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Buy any 6 bottles and save 5%. Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes wines on offer). Free UK delivery on orders over £100. Tel: 02922 337454
Buy any 6 bottles and save 5%. Buy any 12 bottles and save 10% (excludes wines on offer). Free UK delivery on orders over £100. Tel: 02922 337454
2012 Rose Reserve, Hoffmann & Rathbone Wine Republic

2012 Rose Reserve, Hoffmann & Rathbone

Sussex, England

The English Timekeeper

This is not a rosé that hurries. After more than a decade resting quietly on its lees, the 2012 Rosé Reserve emerges with remarkable poise, rose-gold in hue and shimmering with fine, persistent bubbles. The nose is pure poetry: wild strawberry, ripe plum, and peach blossom layered with brioche, hazelnut, and a touch of ginger spice from its long maturation. On the palate, it’s vibrant yet luxuriously rounded with red cherry, fig, and citrus peel unfolding in elegant succession before a lingering, savoury finish. Complex, refined, and beautifully aged, it’s English sparkling wine at its most graceful.

For when: The evening calls for something rare, radiant, and quietly confident.
Pairs with: Smoked salmon, duck rillettes, or nothing more than good company and time.

Tucked away in the rolling hills of the Sussex Weald, Hoffmann & Rathbone is one of England’s most meticulous boutique sparkling producers. Founded by husband-and-wife duo Ulrich Hoffmann and Birgit Rathbone, the winery is built on a simple belief that great sparkling wine cannot be rushed. Each vintage is crafted in tiny volumes, aged for extended periods on the lees to build texture, depth, and complexity.

The Pinot noir grapes for this Rosé Reserve come from Ford Farm Vineyard in East Sussex, a warm, sheltered site with clay and sandstone soils that encourage concentration and elegance in the fruit. Sustainably farmed and naturally expressive, these vines deliver wines of precision and purity. The 2012 vintage, a classic cool-climate year, has matured into a wine of exquisite balance: English restraint wrapped in Champagne-level sophistication, with the hallmark Hoffmann & Rathbone patience shining through in every sip.

Whats in the bottle
100% Pinot Noir

£63.00 - £63.00
£63.00
£63.00 - £63.00
£63.00
Availability:
In stock

Hoffmann & Rathbone is a boutique English winery based in the Sussex-Weald, founded by husband and wife Ulrich Hoffmann and Birgit Rathbone. The estate focuses primarily on traditional-method sparkling wine, producing only in years where the conditions are right and the wine is genuinely worth releasing.

Ulrich Hoffmann brings serious international experience to the project, with a background that includes Germany, Bordeaux, Navarra, Napa and English vineyards in Surrey, East Sussex and Kent. That global perspective is matched by a very patient, small-scale approach in the cellar. The wines are made in tiny volumes, aged for long periods and released only when they feel ready.

The 2012 Rosé Reserve is 100% Pinot Noir from East Sussex, grown on Wealden clay soils in sheltered, south-facing vineyards. The fruit was hand-picked in mid-October and gently whole-bunch pressed, before the juice was naturally settled for 24 hours.

Fermentation took place over 14 days at 15°C in temperature-controlled stainless steel, with the taille portion fermented in oak barrique. A small amount of Pinot Noir was left to ripen further on the vine, then fermented in open-top barriques and added before the second fermentation to build colour and red-fruit depth. Malolactic fermentation was 80%.

The wine was bottled on 8 May 2013 and spent seven and a half years ageing on its lees before release in March 2021. That long cellar ageing gives the wine its fine mousse, creamy texture and savoury complexity, while the Pinot Noir keeps the fruit expressive and food-friendly. It is now drinking beautifully, with plum, cherry, fig, ginger and soft spice carried by fresh acidity and a polished rose-gold finish. Alcohol is 12%, dosage is 6.8g/l, and production was just 2,500 bottles.