Coates & Seely's remarkable vintage Rosé La Perfide
January 2015
“One of the UK’s best sparkling wines yet.”
Wine journalist Jamie Goode commented on Coates & Seely’s La Perfide Vintage Rosé 2009 by describing it as ‘one of the UK’s best sparkling wines yet.’
“This is one of the UK’s best sparkling wines yet, I reckon. It’s a newly released vintage bottling from Coates & Seely, and is a blend of 60% Pinot Noir/40% Pinot Meunier grown on Hampshire chalk. This vintage rosé wine was subsequently aged for four years sur latte before disgorgement in March 2014.”
Christian Seely has this to say about it:
“Although most of the Coates and Seely wines are blends from several years, with significant stocks of wine being laid down each year as reserve wines for future blends, we decided that from time to time we would set aside small amounts of exceptional wine to be bottled as Vintage Coates and Seely, to age sur latte for a minimum of three years, or more if we felt that the wine demanded it. In this case the exceptional character of the wine seemed to merit four years ageing sur latte. Following disgorgement earlier this year, we believe that La Perfide is now ready for release. We in fact chose the name of this cuvee back in 2009 when we made the wine, and have been longing to use it ever since then. It is of course inspired by the traditional French perception of England as “La Perfide Albion”. Although the notion of our perfidy does have certain negative connotations and is clearly based on a misapprehension, we have decided to embrace this idea in a positive way, on the basis that the mutual mudslinging between French and English is always mingled with a certain amount of respect and affection, and a term that might have been intended as an insult can quite easily be considered to be in fact a backhanded compliment and a sign of respect.”
Tasting Notes
Coates & Seely Vintage Rosé La Perfide 2009 Tasting notes: ‘Lovely perfumed nose with a sappy cherry quality, subtle herbiness and appealing fruit, as well as some faint toast. The palate fresh, rounded and generous with toast, spice and leafy cherry notes. Real finesse here. 93/100’
