Matt Gregory The Italian Field Blend 2019
Matt Gregory The Italian Field Blend 2019
£17.51

Matt Gregory

Matt Gregory The Italian Field Blend 2019

Country: Italy
Region: Piedmont
Grape: Moscato 35%, Barbera 35%, Nebbiolo 10%,  Dolcetto 10%,  Gamba di Pernice 10%
Colour: Red
Bottle Size: 75cl
Alcohol: 13%
Vintage: 2019

Vegan friendly
Production:  491 bottles 


Working as a wine merchant in England for more than 20 years, Matt Gregory eventually started making his own wines in Sussex and in New Zealand, where he worked alongside Theo Coles (of The Hermit Ram in North Canterbury).

Matt’s wines originate both from England and Italy, and are all labelled as ‘The English Winemaker’. He has a natural approach to winemaking and allows the different terroirs to express themselves.

The English wines are produced from grapes grown at the organically farmed Walton Brook Vineyard (two hectares, south facing) on the Leicestershire Wolds. Soil includes 200 million year old Jurassic fine grained limestone (mud made up from carbonates of coral and shell) overlain with two million year old glacial deposits featuring limestone, flint and ironstone.

The Italian wines come from Villa Giada in Piedmont, grapes are sustainably farmed, no synthetic herbicides or pesticides are used.

In 2019 Matt was really keen to make a field blend using all the indigenous Piedmontese grapes at the Villa Giada vineyards in Canelli, about 20km South of Asti in Piedmont North Western Italy. 

After a day of harvesting Barbera and Gamba di Pernice with Andrea (Villa Giada’s owner), Matt went to find and pick the rest of the grapes himself. Andrea drew him a map of which vines he could pick from and Andrea’s mum lent him the secateurs she used for her roses. He found Moscato, Nebbiolo that was randomly planted by his Grandfather at the top of one of Moscato slopes, and Dolcetto.

Back at the cellar, whole Moscato bunches were placed into a 500 litre tonneaux, topped by destemmed red grapes. Matt says: “it all just about fitted in perfectly. By the next morning it was fermenting away merrily already. The ferment was left alone, hand plunged a couple of times and left on the skins for 6 weeks. Pressed and popped into a fibreglass tank on lees for 10 months before bottling without fining or filtration but a small (20 ppm) addition of sulphur. The tannic varieties fell out with each other for a while, but they have come to an amicable understanding that is textural as well as structural.”

Serve lightly chilled.

PRODUCER NOTES

Working as a wine merchant in England for more than 20 years, Matt Gregory eventually started making his own wines in Sussex and in New Zealand, where he worked alongside Theo Coles (of The Hermit Ram in North Canterbury).

Matt’s wines originate both from England and Italy, and are all labelled as ‘The English Winemaker’. He has a natural approach to winemaking and allows the different terroirs to express themselves.

The English wines are produced from grapes grown at the organically farmed Walton Brook Vineyard (two hectares, south facing) on the Leicestershire Wolds. Soil includes 200 million year old Jurassic fine grained limestone (mud made up from carbonates of coral and shell) overlain with two million year old glacial deposits featuring limestone, flint and ironstone.

The Italian wines come from Villa Giada in Piedmont, grapes are sustainably farmed, no synthetic herbicides or pesticides are used.

FARMING & WINEMAKING NOTES

In 2019 Matt was really keen to make a field blend using all the indigenous Piedmontese grapes at the Villa Giada vineyards in Canelli, about 20km South of Asti in Piedmont North Western Italy. 

After a day of harvesting Barbera and Gamba di Pernice with Andrea (Villa Giada’s owner), Matt went to find and pick the rest of the grapes himself. Andrea drew him a map of which vines he could pick from and Andrea’s mum lent him the secateurs she used for her roses. He found Moscato, Nebbiolo that was randomly planted by his Grandfather at the top of one of Moscato slopes, and Dolcetto.

Back at the cellar, whole Moscato bunches were placed into a 500 litre tonneaux, topped by destemmed red grapes. Matt says: “it all just about fitted in perfectly. By the next morning it was fermenting away merrily already. The ferment was left alone, hand plunged a couple of times and left on the skins for 6 weeks. Pressed and popped into a fibreglass tank on lees for 10 months before bottling without fining or filtration but a small (20 ppm) addition of sulphur. The tannic varieties fell out with each other for a while, but they have come to an amicable understanding that is textural as well as structural.”

Serve lightly chilled.