We are beyond delighted to announce the relaunch of our non vintage traditional method sparkling wine, Pelegrim: newly rebranded and now wholly produced by the current team.
Pelegrim started life as a traditional method wine created by the vineyard's previous owner, John Rowe. When the current team took over, we continued its evolution, choosing to pick later for ultra-ripe fruit, lowering the dosage and extending the lees ageing to three years to give further balance and elegance.
Winemaker Adrian explains "Pelegrim is a real crowd pleaser: a good fruit-forward base wine with a large proportion of Pinots to give red apple flavours, and a second ferment in bottle with yeast and sugar added and aged for three years on lees to give a rich creaminess. It's a classic non-vintage sparkler, intensely proud of its Kentish roots. Creating a non vintage wine is always interesting - essentially, we are trying to produce a super-consistent sparkling wine which is recognisably 'Westwell-ian'. Each year, we blend with reserve wines to achieve that balance, but inevitably there is vintage variation. The latest iteration showcases the rich, fruit-forward palate of which we're so proud, with brioche-straight-from-the-oven deliciousness thrown in for good measure".
Pelegrim, meaning pilgrim in Middle English, uses a blend of 40% Pinot Noir, 35% Meunier and 25% Chardonnay produced using 20% reserve wines from the previous five years, with a dosage of 8g per litre. The fruit comes from Champagne and Dijon clones which are fermented to five bar rather than six to accentuate the fruit and give a softer but richer mouthfeel.
To mark the release, the new label features illustrations of microscopic sea creatures from chalk, flint and water created by Adrian's wife Galia, whose drawings feature on all of Westwell's wines, detailing the soil, vines and fruit from the site.
