The Winery Le Duc Noir of Sonoma Coast of California

Gusbourne has launched Fifty One Degrees North English sparkling wine from the 2014 vintage at £195 per bottle, which is thought to make it the most expensive so far released. Some others aren’t too far behind – Nyetimber’s 1086 rosé 2010 is £175 – yet Gusbourne’s move reinforces a sense of ambition within the UK wine world to be a regular fixture at this prestige cuvée level. Fifty One Degrees North, named after the position of Gusbourne’s vineyards in Kent and West Sussex, is a ble ...

Onwards, upwards. The roads get narrower, the corners get tighter. I step out of the car when I finally reach the winery and the air is so much fresher here. I go to take a sip from my water bottle and a gust of wind makes it whistle. I stand with Thomas Jullien and we look over the vineyards. It’s not yet spring, and the vines look little more than sticks. ‘It’s a lunar landscape at the moment,’ he says, as a friend’s flock of 300 sheep has just passed through to graze on every scrap of green b ...

AXA Millésimes has expanded its footprint in California by purchasing Platt Vineyard on the western reaches of Sonoma Coast for an undisclosed sum. The French insurance giant’s wine division made its first foray into the Golden State when it bought Napa Valley winery Outpost back in 2018. Managing director Christian Seely has been on the hunt for a vineyard of similar quality to produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay ever since. AXA Millésimes jumped at the opportunity to snap up the 111-hectare Plat ...