Plumpton College visit and the week that was

I chose to begin December with a treat and so on Monday just gone I packed up my mini little car and drove down to Plumpton College Vineyard & Winery, near Brighton. I really underestimated just how much of a treat this would be! Matthew and Peter did a wonderful job showing me around their scenic vineyard and state of the art winery. (unfortunately I forgot my camera and Plumpton's website is tragically low on photos so the little snippet below is as best I can do for now).

The real pleasure of a College winery, I came to discover, is the opportunity for experimentation, thought and analysis. Peter Morgan, the winemaker at Plumpton, has a pedigree from France and Nyetimber (UK), and his passion for exploring elements of wine making is obvious. Plumpton has a variety of vats, temperature controlled rooms and laboratories within which students can investigate different cause and effecting wine making. If artisan&vine ever feels like giving me a full day off, I’ll be down at Plumpton signed up for study immediately!

Plumpton College runs a variety of long and short term courses – including one day classes – and is definitely worth checking out. Artisan&vine will be running a day trip down there when the sun comes out again next year.

Plumpton’s wines? If you’ve been to artisan&vine, there’s a very strong chance you’ve heard me rave about The Dean NV sparkling wines. We stock The Dean white and Blush. Fantastic complexity, good brioche flavours, always a hit with customers.

In artisan&vine recently: we usually have a number of party bookings on a Saturday night at artisan&vine. This Saturday gone we hosted Christa and Andrew’s engagement party, which we kicked off with a custom wine tasting; the guest’s loved Dominio del Bendito’s 2006 Silver, (£12.50/btl take home) I do too, it’s an extraordinarily velvety red wine, an alcoholic drinking chocolate; it needs to be tasted to be believed. We also hosted Crodelia’s birthday party. Cordelia and her friends converted the entire back of the bar to a dancefloor and before long pretty much the entire bar was back there dancing. Sometimes our 2am licence still just doesn’t seem late enough.

Press and reviews: we were stoked to learn that we had received View London’s highest rating – 5 stars – for our food, wine, ambience and service. Kelly and her editorial team really do a very thorough job in their reviews and as an occasional customer at other bars and restaurants, I was impressed to see the integrity and attention that View London invest for every review and recommendation list they put together. I’m really over the moon that we now feature on a few of their recommended lists, including best places for a first date!

Pictures: I heart Plumpton College and rue forgetting my camera!