Chilgrove is a sleepy hamlet in West Sussex at the foot of the South Downs, woodland all around and chalk beneath the ground. Nobody ends up there by accident. But the name sits on a bottle that did something no other English vodka had done before it.
Expert description
Chilgrove Vodka is an English Vodka from Chilgrove Spirits in West Sussex, distilled from grapes and bottled at 40%.
Grapes instead of grain is the whole explanation for why it tastes different. Neutral spirit made from grapes carries a fresh, lightly sweet fruit character, where wheat gives biscuit and rye gives pepper. When the bottle arrived in 2015 it was the first neutral vodka in Britain distilled using grape alcohol.
The water is chosen just as deliberately. It is natural mineral water filtered through the chalk the whole area rests on, and that chalk gives a dry, mineral undercurrent pulling against the sweetness of the grape. That tension is what the bottle lives on.
The house is small and production runs in small batches. Behind it stand Christopher and Celia Beaumont-Hutchings, who first made Chilgrove Dry Gin on the same grape base and then carried that base over into a vodka. It is one idea in two bottles.
Tasting notes
Nose
Clean and lightly fruity. Grapes and a touch of fennel, with a dry chalky tone behind.
Palate
Crisp and smooth. Fruit sweetness comes first, then dark cherry and a suggestion of cocoa, and finally white pepper.
Finish
Medium and mineral. The fruit withdraws and the chalk hangs on as a dry sensation.
Specifications
Name: Chilgrove Vodka
Producer: Chilgrove Spirits
Region/Country: West Sussex, England
Type: English Vodka
ABV: 40%
Size: 70 CL
Distillation method: Distilled from grapes in small batches, reduced with mineral water filtered through chalk
EAN no.: 5060383352412
Serving suggestion: Ice cold and neat in a small glass, or in a Vodka Martini where the grape fruit gets room.
Flavour profile
Grape fruit · Mineral · Smooth · Dry
Did you know?
The house gin was the first English gin distilled from grape alcohol, and the choice had a historical argument behind it. Dutch jenever, which English gin descends from, was originally made from wine spirit, and it took a wine shortage in Holland to push producers towards grain.
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