A weekend in the hallowed ground of cricket without a cricketer, apart from Botham who was tending his BMW (Botham, Merrill - yes,Geoff, Willis), wine stand, to be seen! A fun weekend working with The Three Wine Men, Oz Clarke, Tim Atkin & Olly Smith. All in great form, great to catch up, and to Meet Olly. Lots of chat about Oz's next wine TV production - in Australia.
Surveyed 200 customers on a range of wines released in the US, but hastening slowly into the UK market -keen to get feedback on the presentation, packaging and contents of new brands. Terrific event to do this at, with age ranges 18-56+ represented at the event, & keen to give an opinion with a bottle of champagne in the offing! I was lucky to taste through a strong range of red wines from Portugal, and even luckier to do a tutored tasting with the 'Douro Boys' from Portugal. Wow! Are they doing a great job managing high temperatures during vintage making some tremendous wines!
A fun weekend, good to catch up with people, including Brian Smith, wine producer from Elgin in South Africa who's vineyard/ winery next door to Paul Cluver 111, who I visited with our joint UK wine distributor Mckinley's a few years ago. Small world!!
Oh and found a great deli and coffee shop/patisserie around the corner from Lords in St Johns Wood, turn left at Barclay's Bank on way from St Johns Wood tube station en route to Lords, it's worth finding. Hazel & I scrunched in amongst the other local beautiful people and partook. I thought we looked as though we belonged!