From Domesday to Now: Nyetimber

BY NEAL MARTIN | SEPTEMBER 02, 2021

When William the Conqueror defeated the Anglo-Saxons, he must have looked around and wondered what in Christendom he had actually conquered. What was this land? What were its fixtures and fittings, exactly? What was it worth? After all, this island was so muddy and rainy, and the food so feckless and tasteless, that he might have flogged it to another European country that fancied some British real estate. So William ordered his minions to compile a register of land ownership that was completed in 1086 – the famous Domesday Book. Unfortunately, it does not offer information on the quality of local schools, but it does record some 45 vineyards clustered in southeast England, either introduced by Norman oenophiles or owned by the clergy. Viticulture prospered here for a few centuries, until the Brits accepted that the French made far superior wine and let them get on with it. We packed it in and focused on selling wine instead. 

Fast-forward a few centuries to 1952, when the first commercial vines were planted in Hampshire, though due to our cool, damp climate, they were selected hybrids such as Seyval Blanc and German crosses such as Müller-Thurgau. Let’s be honest, our acidic green wines did not cause Krug or Taittinger to lose much sleep. Our wines suited our rubbish cuisine. 

As any chef will tell you, you need quality ingredients to make a tasty dish, and our ingredients just did not cut it. Enter two Americans, Stuart and Sandy Moss, who saw the parallels between our white chalky soils and Champagne’s white chalky soils and thought: “Hang on a moment… Those Champagnes taste OK. Why don't we try using the same grape varieties?" So, in 1988, they planted Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier in the lee of the South Downs. Inspired by the locale recorded as Nitimbreha in the Domesday Book, the Mosses named their estate Nyetimber. Guess what happened? The wine tasted delicious. It began winning awards and, would you Adam-and-Eve it, beating Champagne in blind tastings. And they have never looked back, give or take the occasional washed-out season. 

Last August, I drove down to Nyetimber’s winery and spent a day with wife and husband Cherie Spriggs and Brad Greatrix, head winemaker and winemaker, respectively. After inspecting their nearby vineyard, we conducted a comprehensive vertical that included current releases and a look back to the wines from the Nineties.  

There was nobody about due to COVID restrictions, but you can see how Nyetimber looks the part with its manicured gardens, water features and converted medieval barn, just part of the long-term renovations.

Cherie Spriggs & Brad Greatrix

“We are both from Canada,” Brad Greatrix explained. “Cherie is from Vancouver Island, and I’m from Ontario, just north of Toronto. We met over there as biochemistry undergraduates at Queens University with an interest in wine. We were thinking what we wanted to do career-wise, so we made a trip to Europe and visited Burgundy. We happened to be there in September, saw the harvest, got the bug and started thinking about winemaking. Initially we ended up doing master’s degrees in wine back in Vancouver… wearing lab coats and talking about trial fermentations. But what really caught our imagination was the production of wine. The sun on your back, the purple hands, the energy and excitement of harvest.” 

“So we moved to Adelaide University to do the oenology post-graduate program, formerly the Roseworthy program, and then set off on a self-imposed internship, working for winemakers we admired. There is only so much you can learn from books. We scrubbed tanks, cleaned drains, all the menial jobs, just so we could be around these winemakers. This led to harvests in McClaren Vale doing part-time harvest work while we completed our studies, sometimes doing night shifts straight after lectures. We came back to North America to work in Oregon at Domaines Serene and Drouhin, then in the Hunter Valley for a large contract facility. We realized we wanted to work with fine wine, though working on an industrial scale enabled us to keep our feet grounded. I completed a harvest in Central Otago at Amisfield while Cherie was working at Carrick, and then while I did a season at Château Margaux in 2006, Cherie did a season at Avril Creek on Vancouver Island. That was a tiny place, and Cherie did all the processes herself.”