2015 Sugrue Pierre The Trouble with Dreams Brut

Full bottle 1,621 g. 60% Chardonnay, 40% Pinot Noir from vines planted on South Downs chalk in 2006 (some of the fruit is from the Mount Harry Vineyard near Lewes in East Sussex and some from Storrington Priory Vineyard in West Sussex). Aged in old oak barrels and stainless steel. Dosage 6 g/l. Golden colour. Melted-buttery nose. Grilled grapefruit slides into sorrel-leaf lemons wrapped in warm challah sweetness. Sherbet-dipped sharpness of the spine, but a rich shimmer of fruit in the breadth of the wine. A wine that has a cello-and-violin thrum that vibrates through your bones like miniscule musical shock waves, acidity etched into each note like a tiny maker's mark. Long, direct, piercing finish. (TC)

The 2015 The Trouble With Dreams was tasted twice. The first, disgorged in April 2020, exhibited a little sweet botrytis that Sugrue advised might have originated from a warm night in October. A later disgorgement is more nervy on the nose, displaying a distinct sea spray/oyster shell influence that translates across onto the palate. Taut and more linear, it has a strictness and stoicism that I admire. Brisk and mouthwateringly saline on the aftertaste. Certainly the second disgorgement is superior.