Events

Following her victory in the last White Wine Challenge, Beverley St John Aubin will again be presenting wines fromSouth Africa. Her two challengers will be Crispin Dunn-Meynell withItalyand a welcome return to Sheila Robertson demonstrating the qualities ofHungary, a well underestimated region. This should make for a very interesting evening.

The wines will be selected to follow the sequence: Sparkling, Main Course, and Dessert.  The rules, which have been slightly modified, are:

• Three wines will be served for each region, giving a tasting of 9 wines in the evening;
• Each contestant may spend up to a total of £60.00 on their 3 bottles, but within this total as much or as little as they like on each wine;
• All wines must have been bought in theUKwithin 8 weeks of the event and the sources and prices noted;
• Prices to be single bottle retail or part of a mixed case, excluding delivery charge or collection.  

It is then up to you to decide which of the wines is:

• The most enjoyable single wine of the evening;
• The best value for money;

And, considering each trio as a whole,

• The best overall region.

Sheila Robertson has kindly offered to serve a light supper with wine after the event

The representative of the winning region goes on to organise the next challenge to take place in about 6 months time, unless they have won 3 times in a row and exercise their option to retire undefeated.

As indicated in the quarterly program, an extra event has been selected for members to attend. We had hoped to show the results of our endeavors’ on the new IWFS LB website, it’s almost there and we expect to show an example of this shortly.

 Back to the tasting, we thought that a selection of Pinot Noir wines from New Zealand would be interesting, showing different flavors from the various regions of this interesting country. 

Pinot Noir is the most widely planted red variety in NZ with just under 1400 ha of vines. For purposes of comparison, this is about half the area occupied by Sauvignon Blanc, the current star of the NZ winemaking scene. It’s debatable whether NZ Pinot will ever eclipse NZ Sauvignon in the imagination of the wine drinking public, but it certainly has the potential to be bigger than Chardonnay, not in terms of quantity (Chardonnay is NZ’s most planted grape variety), but in quality and interest.

 The wine selected are:

These are fairly heavy reds and various “nibbles” will be available to clear palates, but this tasting will be include a full meal.

Just as he was about to leave for holiday in St Lucia, Keith Ellis offered us an event that sounded very interesting indeed but unfortunately he did not have time to source more wines, arrange a date and venue nor cost the event before we went to print. However in view of our re-arranged Fine Red Burgundy from the Vintages of 1982, 1983, 1985 on 10^th May, we felt that it would be very interesting to include this event at the end of our 2^nd Quarter Programme. It is unlikely that Keith will be able to source NZ Pinot Noir that old but he will attempt to acquire something aged so that you can see how top class NZ Pinot Noir can age very well.

The wines Keith has acquired so far are as follows: 

2007 CARRICK WINERY, Pinot Noir       
2008 CARIRICK WINERY, Crown and Cross Pinot Noir,      
2009 URLAR, Pinot Noir
2010 TRINITY HILL, Hawkes Bay Pinot Noir     
2010 QUARTZ REEF, Pinot Noir

We are looking to hold the event the week of 18^th June but as yet we have no specific day.  The venue is likely to be either The Lansdowne Club or The Hilton Doubletree (formerly Hesperia).

If you would like to attend this event please mark your booking form so that Keith can gauge the degree of interest and acquire more wines on his return from sunnySt   Lucia. Details of the event will be emailed in the next 2-3 weeks so please save that week in your diaries.

Yes, that’s right – wine under £5 per bottle or maybe very slightly over, AND wine that’s pretty good too! This event was so successful last year that the organiser has been asked to repeat it.

The majority of wines tonight will usually be on sale at around £8-10 or even more but are on special offer at around £5. Consequently they represent excellent value at far less than their usual selling price.

The week before the event, the organiser will scour supermarkets, wine merchants and other suppliers on-line for 10 red and white wines that meet the criteria. If you like any of the wines, they will still be available and on offer for you to buy directly after the event as people did last year.

Because these are going to be wines you’d drink with food, it seems eminently sensible to drink them at this tasting with food! In a complete reversal of our usual format the organiser has therefore come up with a new and novel concept for this event.

Upon arrival you will be able to help yourself from the buffet table to a fish course to accompany the white wines chosen and to test them against. We will then have a short break to discuss them before the reds and then you will be able to replenish your plate with French bread, paté, charcuterie, koftas and cheeses to accompany the red wines.

No supper will obviously follow the tasting because the accompanying food will be the supper. However you can rest assured that there will be ample quantities with which to assuage your hunger pangs during the tasting. To round off the evening a desert and coffee will be provided.