UK Wine Show 210 Mike Roberts of Ridgeview Estate on the Merret brand

This show was published 04 June 2010

Overview

Mike Roberts of Ridgeview Estate talks to us about plans for creating an accreditation for top quality English sparkling wine.

Together with Hugh Johnson and Tom Stevenson, Mike Roberts hit upon the idea of using Merret as a generic name for English sparkling wine. Dom Perignon is the Frenchman widely credited with inventing Champagne. But 30 years ahead of Perignon, in 1662, the Englishman Christopher Merret presented a paper describing the traditional method of making sparkling wine. Merret was importing wine to London and adding molasses to it create the bubbles. Mike Roberts has registered the name Merret in the UK and Europe and been using the name on Ridgeview sparkling wines since 1999. His long term ambition is to license the name as a quality standard for English sparkling wines.

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Sponsorship

The UK Wine Show is sponsored by ThirtyFifty. Our team of wine tasters are busy entertaining and educating UK consumers to help them get the most out of wine.

Music

The music used for the UK Wine Show is Griffes de Jingle 1 by Marcel de la Jartèle and Silence by Etoile Noire.