Sugrue, #ZODO, England NV - 75cl

The hashtag is a joke about the name, and the name is the whole point: ZODO is zero dosage. No sugar added at disgorgement, nothing to round off the edges or paper over a gap. It is the most exposed way to bottle a sparkling wine, and only worth attempting if the fruit can carry it.

Dermot Sugrue can. He made the wines at Nyetimber and then at Wiston before setting up on his own in Sussex, working chalk that sits on the same Cretaceous seam running under Champagne. Twenty years in, he is one of the two or three names English sparkling wine gets judged by.

Without dosage the wine is lean and very direct. Green apple and lemon pith first, then the bready depth that comes from long ageing on lees, and a chalk note running underneath the whole thing. Fine mousse, high acidity, and a finish so dry it leaves your mouth watering rather than puckered.

At £64 this is a serious bottle, and not a crowd-pleaser. If the table likes its fizz soft and fruity, open something else and keep this for yourself.

How to Serve

8 to 10°C. A white wine glass, not a flute — with zero dosage the aromatics need somewhere to go. Give it ten minutes out of the fridge before pouring.

Where to Drink It

Noble Rot, where a zero-dosage English fizz will be properly understood. Bentley's, for the oysters. Brat in Shoreditch, if the grill is going.

Food Pairings

Native oysters, straight up. Or brown crab on toast, where the acidity does the work a lemon would.