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Our Wine Story

Fine English Bubbly.

Dryhill vineyard is situated on free draining limestone terraces cut by the Romans and it nestles in a fold on the side of the Cotswold escarpment at around 130m above sea level.

Our Cheltenham vineyard is tended by hand which allows minimum intervention to help strive for the finest fruit using sustainable principles.

It is said that the great wine is made in the vineyard and everything we do is focused on optimizing the quality of our grapes.

We grow Pinot Noir to give structure to our premium bubbly, Pinot Meunier for complexity, Chardonnay for texture and we only make vintage bubbly to celebrate a given year.

We look forward to sharing our bubbly with you.

From little acorns…Oak Barrels

In centuries past, Oak barrels were routinely used for flavour development to add a dash of spicy vanilla richness in Champagne. We are following this heritage approach.

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"Our philosophy is to focus on our fruit to create wine with a sense of time and place."

The wine journey - Life behind the glass

After the harvest our grapes are separated by colour and then gently pressed for around 6 hours to slowly release the best quality juice known as the first ‘pressing.’

A proportion of the juice is stored in elegant oak barrels previously used for 2 years in the production of burgundy wine. This helps develop delicate vanilla notes, softness and complexity in our wines.

Thereafter we use traditional method fermentation and further age our bubbly in bottles “on the lees” (in contact with yeast) for an extended timescale generally more than 36 months.

Periodic tasting ensures the wine is released at just the right time and all our bubbly is vintage, made from grapes from a single year.

Our still Rosé wine…it’s a Slippery Slope

After the harvest our grapes are gently pressed to give a premium quality clear juice for producing our best sparkling bubbly. Afterwards we are fortunate to have a quantity of “pink juice” remaining: this is ideally suited for producing an easy drinking summer Rosé.

Our wine making style gives a refreshing wine that is light in alcohol compared to many bigger French Rosé wines and is deliciously fruity: perfect for sharing with friends and family.

In celebration of our steep vineyard terraces which are wet in winter we have named this still Rosé “Slippery Slope”. Only a small number of bottles of this Rosé are produced each year.

Meet Lesley-Anne and Nigel

They came to Dryhill in 1988 and together re-established a vineyard on the ancient terraces in front of Dryhill, previously occupied by the Romans.

Previous work in hospitality inspired their interest in creating a vineyard that today grows the classic Champagne grapes which they tend by hand together.