Wiston Estate & The Trouble With Dreams

BY NEAL MARTIN | APRIL 01, 2021

There’s nothing that I want to do

More than get alone and be with you

Trouble with dreams is they don't come true

And when they do they can't catch up to you.

“Trouble With Dreams” – The Eels

I miss traveling. It’s not just that the Martin household has made it clear that the sooner their restless husband/father exits the house, the better. Peripatetic in nature, months into lockdown, and my unrequited wanderlust is ready to burst. “Travel” has been reduced to a daily commute down to my garden office, a 10-meter round-trip journey depending on whether I take the scenic route via the fig tree. Denied jaunts to Bordeaux and Chablis last summer, I suffered “VCT” – vineyard cold turkey. Lennon wrote a song about it. My doctor prescribed an aspirin and a couple of estate visits, and so last August I rang the doorbell of two of England’s most prominent wine producers. Following last year’s overview report, I wanted to deep-dive further and find out what makes these producers tick. 

The soil in the Broadwoods vineyard, full of chalky detritus.

Wiston Estate

The South Downs was bathed in sunshine when I visited Wiston Estate, momentarily banishing my COVID blues. My heart leapt upon spotting vines, and I resisted rolling around on the earth like a dog with an itchy back. Sure, this country has its fair share of arcane rituals, but it would not have made a good first impression, even if head winemaker Dermot Sugrue might have joined in. Sugrue greeted me in his trademark flat cap and a green Jameson Whiskey t-shirt, obligatory winery canines Noodles and Tara haring around their master without any observable social distancing.

A little background first. Since 1743, the Goring family have farmed just under 2,500 hectares historically dedicated to crops and grazing. Vines are a recent addition to the polyculture. Pip Goring came to England in 1972, inspired by the serried rows of vines outside Cape Town, where she had grown up. However, it took another 34 years of mulling it over before the first vines took root. Though I did not meet Harry or Pip Goring, their niece and Wiston’s brand ambassador Kirsty Goring was in the vines being interviewed by a TV crew, a sign of the burgeoning interest in Wiston and, indeed, in English sparkling wine as a whole.

Thirty-six-year-old Dermot Sugrue’s pale blue eyes and copper hair betray his Irish roots – in Country Limerick, to be exact. He is of mixed Catholic and Protestant parentage. “One side of my family was part of the establishment, and one of my uncles was the author of the English–Gaelic dictionary still widely used in schools today,” he explained. His budding interest in all things fermented began when he was a teenager, though he erred toward beer instead of wine. He maintained a keen interest during his university years, studying Environmental Sciences at East Anglia, before commencing his career as an independent financial adviser. After 9/11, his job felt less secure, and he seized the moment to pursue his vinous passion. After studying viticulture and oenology at Plumpton College, the Hogwarts for UK winemakers, he headed down to Bordeaux. His first job was working as a vineyard hand for the late Denis Durantou at Château l’Eglise-Clinet, where Sugrue tended Les Cruzelles for two seasons. He then moved over to the Left Bank and worked for Lilian Barton-Sartorius of Langoa and Léoville-Barton.