partners
We are proud to partner with some of the greatest and most exciting names in English winemaking. They have generously agreed to share their vineyards, stories, and the fruits of their labours with us, to ensure that, whatever your level of knowledge or interest in English wine is, you’ll be able to meet the people at the heart of the community, taste some wonderful wines, and have a great time while doing so. And in case there was any doubt, they are all avid sabrage practitioners!
sugrue south downs
Irish-born Dermot Sugrue started his career in Bordeaux over twenty-five years ago, completing vintages at L’Eglise-Clinet and Leoville-Barton. He was Head Winemaker at Nyetimber, then spent sixteen years at Wiston Estate, winning UK Winery of the Year three times. He has been a contract/consulting winemaker for several other English wineries, including Ashling Park, Digby Fine English, and Jenkyn Place. Most excitingly of all, he has been making wine under his own name since planting Storrington Priory vineyard in West Sussex in 2006. He now runs Sugrue South Downs with his wife (and co-winemaker) Ana, farming four sites across the chalky South Downs and working with growers for his burgeoning still wine project in Essex.
His flagship wine, The Trouble With Dreams, takes its name from a remark by the priest at Storrington Priory after birds got to the very first harvest before Dermot did. “That’s the trouble with dreams,” Father Paul told him. Fortunately for us, he soldiered on, and it more than paid off—the 2009 vintage in magnum won ‘Best in Show’ at the Decanter World Wine Awards last year. But there’s more! Cuvée Boz, dedicated to Dermot’s late brother, has justifiably been described as England’s best Blanc de Blancs, while the prestige wine, Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan, truly has to be tasted to be believed, and is currently being enjoyed in the British Airways First cabin.
The wines are of course outstanding, but it was the whole Sugrue South Downs experience that made us realise we had to partner with them. Marketing director Callum could not have been more accommodating as we planned our first visit, and did not bat an eyelid when we asked whether we could bring a sword to help Dermot open his bottles (you’ll have to become a member to see the now-legendary evidence of him opening the last magnum of TWD ’10 with one of our sabres…). The masterclass in the winery helped us realise that Dermot is just as phenomenal a storyteller as he is a winemaker, and we had such a great time with the group of people we met around his table that we are still firm friends to this day—in fact, it is no exaggeration to say that that fateful meeting was a key piece in the origin story of The Society of the Silver Sword. We have been back regularly since, and are delighted that Dermot has agreed to co-host one of our first events with similarly-renowned chef and restauranteur (and fellow sabrage aficionado) Mark Hix in May. Tickets are as rare as you might expect, but if you’re lucky, there might just be a couple left!
westwell
Adrian and Galia Pike came to winemaking from the music industry, which perhaps explains why Westwell (in Charing, Kent) feels different from most English wine estates: Gal’s hand-drawn label illustrations—microscopic vine wood, mapped tractor trails, abstracted details of the winemaking process—are among the most distinctive in English wine (buy prints here), and Adrian has built a reputation as one of the country’s more inventive winemakers, as committed to still wines as to sparkling. They have produced several award-winning wines, including Pelegrim NV, Special Cuvée, and their multi-vintage Pinot Meunier, which took the WineGB Award for Best Innovative Sparkling. They have also produced some fantastic Pet Nat wines, which helped us bust two common sabrage misconceptions: first, that it doesn’t work on non-traditional-method sparkling wines because of lower pressure, and second, that it doesn’t work on bottles fastened with crown caps. You’ll be pleased to learn they open just fine—buy some here to try for yourself (all in the name of science)!
We were already big fans of their wines, but first visited them on a relaxed Saturday afternoon on a weekend away with friends, and knew immediately that we were somewhere worth coming back to. This visit there saw us optimistically (presumptively?) turn up with sword in hand and ask if we could open a bottle or two. We were welcomed with open arms, so cracked open a bottle or two of their incredible Pelegrim—which, (genuinely) to our surprise, caused neighbouring tables, including a hen party, to start asking questions, then queueing up to buy more bottles and receive spontaneous sabrage instruction. We gladly assisted, and the seed of an idea was planted in our minds.
We have been back several times since, and have concluded that they are exactly our sort of people. They are passionate and artisanal in their approach to winemaking; they are naturally hospitable and creative, and keen to offer varied events, from super-accessible pizza-van and crisp-pairing popups, to exclusive dosage masterclasses with Belmond British Pullman, to their Sun Dirt Yeast Club in which a group spends a year making its own wine. In short, like us, they feel that the secret to life is enjoying exciting wines with good friends, and not taking oneself too seriously. Perfect evidence of this will be found at the event we will be hosting with them in September—the inaugural Sabrage Olympics. More about that in due course…
squerryes
Henry Warde is the eighth generation of his family to own and run the Squerryes estate in Westerham, Kent, and is the founder of the wine estate. He is also, as we discovered when we first met, as passionate about enjoying life as we are. His family motto, licet esse beatis (it is permitted to be joyful), has been proudly displayed above the entrance to Squerryes Court for three hundred years, and he is a living embodiment of that simple, powerful maxim. As it transpires, he’s as keen on sabrage as we are, and regularly brings different ancestral swords to our events to test them out on his bottles.
Squerryes is a founding member of the Wine Garden of England, and is in fact our local winery, a mere ten miles from our house in South East London (and under half an hour by direct train from central London). They have a fabulous restaurant, with most produce coming directly from the Squerryes estate. Sunday lunch is, as we can report from extensive personal experience, an extremely fine way to spend an afternoon, with a welcome so warm you will never want to leave, and a wine list to tempting you may not be able to!
With all this in mind, we were delighted to be able to host our Launch Party at Squerryes, and we were certainly not disappointed—the sound of laughter and sabrage (of all three cuvées, in bottle and magnum, off the balcony and inside the restaurant) punctuated the evening from beginning to end. We have now taught sabrage to pretty much the entire Squerryes team, and they will soon be displaying a silver sword in the restaurant, so visitors can open their bottles properly when they come to visit. So why not give yourself permission to be joyful and book in a visit!
our other partners
More information about our other brilliant partners is coming soon!
If you own a winery or wine estate and would like to learn more about partnering with us, please get in touch: