Good grief, I’ve just been well and truly seduced! Back in April, attentive readers might recall, I led a heavily oversubscribed Spectator visit to Chapel Down winery in Kent for a bit of a tasting and one heck of a lunch. We ate and drank like kings and lingered far longer over lunch than was planned with coffee skipped in favour of a mad sprint for the train.
As I dashed down the stairs two at a time the Chapel Down MD, Mark Harvey, yelled after me that since there wasn’t time now he was going to send me a little something in the post. It arrived the other week and I’ve only just got round to tasting it, a small sample bottle of Lamberhurst Fine & Rare English Grape Brandy.F
Made from Seyval Blanc harvested in 1991 on the Lamberhurst Estate (owned at the time by Sir Kenneth McAlpine, a long-time supplier of grapes to Chapel Down) it was distilled a year later by Julian Temperley since when it’s been maturing quietly in oak.
Once famous for simply being fashion designer Alice Temperley’s father, JT is now rightly celebrated as the producer of the sublime Somerset Cider Brandy, than which – I’ve long argued – there is no finer British digestif, in particular the remarkable rich yet mellow Twenty Year Old.
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