Tidebrook The Tipping Point Pinot Noir, Sussex

Description

Tidebrook The Tipping Point Pinot Noir is an English red wine produced in East Sussex by Gary and Kathy Jordan. It is 100% Pinot Noir and is bottled as a Sussex Protected Designation of Origin (PDO).  

Gary and Kathy Jordan took over Jordan Wines in Stellenbosch from Gary’s parents in 1993. They have since built Jordan Wines into a world-renowned wine estate and their flagship wines like Cobbler’s Hill and Nine Yards Chardonnay are highly sought after. Not content with conquering the wine world from South Africa, they have always had an eye on the UK. Since 2009 they have collaborated with Neleen Strauss in a London restaurant High Timber.

More recently, in 2017, the Jordans acquired an estate within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty “as part of their “retirement plan”. The Mousehall Estate is located on the northern outskirts of Mayfield in East Sussex. An old barn was converted into a distillery and winery in 2021 and they have been producing a Mousehall Sussex Dry Gin since then. Gary and Kathy’s daughter Christy Jordan is the head distiller.

Tidebrook Wines is the name of the English wines that the Jordan’s produces. The estate is planted with the sparkling wine triumvirate of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (no doubt an English Sparkling Wine will follow). The first wines that were launched in the summer of 2024 were three still wines, all from the 2022 vintage. The wines are Staddle Stone Chardonnay, a barrel-fermented and matured Chardonnay, Six Petals Rosé, a dry, lower alcohol (10.5%), made in a Coteaux Champenois style and The Tipping Point Pinot Noir, matured for 12 months in Burgundian oak. The wines are produced in very small quantities with the same incredible attention to detail the Jordan’s apply to their South African wines.

Grapes for the Tidebrook The Tipping Point Pinot Noir were hand-harvested, partly destemmed and fermented in an open-top tank, with daily punch-downs to extract colour and flavour. The wine was aged in 2nd fill 228-litre Burgundian oak barrels (from the Chassin, Damy and Francois Freres cooperages) for 12 months. Lightly filtered therefore a sediment may develop in the bottle.

Why is it called The Tipping Point? All the small changes climate changes that have been building up have reached a tipping point. “As a result of fast-changing climatic conditions, we are now able to produce cool-climate Pinot Noir in England.”.