Our Collaborative Spirits

Artelium’s spirit of collaboration is at the core of everything we do; from our partner vineyards and renowned makers to the shared ideas and collective expertise within the Artelium team. Our collaborative approach underpins not only the way that we nurture our vines and craft our wines but in the way we strive towards a more sustainable business.  

So, we are delighted to introduce you to our newest additions, the Collaborators range.

This collaboration between our winemakers and distillery partner uses the grape pressings (a by-product of our winemaking process) to sustainably produce a range of three exceptional grape-based spirits.

THE COLLABORATIVE PROCESS

Following the 2020 harvest, multi-awarded winemaker Dermot Sugrue created a base wine from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier using the third and final pressing fraction of the juice destined for our wines.

We call the pressing fractions the cuvée, taille and the rebêche. The cuvée and taille are used in the production of our sparkling wines. After we’ve taken these first and second pressings, we squeeze out any remining juice - the rebêche. This comes from closer to the grape skin and pips, and therefore is often too “rough” to be used for wine production. Into this rebêche we added yeast to ferment and turn it into a base wine.

Our base wine was then skilfully distilled by award-winning distiller Chris Toller at Henstone Distillery, in their 1,000 litre still, Hilda. The result of that distillation process was Artelium’s twenty twenty English grape spirit.

This grape spirit forms the foundation of Artelium’s Twenty Twenty Collaborators trio; a vermouth, a dry gin and a brandy…

Collaborators Twenty Twenty Vermouth

A third of our grape spirit made its way to winemaker Owen Elias where it was blended with our Pinot Noir, and Owen’s hand foraged sloes & damsons before being aged in oak to become our Collaborators Vermouth. (50cl / 17% ABV)

Collaborators Twenty Twenty Dry Gin

Another portion of the grape spirit was distilled a second time by Chris with juniper and botanicals to become our Collaborators Dry Gin. (50cl / 43% ABV)

Collaborators Twenty Twenty Brandy

The final parcel of grape spirit spent over 18 months in American oak casks to impart aromas and flavours of vanilla, delicate spice and subtle stone fruit. It has become a smooth, warming drop, our Collaborators Brandy. (50cl / 40% ABV)

Collaborators Spirits are available to purchase individually or as a trio from our shop.