On 22nd May, at the 37th London Wine Fair, it was announced that Coates & Seely’s Blanc de Blancs ‘La Perfide’ 2009 has been awarded the International Wine Challenge Trophy for the best English Blanc de Blancs at this year’s IWC Awards.  Judged to be the best in category, this gold medal-winning English Sparkling wine very much impressed the judges, who unanimously declared it a deserving winner.

This is one of the first wines Coates & Seely ever made, in its very first year of production.  It has taken five and a half long years of lees-ageing, and a further two years on cork, to bring it to where it is today: ‘singing’, at last.

The name ‘La Perfide’ is a teasing reference to ‘Albion la Perfide’, or ‘Perfidious Albion’, as the French refer to us, and what better a way to acknowledge the enduring respect we feel for the great wines of Champagne than to call our best vintage wines by this name?

We always believed, when we started Coates & Seely eight years ago, that one day it would be possible to make in this country sparkling wines that, in terms of quality, would match the greatest sparkling wines in the world, including those of Champagne.

This Blanc de Blancs 2009 ‘La Perfide’ is the first in a line of other, even better, vintages, or ‘Perfides, that Coates & Seely currently having ageing quietly ‘sur latte’,  and encourages us more than ever in our belief.