Tamlyn Currin at jancisrobinson.com Review
KC1 Review
Full bottle 1,331 g. Screwcap. JOO% Chardonnay from a vineyard in Kit’s CotJ {hence the KC) on the North Downs of Kent. Seven different clones are picked and fermented separate(y. Pressed straight to barrel, although different press fractions and different yeasts for different clones.
Founders are Luke Wo{fe {viticulturist, owner of A pro-Pro} and Clare Whitehead {head of education, Liberty Wines) met while studying for their BSc in Viticulture and Oenology at Plumpton College in 2009), and they planted their first vines in 2020. Winemaking is done in conjunction with Ben Smith of Itasca Wines.
The scent of rain on moss and rocks, a storm in the air. Maybe being 10 miles from the sea gives this wine its saline flinch and tight, white, marble clench. Perhaps it is the soil. Or the yeast. Who knows, but the one thing that is for certain is that this wine arrives with unnervingly rapier focus that feels as if it might slice you in two to the back of your spine. And then, as if it hits a prism, it refracts in the mouth and the acidity scatters like light, finding every tiny space, filling the mouth with a nacreous glow of white-yellow-green-gold fruit.
There is absolutely no hurry to drink this fine-boned Chardonnay – you could tuck it away for at least five years and quite possibly five more (the++ in the score means that I think this wine will only get better with age). If you do open it now, decant if you can, use large glasses, serve at grand cru burgundy temperature. (TC)
Score 17++
KC2 Review
Full bottle 1,328 g. Screwcap. Chardonnay from Clare Whitehead and Luke Wolfe’s 10-ha vineyard in Kit’s Co~)•. Spends a year in 228-litre barrels, second and third Jill.
KC1 smells like autumn rain, but KC2 smells like dawn in a citrus orchard. And hyssop. Lemon blossom and a spill of warm white light, turning creamy as it begins to spread and pool. It’s a wine that tastes of pomelo and bergamot, blood-orange bitterness flickering through the sweet-yellow fragrance of fruit. Delicately dusty spices are starting to weft into walnut, weaving the first breath of framework to come.
Like KC1, you could put this wine away for a few years – it has a little more succulence than KC 1 but it’s a Chardonnay with depth and structure and potentially thrilling capacity to age. (TC)
Score 17++
KC3 Review
Full bottle 1,331 g. Screwcap. 100% Chardonnay from vines planted in 2020 in Kits Coty in 2020. One year in used 228-litre Fresh oak barrels. Wines are made b_y Ben Smith at Itasca {in collaboration with owners Clare Whitehead and Luke Wolfe}.
Mouth-watering greengage, kiwi and vineyard peaches. The fruit is as pure as a flute, playing soprano to piccolo acidity. Citrus is orange and saturated with juice but also floating a little above, like fresh orange peel twisted to a tiny cloud of aromatic oils filling the headspace. Shiny
bright clarity. Not as long as its siblings, KCl and KC2. (TC)
Score 16.5
