Midland Press Pinot Blanc 2024

Midland Press Pinot Blanc, The Wine
Here it is: the latest chapter from Midland Press, and this time they’ve stepped away from their mischievous chilled red experiments to bring you something altogether more serene, but no less characterful. This 100% Pinot Blanc comes from some of the best fruit England produced in 2024, and it shows. Elegant, fragrant, textural and quietly confident, it’s the kind of wine that doesn’t shout… it just raises an eyebrow, hands you a glass, and lets you figure out you’re in good company. Made with minimal intervention and maximum patience, it’s bottled unfiltered and unfined.

Midland Press, The Producer
If you know the people behind Midland Press, you’ll know they’re not exactly “traditional”. Operating from an urban winery under a Birmingham viaduct arch, they pair proper winemaking skill with a slightly anarchic streak: one that produced their debut red, Outer City Limits. But beneath the humour and the punk-energy cellar ethos, there’s real commitment to craft: single-vineyard sourcing, long natural fermentations, gentle handling and a stubborn refusal to rush anything. This Pinot Blanc is their first still white, and honestly, it feels like they’ve been making the grape for decades.

Terroir & Winemaking
The fruit comes from a single plot in the Crouch Valley, aka “the place where still English wine goes to become a hero”. The ancient Alsatian N81 clone gives the wine its pretty aromatics; the cooler 2024 vintage gives it its lovely freshness; and the winemaking gives it its charm. The team let it undergo a gloriously slow eight-month spontaneous fermentation in old French oak. No inoculation. No shortcuts. Just nature doing what it does when you’re patient enough to leave the cellar lights off and trust the yeast. After that, it was bottled unfiltered and unfined, keeping its gentle haze and all its personality intact.

Tasting Notes
Expect a bright, graceful swirl of green apple, ripe Comice pear and soft blossom. There’s a little almond here, a touch of savoury depth there, and just enough old-oak whisper to make you nod approvingly. Textural, fresh and quietly complex, it’s the sort of wine you pour for a friend and then “accidentally” finish the bottle together.

Food Pairing Suggestions

This Pinot Blanc is wonderfully versatile, the sort of wine that behaves well at the dinner table but still has enough personality to wander off and chat to your guests. Try it with:

• Salt-and-pepper squid (the wine’s crispness slices through like a happy little sword).

• Goat’s cheese and honey toast: the sweetness and tang play beautifully with the wine’s pear-led fruit.

• Sushi or sashimi, especially anything citrus-cured.