Offbeat Wines
WINEMAKER
Daniel Ham & Nicola Ham
TYPE OF AGRICULTURE
Organic uncertified
VINEYARD AREA
Negociant
COUNTRY, REGION, SUBREGION
Offbeat Wines began in 2018 as a creative outlet for Daniel Ham’s whilst heading up the winemaking at Langham Wine Estate in Dorset, but it has since grown into a full-time family operation.
Since the 2020 harvest Dan and his wife Nicola are making the wines in their own cellar, a converted barn at Botley’s Farm, just outside Salisbury.
Both marine biologists, Dan was bitten by the winemaking bug in New Zealand whilst living out there to complete Nicola’s PhD. Dan started his career in wine at Ridgeview in 2012 following courses at Plumpton College. He has now gone full circle and is making wine in probably some of the smallest volumes in the UK.
Dan & Nicola have developed close relationships with responsible, passionate growers in the South West, and their wines for the foreseeable future will be focused on celebrating the quality of fruit from two farms in particular.
They work with Duncan McNeill, who farms an organic vineyard in Crouch Valley, planted with Pinot Noir, Blanc and Meunier, and Lucie and Jules in Kent who are growing Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier, Bacchus and Pinot Gris, working regeneratively, in organic conversion with an aim towards biodynamics.
The Offbeat project continues to slowly expand and continues to go from strength to strength, with Dan & Nicola proving the real potential of zero-sulphur English wine. Their wines are among some of the most exciting being made in the UK.
For any UK wholesale and stock enquiries, please contact hello@winesutb.com
WINES
A direct-pressed, amphora aged Pinot Meunier with fruit sourced from a small plot on chalk soils in Dorchester.
A detailed, crystalline expression of Pinot Noir and Blanc from one parcel in Essex.
A pure-fruited, mineral combination of Pinot Noir and Meunier from one parcel in Essex
A pithy, saline blend of hybrid varieties undergoing different macerations. A brilliant collage of the last two vintages.
A brambly, frothy red pet-nat primed for picnic drinking. Bottled-summer. Sourced from a small, nearly wild plot of 39-year-old Triomphe and Bacchus vines on clay over chalk in the Test Valley, Hampshire. Still farmed by Tim Ayers who hand-planted the vines in the 1980s.
The third edition in the Field Notes series - a series celebrating fruit sourced primarily from a mineral-rich blue clay parcel farmed organically by Duncan McNeill in the Crouch Valley.
Working with Duncan’s Pinot Blanc in a variety of methods, fleshed out with a little Chardonnay from Ham Street. A textural, pithy white from the leaner 2021 vintage, lively with acidity and tension.
Incredible depth and length, a serious gastronomic wine that glitters with minerals, alive with acidity. A wine to mark significant milestones in Nic & Dan's journey. From the exceptional 2020 vintage, it was the first fruit into their winery and through their traditional Coquard press.
Magic Number is a detailed, pretty red with complexity, length and substance. Bright with fruit, and elegant acidity. It characterises Nic & Dan's journey with red varieties: a road of discovery, learning how to develop their ideal profile with homegrown fruit. With Magic Number, they had tapped into a vein of possibility they are still following.
More on Offbeat Wines:
New releases just arrived from Nicola & Daniel at Offbeat! Spring/Summer drinking in its finest forms no matter the occasion: Piquette, Pet-Nat, Cider and a Wine/Cider hybrid!
A beautiful day in Stockport celebrating the growing community of cutting-edge producers working in the UK today.
Open to all, join us on March 3rd to celebrate the growing community of UK growers, winemakers and passionate champions of their work. A gathering for the ages!
In what is becoming a welcome annual tradition as we approach summer proper, we are able to begin releasing wines from our UK growers' cellars. Two new wines from Nicola & Daniel at Offbeat, Salisbury.
We're excited to announce the next in a series of collaborations between restaurants and our UK growers.The beautiful Eline will be collaborating with our pals at Offbeat to bring you two very special evenings this summer.
Among our producers joining us for Real Wine In The Vines on Tuesday 16th May: Nicola & Daniel Ham from Offbeat.
Al is spending October getting stuck in: picking and processing fruit destined to become the wines of Domaine Hugo, Offbeat and Hamstreet among others. Here’s how he’s getting on.
Just arrived from Offbeat, Field Notes 1 & 2 are here!
A pair of sibling-wines, with fruit sourced from one vineyard on clay soils in Crouch Valley, Essex. These two are a neat example of the cyclical circuit of winemaking and blending Dan & Nic have been perfecting recently.
The latest release from Dan & Nic at Offbeat is here: introducing Field Notes 1.
The first instalment of Field Notes is the by-product of their experimentations with maceration techniques and ageing, a supple and pretty blend of Pinots Noir & Blanc from a plot on clay soils in Crouch Valley, Essex.
“Businessmen they drink my wine, ploughmen plough my earth” The next release from Dan & Nic at Offbeat will be with us soon, having been bottled today, the 21st of June. A direct-pressed Pinot Meunier channeling the tension and release of Dylan’s battle cry from his home in the hills.
Fun, precise and wild. Ripe, tropical and herbal, a proper pet nat. No SO2, hazy. The playful side to the sometimes overly serious world of English sparkling. A perfect introduction to the Offbeat range.