Featured Press
Reviews: ‘Star 69’ Chardonnay 2022
“Very refined and pure. Good concentration and intensity, really delicious, a lovely expression of Essex Chardonnay.”
- Jamie Goode
“A really, really great wine.”
- Brad Horne
“Think Domaine Dujac in its youth, the purity and precision of this wine is just outstanding - a wine to age.”
- Roger Jones
“Absolutely delicious.”
- Helen McGinn
“Outstanding: a vivid, fluent, subtly oaked dry white with pristine stone fruit and a cool-stream freshness.”
- David Williams, The Observer
Reviews: ‘A Handful of Dust’ Pinot Noir 2022
“Really nice nose; sappy cherry fruit and a bit of strawberry. Really nice aromatics. Silky, fine, soft tannins, beautiful strawberry and cherry fruit, just so layered and textural, it's a really lovely wine. A fine, textural expression of Pinot Noir.”
- Jamie Goode
“Pretty in the glass, and on the nose there’s crunchy red fruits. That’s lovely - there’s a texture and a weight and a richness to the fruit. A lot of length, lovely acidity, a really really smart wine. I love what Chris has done here… a really wonderful expression of Pinot Noir, really great job.”
- Brad Horne
Reviews: ‘All My Friends’ Chardonnay 2022
“Sourced from the Great Wheatley Vineyard in the Crouch Valley Peninsula, this single-site Chardonnay was whole-bunch pressed and fermented in used Burgundy barrels. A ripe, tropical nose of mango and yellow peach, with a touch of creamy lemon sherbets and banana peel. Saline on the palate with rounded but high acidity for freshness. Poised yellow citrus and peachy fruits are seasoned with a pinch of spice. Elegant and profound.”
- Decanter Magazine
“Absolutely stunning English chardonnay made, would you believe, from grapes grown in Essex’s Crouch Valley. One to tease your wine snob friends and relatives with (and to drink with some posh seafood).”
- Fiona Beckett, The Guardian
“Fresh, bright and textural, a really impressive example of English Chardonnay, it’s really good.”
- Jamie Goode
Review: ‘Lost In You’ Bacchus 2022
“Ripe peach, Yuzu zest, lemongrass, and a touch of passion fruit on the nose indicate a warm year. Crisp on the palate with juicy peach and creamy golden apple, the rounded texture is refreshed by zingy citrus acidity, leading to dried yellow fruits on the finish. Despite the ripe fruits, the alcohol sits at just 10.5% in this easy-drinking Bacchus sourced from the Yew Tree Vineyard in Oxfordshire.”
- Decanter Magazine
Review: ‘Olympian’ Ortega 2023
“Beautiful aromatics, really fresh and pure. A lovely acid line, delicate fine and really nice expression of Ortega.”
- Jamie Goode
Review: ‘The Automatic Earth’ Pinot Noir 2022
“It comes as absolutely no surprise at all that Gutter&Stars' new Pinot Noir is pretty special, but WOW, it's REALLY special - delicate but earthy, fruity but with a savoury seam of balsamico running through it. To say it's the best English Pinot I've had sounds a bit like damning with faint praise; I mean the very opposite. It's a really wonderful wine.”
- Kate Hawkings
Review: ‘Daylight Upon Magic’ Longplayer Chardonnay 2020
“This is beautiful. Waxy apples and guava. It's impossible to describe how good this is. The balance is utterly pitch-perfect. Dried guava, dried peaches, silk and shuddering intensity, achingly elegant. The length... Unspittable. I see that last year, I wrote, 'One of the best, at this embryonic stage. But it will be interesting to taste it once it's 'finished'. I hope that the extra ageing doesn't polish the spirit and sass off it'. The extra ageing I was speaking of back then was an additional three months. Here we are, 15 months later, and the wine is iridescent with life, incandescent with energy. Brimming with soul..”
- Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
Reviews: ‘Rage Against the Dying of the Light’ Rosé 2022
“A stunning rosé with herby, elderflower notes alongside bright red cherry and strawberry fruit, and a touch of warm spice.”
- Kate Hawkings, Olive Magazine
“A vibrant nose of juicy strawberry, pear drop, watermelon and hints of floral and spice. Similarly diverse on the palate, this leads with a fusion of ripe strawberry, lime and fleshy melon. There’s a richness to the red fruit here, which contrasts with the zesty, grassy and floral character of Bacchus. While fruit-forward, this has got a certain structure and complexity that continues to make it stand out.”
- John Mobbs, Great British Wine
“Wonderful aromas combining the terpenic and elderflower notes of Bacchus with some sappy red cherry notes. The palate is intense with keen acidity as well as crunchy strawberry and raspberry notes, as well as hints of fennel and wood spice, as well as marzipan. There’s a bit of pithiness here. So distinctive and gastronomic, with many layers of flavour – it’s hard to characterize, but it’s quite brilliant.”
- Jamie Goode
“Wilson has managed to avoid the vegetal notes commonly found in bacchus and combined with pinot noir it’s redolent of pink grapefruit combined with red cherries. It looks as good as it tastes too, a beautiful raspberry colour. I love that it’s not trying to copy the style of wines from warmer climates. I drank it over two days and by the last glass it had gained weight and complexity. It’s about the same price as Miraval, and I know which ones I’d rather drink. Highly recommended.”
- Henry Jeffreys
“Vivid cherry pink, with full-blown red-fruit aromas. On the palate, powerful fruit: red cherries, cranberries, pomegranates and grenadine, with pippy, pithy phenolics and vibrantly acidic pomegranate molasses. Good concentration and extraction here, mellowing as it opens in the glass to reveal gentle spice and more depth of dark fruit. The finish is long and saline, with more pomegranate freshness.”
- Elizabeth Gabay MW, Club O Rosé Report 2023
Reviews: 'Shadowplay' Pinot Noir 2021
"Very pale red pink in colour, almost like a rosé. Beautiful sappy spicy peppery nose is quite explosive. The palate has lovely concentration and texture but also real elegance. Really mouthfilling and expressive. Very fine green hints but everything works. I’m so impressed by this wine!"
— Jamie Goode
"A pretty, delicate, floral nose. Very, very fine spice throughout, fanning across and through the fruit in the mouth. Translucent, bauble-fine, Christmas-bauble-bright jewelled-ness. Cinnamon, a hint of morel mushrooms, morello cherries. Taffeta tannins on this little tiptoe dancer of a wine trailing a cashmere scarf. What it lacks in power it makes up in exquisite detail, like a liquid Cath Riley artwork."
— Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
Review: ‘Fight The Power’ Ortega 2022
“Lovely pure aromatics of citrus fruit, grapefruit, passionfruit and a hint of banana. Juicy crystalline fruit here with some mandarin. Lovely exotic fruit: pure and linear, and beautifully made.”
- Jamie Goode
Review: ‘The Good Mixer’ Blonde on Blonde Blend 2021
“Clementine and mandarin. A tiny tingle on the tongue. Kumquat. Touch of marmalade. Peaches and salt. Something a little wild. This is pretty intense – builds slowly, fans out and fibrillates so quietly but intently that before I even realised it, I had goosebumps down the length of my spine. How is it possible to achieve this with two humble cross varieties? Intense, but not bowed down with gravitas. There is also a helter-skelter recklessness of joy in this wine. A flag of pure luminous green mint… shiso! Dried peaches. I'm smitten! This Chris Wilson knows how to make wine.”
- Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
Review: ‘Play It Cool’ Chardonnay 2021
“Sweetly aromatic, with cedar, honey and lychee, as well as some icing sugar on the nose. The palate shows apple, pear and some sponge cake notes, with baked apple and lime, and a harmonious quality. It’s distinctive and hard to categorize, but it works really well.”
- Jamie Goode
Reviews: 'Strange News From Another Star' Bacchus 2021
“Really beautiful nose. Wild apples and apple blossom. Extraordinarily lush fruit - mango ripeness. Amazing ripeness for wine from the cold, wet vintage of 2021. And amazing depth of fruit at just 11% alcohol. Electric-guitar acidity. Reverberating. This has startling length and purity. Absolutely beautiful. Silvery and gold and gleaming. Beaming. I'm beaming. Bacchus usually makes me wince, but here I am beaming.”
— Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
“Lovely fruit here: ripe pear and table grape flavours with texture and depth, covering the considerable acidity. Real intensity of flavour here with a broad spectrum of flavours. Impressive especially considering the tricky vintage. Nice finish.” 91/100
— Jamie Goode
“Grassy green peas and jasmine perfume jump right out from the glass, with lime and flinty nectarine to follow. Aged in old oak, it's saline and crisp on the palate, with razor-sharp green apple acidity and lime zest, leading to minty umami notes on the finish. A clean and refreshing expression of the variety.” 92/100
— Decanter Magazine
Reviews: 'Rip It Up' Orange Bacchus 2021
“Cloudy yellow-orange. Very spicy nose - really aromatic. Dried orange peel, lavender, dried rose petals, sandalwood. A kind of wild lemon-thyme acidity. Lemongrass. Piercing, almost haunting. Unusual and with wonderful texture, like rumpled linen. So, so, so spicy... so fragrant, drifting east through souks, filling the mouth with lift and wonder. Ragged dreams. I'd love to spend more time with this wine. It wants your curiosity. It wants your questions..”
— Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
“28 days skin contact in plastic egg. Floral expressive aromatics of elderflower and peach as well as some mandarin. The palate is pure and intense with citrus and grapes with a nice pithy edge and some bitter hints. Has a nice savoury twist.”
— Jamie Goode
Reviews: 'Daylight Upon Magic' Chardonnay 2020
"It’s a total peach. Literally, ripe peach fruit flavours along with a trace of toasty oak made from Essex-grown grapes."
— Helen McGinn
"Another delightfully distinctive and textural release from Cambridge’s urban winery. A spicy but punchy Chardonnay that brings a lot to the party."
— John Mobbs, Great British Wine
"Gutter & Stars’ wonderful new Chard sets the bar very high."
— Kate Hawkins
"This is very fresh, fine and fruity with nice grapey richness. Has lovely pear fruit with some juicy lemony notes. Very pure and balanced."
— Jamie Goode
"This profound Chablis-like Chardonnay has the precision to go with the Pembroke lobster. This is an exceptional wine."
— Roger Jones, Club O
"This Essex Chardonnay is bloody fantastic. It tastes like something lean and chiselled from Margaret River. Perhaps the best English Chardonnay I’ve ever had."
— Henry Jeffreys
"It is really rather gorgeous. The fruit is so ripe you could almost accuse it of being luscious. Cantaloupe melon, rosy peaches, even a hint of mango. The acidity has a lovely tingle, almost a trill, glockenspiel glissando. It has muscled outstretched limbs, a ballroom sweep in its movements, a persistent, fine finish. One of the best, at this embryonic stage. But it will be interesting to taste it once it's 'finished'. I hope that the extra ageing doesn't polish the spirit and sass off it."
— Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
Reviews: 'Hope is a Good Swimmer' Pinot Noir 2020
"This was SO worth waiting for. A really wonderful example of Pinot Noir... bursting with crunchy cranberry/redcurrant/ raspberry fruit, it was ace. Gutter & Stars should be on every wine lover's radar."
— Kate Hawkings
"Really was delicious. Mouthwateringly crunchy and fresh."
— Fiona Beckett
"It’s a diamond! So delicate yet so full of verve."
— Anne Krebiehl MW
"This is a joy. Juicy, peppery, squishy raspberry style that feels alive and pure with a blackberry/woodland wild side and a vivid fruit quality. Slightly naturalistic, some whole bunch character working really nicely with snappy pomegranate syrup and tucked-in acids. There’s nothing else quite like this at the moment."
— Tom Hewson, TimAtkin’s England 2021 Report
"Leaf and lichen, moss and biltong, sour fruit and cherry tobacco. Lean, sparse; a parkour wine. Almost no flesh to hang on its sinewed, lightning-lithe frame, but believe me, this was the first English Pinot to disappear on the day of tasting. Bewitching, Cimmerian, a moody drop of Scandi Noir.”
— Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com
2020: Lockdown stories – view from the vines
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Reviews: 'I Wanna Be Adored' Bacchus 2020
"If there is a better Bacchus made in the UK we have yet to try it... this is a wine with attitude and a point to prove."
— Peter Dean, The Buyer
"This wine makes an immediate impression! The palate is bright and intense with bags of lime and punchy pink grapefruit. Grippy finish, with mineral notes too."
— John Mobbs, Great British Wine
"A BANGING debut Bacchus. A rockstar summer white grown in Essex vineyards & made in a windmill basement."
— Peter Richards MW
"A very fresh but refined expression of Bacchus, with a long, expanding lemony finish. A great debut from an urban winery."
— Jamie Goode
"Just stunning. Citrus and fresh, lime marmalade, floral, ripe Pear William, juicy, chalky. 'I Wanna Be Adored', yes please."
— Roger Jones
"Bloody delicious."
— Justin Howard-Sneyd MW
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