It has been named the world's best white wine, impressing
a panel of 200 international experts so much that they scored it 95 out of 100.
Beating off 17,200 other entries, it won the Platinum
Best in Show at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2017.
Yet it is a humble £13.95 bottle from Norfolk, a region
that has hitherto made little impression on fine wine's top table.
Winbirri Vineyards' Bacchus 2015 wine was the victor,
with judges describing it as the ‘perfect aperitif wine’.
They said the wine had a ‘complex, oily nose with spice,
elderflower and citrus’. It was deemed to be 'very elegant and delicate with a
slight spritz and a long, clean finish’.
Winbirri is a family-run vineyard, beside Norfolk Broads
National Park, that was established in 2007. Like other wine producers in the
UK, Winbirri has benefited from increasingly warm summers.
Lee Dyer, Winbirri's head winemaker, predicted that
Norfolk wines would continue winning prizes. He told the Eastern Daily Press:
"Norfolk has so much potential as a wine region, particularly when it
comes to still wines.
"I think Bacchus has to be the jewel in the crown
and, more importantly, for my site as it just works so well here. The flavour
profiles and aromas we can achieve here from our vines are second to none."
The news is a boost for the English wine industry
following a difficult spring. Unseasonal frosts in April have severely damaged
this year's harvests across Kent and Sussex. Winemakers described conditions as
the worst they had seen for 20 years.
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