Fringe City, the Brighton Fringe weekend street festival, is known for hosting new and exciting food and drink pop-ups. This year for the first time, Fitz are gracing stalls of New Road and Jubilee Square with their fresh take on sparkling wine made in England. Created by Divergent Drinks, Fitz are based in Worthing and make affordable, consumer-focused bottles of fizz. “This is for your average wine-drinker, somebody wants an introduction to what wine can be”.
Started in 2016, Fitz wine is already causing a stir amongst the traditional English wine makers due to their avant-garde winemaking method, which is the first UK product to be created using the Charmat style, a technique usually used for Prosecco. “By adopting this new technique, we found there were some rumblings. ‘Why are you doing this? Is it going to detract from the quality that we’ve already experienced from the industry thus far?’” However, Fitz aren’t worried by the
traditionalists; their wine business is bubbling away nicely and they are set to sell close to 100,000 bottles this year. The company are also primed to bring out a Fizz Rose, a dryer demi sec to diversify their portfolio.
Fitz use high quality grapes which are grown by a network of talented farmers across the UK. Combine this with their Charmat method of fermentation, and Fitz have created a distinctively fruity and fresh wine. Unlike traditional winemakers, Fitz don’t have to ferment the wine in the bottle for 3 years, which makes their product cheaper than some competitors. “I do feel there’s a bit of a disconnect from some of the producers, ignoring the fact to pay £35 for a bottle of wine is a lot of money.”
Pop over to sample Fitz sparkling wine at Fringe City /Jubilee Square on Sat 18 – Sun 19 and Sat 25 -Sun 26 May.
