produced by Tillingham

Like most of us, when leaving university Ben Walgate wasn’t sure of his next move. He was however sure of his love of wine (fostered by working in the hospitality and wine industry throughout his degree). Purchasing a one-way ticket to Europe, he tasted his way around famous regions, lending a hand in the wineries as well as doing some tough grind in the vineyards. Returning to the UK, Ben spent time at Plumpton College, a wine import business (focusing on organic and biodynamic wines), restored a vineyard on the Isle of Wight, and became CEO of Gusbourne. In 2016 he got the opportunity to start his own vineyard - Tillingham finally started to take shape.

It wasn’t until 2018 that planting began, so up until 2020 all the wines released under the Tillingham name have used grapes from other suppliers - looking for those whose ethos match Tillingham’s as much as possible. Inspired by Alice Feiring’s ‘For The Love Of Wine’, Ben’s winemaking takes on labour intensive methods adapted from ancient winemaking -he even got his hands on clay pots called ‘qvevri’, used for maturing and fermenting grapes, that are buried under an old Victorian oust house on the estate.

It is no shock then that two of the most popular releases from Tillingham are the Qvevri White and Qvevri Orange (our Halloween Wine Of The Week in 2021), the former using Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay (with a combination of skin contact, whole bunch and pressed grapes) giving a green fruit, lemon citrus with a little bit of mineralogy. The orange combines Ortega, Bacchus, Pinot Gris and Muller Thurgau with flavours heading more into the tropical, orange citrus, pineapple, lychee, and peach, with a hint of the savoury. Both use grapes grown by other estates but have become a staple of the brand, selling out in retailers across London in just a few months.

As well as buying grapes in a variation of styles, Tillingham have planted eclectically throughout the 70 acre estate. The second half of 2021 saw the first release of wines using grapes from its own estate (released in an extremely limited capacity in 500ml format) which showed off some of the range of plantings in two field blends as well as a Saw Pit Pinot Meunier with 15% Pinot Noir in the blend to give it some assistance.

While Ben has decided to focus more on the still side of winemaking, the sparkling ‘Col’, a blend of Auxerrois, Chardonnay and Müller Thurgau, has decidedly become one of the brand’s main stays with each new vintage finding its way into the limelight via the Instagram feeds of natural wine lovers. This Col Fondo style sparkling wine takes on the greener fruit flavours making it reminiscent of a sparkling cider - another ferment that Tillingham has also embraced, thanks to relationships with neighbouring orchard owners.

While a passion for regenerative farming and low-intervention winemaking shows the serious side of Tillingham, it does not resist the opportunity for fun. An annual release of ATHINGMILL represents a vintage at Tillingham with a blend of everything produced that year (including cider) creating an extremely layered cocktail of fruits married with a creamy and lightly effervescent texture.

Launched in 2018 by winemaker Ben Walgate, Tillingham vineyard and farm boasts 70 acres of woodland, pasture and 40,000 productive vines.

Tillingham aims to become a closed-loop system, self sufficient in terms of soil fertility, using cattle and other animals to fertilise the soil, and an array of plant-based treatments for the vines: nettle, chamomile and compost teas.

Victorian oast house - once used for drying hops as part of the beer brewing process - now it’s used by Tillingham to ferment wines.

2021 was the release of Tillingham’s first estate wines, previously the estate has released négociant wines (from grapes grown by other estates), which they continue to also make.

After tasting Georgia’s Pheasants Tears wines and reading Alice Feiring’s ‘For The Love Of Wine’ Ben Walgate was intrigued by the 8,000 years of winemaking history and decided to dip his tow into experimenting with qvevri. Tillingham now have around 14 qvevri at the estate.

‘For The Love Of Wine’ in our book club selects inspired Ben Walgate to purchase his own qvevri for winemaking at Tillingham. Tillingham Vineyard is also recommended in ‘Vineyards of Britain’ on our book club page.

Check out our photo journal for Rye & Hastings post for more about Tillingham’s neighbouring towns. For more about English vineyards read produced by Chapel Down & produced by Black Chalk.