whilst fermenting in a tank.  No-one other than a winemaker would ordinarily get the chance to taste a range such as this so....please enjoy!

Labs 2

This wine for me is what the Flint Wine Club is all about. A pure experiment, but not a safe one.

I’ve always wanted to stop a fermentation early and make a wine which is sweet due to natural sugars. In the UK and Germany it is common to back sweeten still white wines with suss-reserve or concentrated grape juice in order to balance the acidity. This isn’t something I like doing at Flint as I prefer to achieve a natural balance by getting the acid right in the fruit.

About two-thirds of the way through the fermentation, in the thick of harvest we identified two fermenting Bacchus wines that were tasting really good. One was in concrete and the other in foudre (large format oak tank). So both wines were already quite unusual in this respect.

We took about 450 litres of each and blended them together with the addition of about 100 litres Sauvignon Blanc juice that was cold-settling. This juice had not yet begun fermentation and it was fresh, sweet, tropical and zesty. Flavours you don’t usually taste in the final wine.

The blend was crossflow filtered to 0.45 μm, enough to make it free from bacteria and yeast and to prevent a fermentation happening in bottle with the residual sugar. The wine was then bottled immediately and laid down for release until now.

The resulting wine is our sweetest yet with 35 g/L residual sugar. This puts it in the territory of a semi-sweet German wine, but not quite as sweet as a typical Spätlese. But the acidity really cuts through and gives the wine a focus and clarity that sings.

I know a lot of winemakers who pop up to the winery to decant a bottle of Bacchus straight from the tank during harvest to enjoy when they’re shattered after a long day! At this stage it tastes great - really fresh, zingy but with a charming sweetness that takes the edge off its seriousness.

So I hope you can enjoy this wine for what it is. A snapshot of harvest flavours. A deconstructed wine of the 80s (don’t mention Liebfraumilch although it’s basically my take on this!). Perfect for a Summer's day, as an aperitif, after a long day at work or to indulge with over any luxurious desert.

Amphora Bacchus

We have an amphora and we’re going to use it.  The general principle of amphorae is to keep them wet.  A bit like a sour dough - keep the thing healthy and it’ll just get more interesting.

In 2023 year we aged 450 litres of the 2023 harvest Bacchus in terracotta.  Bacchus loves oxygen and the clay of the amphora being porous allows tiny amounts of oxygen to gently open up and soften the wine.  It turns this austere, slightly recalcitrant grape variety into something that is softer, more generous and with greater complexity.

The wine had been fermented using indigenous yeast that were present in the lees of the Silex 2023.  Native fermentations encourage slower fermentations and complexity of aroma.

During ageing it was handled very lightly.  Zero sulphite and just left to chill.  It developed a Flor yeast during this time, which rather than causing problems added to the wine’s profile.  We racked the wine, leaving the yeast behind, sterile filtered it and bottled.

So we have a different style of Bacchus here. Soft and mellow texture, a prickle of acidity, oxidised lemon, bitter orange, cut herbs and a beautifully delicate saline finish.  Showing lovely signs of ageing but with years more potential to come.

Fumé 2024

For the first year our Fumé was fermented just in concrete, oak foudres and neutral oak barriques.  No stainless steel.  In a similar way to the amphora Bacchus, these porous vessels microoxygenate the wine and result in something more complex, textured and rounder.  The Flint style that has been slowly developed over the years.

We’re one of the few wineries using concrete to make wine in the UK.  Once out of favour as an old fashioned and difficult material to use, it has come back around with younger and more experimental winemakers realizing its potential.  Not used for its ease of handling but because it contributes character to the wine - it doesn’t necessarily impart a flavour but it just helps the wine find its own personality.

The Fumé is a carefully crafted wine, blended from ten individually fermented and aged Bacchus wines.  Each made to reflect something different in the grape and brought together to create as much complexity as possible.  Extended skin contact, selected yeast strains and use of oak give a wine that is layered, structured and full of energy.

There is ripe pear and lemon on the nose and the palate is still young and fresh with a gentle prickle of CO2.  Beautifully balanced acidity but bone dry with a mouth-watering finish.  As ever with our Fumé - drink now or wait 20 years.  Either will be great!

The Classic Case

Fumé 2024

For the first year our Fumé was fermented just in concrete, oak foudres and neutral oak barriques.  No stainless steel.  In a similar way to the amphora Bacchus, these porous vessels microoxygenate the wine and result in something more complex, textured and rounder.  The Flint style that has been slowly developed over the years.

We’re one of the few wineries using concrete to make wine in the UK.  Once out of favour as an old fashioned and difficult material to use, it has come back around with younger and more experimental winemakers realizing its potential.  Not used for its ease of handling but because it contributes character to the wine - it doesn’t necessarily impart a flavour but it just helps the wine find its own personality.

The Fumé is a carefully crafted wine, blended from ten individually fermented and aged Bacchus wines.  Each made to reflect something different in the grape and brought together to create as much complexity as possible.  Extended skin contact, selected yeast strains and use of oak give a wine that is layered, structured and full of energy.

There is ripe pear and lemon on the nose and the palate is still young and fresh with a gentle prickle of CO2.  Beautifully balanced acidity but bone dry with a mouth-watering finish.  As ever with our Fumé - drink now or wait 20 years.  Either will be great!

Charmat

We’re fast becoming known for our Charmat wines.  What started out as an experiment in 2017 is now our most popular wine.

I’m super proud of this wine as it’s not something you’ll find in many other English wineries.  There are a couple of main reasons for this.

First off, the winemaking method follows the Charmat process.  Secondary fermentation is done in specialist isobaric tanks rather than bottle producing a wine made in a similar way to that well known Italian fizz.  But it’s not Italian fizz - the method just works in this country and results in a completely unique wine.  We were the first to try this method in England and now there are more and more producers discovering its potential.  Keep a look out - this could prove its spot as the UK’s first original sparkling wine that is not a copy of something else.

Secondly the Charmat predominantly uses PIWI grape varieties.  These are a novel type of grapevine, specially bred to not require any inputs in the vineyard.  They are ultra-sustainable and go beyond even what organic and biodynamic principles require.  Until Charmat came along, these varieties struggled to find a home as their bold aromatics often overpower still wines.  But in a playful, sparkling Charmat wine they just sing.  So we have created an environmentally sustainable wine that also has economic sustainability potential.

A vibrant blend led by Sauvignon Blanc, Reichensteiner, and Bacchus it’s crisp, zesty, and packed with juicy citrus and green apple.  Perfect for anytime, anywhere. No need to wait for a special occasion, just pop the cork and enjoy the future of English sparkling wine. Fun, fresh, and full of life.

Crisp, bright, and full of fresh citrus and orchard fruits, Charmat is a refreshing, easy-drinking sparkling wine. Lively bubbles, with lemon, pear, green apple and floral notes, with a juicy, mouth-watering finish.

Silex 2023

This is the Flint wine for the lovers of Flint.  A slow evolution since day one.  Evolution is a little bit of a highfalutin way of describing this.  It’s really a matter of me finding my way with a glimmer of a guiding principle getting me through.

Usually Pinot or Chardonnay dominant.  But never a predefined blend.  Respecting what the season gives and allowing development without too much of a need for being prescriptive.

Whole-bunch, ultra-gently pressed coeur de cuvée juice was taken at the press.  This allowed the fermentation to be started without settling the juice - minimal handling. The turbidity of that juice was perfect for encouraging a slow fermentation, which promotes varietal character and complexity.

Fermentation, malolactic fermentation and 12 months ageing with lees stirring (bâtonnage) all happened in 225 L barrels (80 % 3rd-fill / 20 % new). The interaction of yeast and lactic acid bacteria in oak enhances complex flavours and the use of both new and older oak lends a balanced texture.

The 2024 Silex is Chardonnay dominant, making up 39 % of the blend.  This Chardonnay was picked from Martin’s Lane Vineyard in the Crouch Valley, Essex.  A vineyard we have worked with since day one and possibly one of the best Chardonnay sites in the country.  The rest of the blend is made up of Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Gris from parcels at Flint.

The wine is dry yet soft, revealing delicate tannins and a textured mouthfeel that reflect its skin-contact fermentation. Then orchard fruit, hazelnut and marmalade emerges on the long, structured finish.  Drinking beautifully now but also with the potential to cellar age for up to ten years at least.