Hundred Hills

The story

Fifty Sites, One Valley

The search took three years and covered fifty properties across southern England. Duckett was not looking for a picturesque valley or a good price on farmland. He was working from a checklist: chalk geology, south-facing aspect, a valley shape that would pull cold air away from the vines on spring nights, and enough shelter to give English grapes a genuine growing window. He ran frost and airflow modelling across site after site, took soil samples, and fifty times the answer was not quite right. When the Stonor Valley analysis came back, the chalk was there, the south-facing slopes were there, and the valley-head airflow was exactly the frost corridor his models required. He committed. That decision, made on data rather than instinct, is still visible in every bottle: the chalk in the minerality, the south-facing ripeness in the fruit depth, the valley's spring protection in the fact that the vines consistently reach the 100-day hang time Duckett set as his harvest minimum.

From the atlas

Hundred Hills

At A Glance

The Producer

Hundred Hills did not begin with an inheritance or a family story. Stephen Duckett spent three years and visited fifty candidate sites across southern England before committing to a single hectare of chalk. He modelled frost risk and airflow, ran soil analysis, and rejected every other valley. What he was looking for was not charm but chemistry: the right slope, the right drainage, the right spring protection for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in a climate that can end a growing season before it starts.

The estate he built sits in Stonor Valley in the Chiltern Hills between Oxford and Henley-on-Thames, 17 hectares planted exclusively with those two grapes. Every bottle is vintage-dated and made from 100% estate-grown fruit. There is no blending across years, no bought-in juice, no reserve wines. The range runs from the Preamble tier through a varietal Blanc de Blancs to Hillside No.3, a late-harvest prestige selection, and the wines appear in over 40 Michelin-starred restaurants across the UK.

Place

Stonor Valley cuts through the Chiltern Hills, a chalk escarpment that rises between the Thames Valley and the Midland clay plain. The chalk here is the same geological material that underpins the most mineral-driven sparkling wines in northern Europe: free-draining, low in nutrients, forcing vines to work deep for water and producing grapes with high acidity and concentrated fruit character.

The valley head at Stonor creates a natural airflow corridor that draws cold air away from the vineyard floor on still spring nights, reducing the frost risk that threatens budbreak across English viticulture. South-facing slopes catch the best of the growing season's light from April through October. The combination of chalk drainage, aspect, and frost microclimate is what Duckett's analysis identified as the decisive set of conditions, and it is what shows in the lemon, lime, and mineral registers of the Blanc de Blancs.

Soil And Site

The underlying geology is chalk, free-draining and alkaline, with thin topsoil on the steeper slope sections. South-facing parcels receive maximum afternoon sun through the long English ripening window, building fruit concentration while the chalk keeps acidity high and the canopy relatively open. The valley's natural topography channels cold air downward and away from the vines at night, giving the estate a measurable microclimate advantage over flatter, more exposed English sites.

Story

Duckett began his site search around 2009. The brief he set himself was specific: chalk geology, south-facing aspect, natural frost protection, and a valley shape that would give the vines the thermal stability English grapes rarely enjoy. He analysed fifty properties over three years before Stonor Valley met every criterion on the list.

That engineering logic carried directly into the production decisions that followed. Grape choice narrowed to two varieties with a demonstrated record on chalk: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the building blocks of traditional-method sparkling wine. The all-vintage philosophy followed from the same reasoning: if the site is the argument, every bottle should be a record of a single year from that site, not a smoothed blend across years. Minimalist winemaking came next, the cellar kept deliberately quiet so the chalk and the vintage do the talking.

Vineyards And Cellar

The 17-hectare estate is farmed for late, concentrated harvests. Grapes are picked only after at least 100 days on the vine, a minimum hang time that builds fruit depth and aromatic complexity rather than the early, high-acid base wines that many English estates prefer. In the 2019 vintage, the Blanc de Noirs grapes exceeded 110 days before picking.

In the cellar, the two grapes take different paths. Chardonnay is often fermented in oak with bâtonnage, the lees stirred regularly to build texture and integrate the oak into the wine's body. Pinot Noir goes into stainless steel, a vessel that preserves the grape's red fruit clarity and freshness without adding weight. Both routes feed a traditional-method sparkling production: secondary fermentation in bottle, extended time on lees, disgorgement.

The Preamble No.2 undergoes both its alcoholic and malolactic fermentations in a split of oak and stainless steel, then spends 36 months on lees before disgorgement. That extended contact gives it a biscuity, brioche depth that the shorter-aged wines do not carry.

Wines

The range runs across three distinct tiers. The Preamble No.2 is the most accessible expression: fermented in oak and steel, aged for 36 months on lees, it carries biscuit and brioche from the extended contact alongside the estate's characteristic acidity. It is a wine built for early drinking and for introducing the Stonor Valley character without the concentration of the upper selections.

The Blanc de Blancs is the varietal Chardonnay statement. Oak fermentation and bâtonnage give it a creamy mid-palate weight, but the chalk site keeps the acid line clean and the finish long. Aromatics run toward lemon zest, lime, yuzu, and sea spray, with a nutty, umami quality on the finish that comes from the oak ageing rather than from sweetness.

Hillside No.3 sits at the top of the range. It is assembled from a third and final pass through the south-facing parcels, grapes left on the vine longest and picked at the peak of concentration. It uses both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The nose is biscuity and layered with yellow fruit: yellow apple, Mirabelle plum, roasted pineapple. The palate is soft and creamy with lemon curd, mandarin, cherry, and a delicate pineapple note through the finish.

In The Glass

The Blanc de Blancs opens on citrus: lemon zest, fresh lime, and yuzu, vivid and precise. Behind the fruit sits a mineral quality that reads like sea spray, a chalk-driven lift that keeps the wine feeling dry and taut despite the oak fermentation. The mid-palate is creamier than the nose suggests, the bâtonnage having built body without adding weight. The finish is nutty and faintly umami, long and clean.

Hillside No.3 is a richer, more layered wine. Shortbread and biscuit rise from the glass first, and the fruit that follows is ripe and yellow rather than citrus-bright: apple, plum, roasted pineapple. On the palate the texture is soft and creamy, with lemon curd and mandarin threading through the mid-palate alongside a suggestion of cherry from the Pinot Noir component. The mousse is good and the finish is dry, long, and gripping without drying the mouth. Jancis Robinson, tasting the 2019, called it champagne-like and sophisticated.

A Bottle To Understand It

Start with the Blanc de Blancs 2019. It is 100% Chardonnay from the chalk slopes of Stonor Valley, fermented in oak with bâtonnage, and it draws together the estate's core decisions in a single bottle: the chalk site, the Chardonnay-only approach, the oak fermentation that builds texture without obscuring the mineral character underneath. The aromatics are vivid and precise: lemon zest, lime, yuzu, sea spray. The finish is nutty, long, and faintly umami. It is not a light or neutral wine; the oak and the chalk both show, and the combination makes clear what Duckett built in Oxfordshire and why it took three years to find the right valley.

Anecdote

The search for the estate took three years and covered fifty properties across southern England. Duckett was not looking for a picturesque valley or a good price on farmland. He was working from a checklist: chalk geology, south-facing aspect, a valley shape that would pull cold air away from the vines on spring nights, and enough shelter to give English grapes a genuine growing window. He ran frost and airflow modelling across site after site. He took soil samples. Fifty times the answer was not quite right. When the Stonor Valley analysis came back, the chalk was there, the south-facing slopes were there, and the valley-head airflow was exactly the frost corridor his models required. He committed. That decision, made on data rather than instinct, is still visible in every bottle: the chalk in the minerality, the south-facing ripeness in the fruit depth, the valley's spring protection in the fact that the vines consistently reach the 100-day hang time Duckett set as his harvest minimum.

Final Word

Hundred Hills is a rare English estate where the founding logic and the winemaking logic are the same argument: find the right chalk, then stay out of its way. The 2019 Blanc de Blancs makes that argument clearly enough to keep.

Sources

• https://hundredhills.wine/
• https://www.the-buyer.net/people/producer/hundred-hills-duckett-dean
• https://www.makerstable.com/p/sparkling-wines-of-hundred-hills
• https://thefinestbubble.com/english-sparkling-hundred-hills-blanc-de-blancs-2019
• https://thefinestbubble.com/english-sparkling-hundred-hills-hillside-no3-2019
• https://hundredhills.wine/product/hillside-no-3/
• https://hundredhills.wine/our-wines/