Kinsbrook Vineyard, which lies in Thakeham, West Sussex, has released their first ever red wine, and the first of their brand new ‘kith’ range: ‘chough au vin’.

Made from rondo grapes harvested in October 2022 in a Beaujolais nouveau style, this exciting release is a juicy, bold red wine with tonnes of character. 

Joe Beckett, Kinsbrook’s owner, 30, explains the process of how the new wine was made.

“chough au vin was made using carbonic maceration of rondo grapes from our 2022 harvest. After picking the grapes by hand, we put them in large dolavs, covered them with fresh sheets and left them to carry out intracellular fermentation for 5 days. After this, we pressed the berries and transferred the juice into the tank to continue its journey.”

Rebecca Dancer, Joe’s partner and Kinsbrook’s Creative Director, explains this wine is a first in more ways than one.

“This wine is a first for us in several ways; it is our first ever still red wine, it’s our first time using this winemaking style and it’s our first time using these particular grapes. It is also the first of an exclusive new range of Kinsbrook wines.”

“We’re thrilled to finally announce the launch of our new wine range ‘kith’, which we’ve been keeping under wraps until now. This new sibling range will work alongside our existing wine range and is the funky, cool, mischievous younger sister of our flagship KIN range, representing more experimental, natural, creative winemaking techniques.

“The two ranges are designed to balance each other to cover a wide variety of wines in different styles.” Says Rebecca. “ ‘Kith and kin’ means family and friends and represents connectedness, which is at the heart of all we do at Kinsbrook.

“The whole process has been so fun and we think the resulting wine is really cool. It’s a deep, dark red colour and is full of bold, juicy notes. Think dark cherries and blackberries.” 

It’s all in the name

“We called this wine ‘chough au vin’ purely as a bit of fun,” Joe explains. “Being the first of this new kith range which is all about play and not taking anything too seriously, we wanted the name to reflect that”. The name is a play on words, inspired by the French dish ‘coq au vin’. The chough, a blackbird with a red beak and red feet, is Kinsbrook’s logo and is Joe’s family symbol. 

chough au vin tasting notes 

  • Dark cherry and blackcurrant on the palate 

  • Winemaking style: Carbonic Maceration

  • Grape variety: 100% rondo

  • ABV: 11.5%

  • RRP: £23 RRP

Label preview

The label features Kinsbrook’s animated logo, the cartoon chough, standing in a barrel of grapes and crushing them with its feet whilst holding a bunch of red grapes. The back label gives a range of technical information on the wine, including harvest date, brix, tonnes harvested and winemaking technique used. It ends with a quote: ‘You can’t make red wine in England anyway’ – anon. 

 

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‘chough au vin’ is now available at Kinsbrook’s cellar door in Thakeham, West Sussex, or via their website www.kinsbrookvineyard.com.