Wine Clubs And Wine Tasting Events, Alcohol and No Alcohol Around Britain

Angela Lansbury trying Grenache Rose from a can at a show. 

Wine Clubs

Near Trafalgar Square, about half way between Charing Cross and Embankment stations, an easy 5 minute walk from each, is the Civil Service Club which is the venue for the Central London Wine Club. They meet the second and fourth Wednesday evenings each month and are open to guests. No need to be a member of the Civil service or its club. Just book and pay though their website. (New website from November 20th. Like all theatres and other places of entertainment, you pay in advance to reserve your seat in a place where seats are limited by fire regulations. Also for wine clubs, unlike restaurants, the number of bottles ordered depends on the numbers signing up.

If you want a venue with unlimited wine stocks, the ideal venue is a restaurant, but they mostly charge corkage, so the organizers have to budget carefully. Turning up with a magnum might involve the hosts in more changes. An alternative is a members' club with cellars, like 67 Pall Mall, where you pay a joining fee and a montly or annual fee.

Other wine clubs in London and the home counties which I have attended include wine clubs in St Albans and Welwyn, which attract people who live in those areas. Put into a search engine the name of your location and the word wine club and see what comes up. Very useful if you live in a new area and want to meet friends. 

Some clubs attract young people. Others attract the retired. Or a mixture.

Restaurants & Shops Tastings & Themed Evenings

Many restaurants, bars, and pubs, and wine shops have evenings based on wines from a particular country, or season. Also embassies, promoting the wines and vineyards of their country. If you attend one of these events, you are likely to meet somebody from the local area or further afield. You might get invited to an event, or meet somebody interesting in attending a wine club you start, or in helping you to organize a meeting.

If you attend a trade fair for a country, or hospitality, for luxury travel, or group travel, or a wedding fair, you might meet suppliers of sparkling wines, low alcohol and no alcohol wines, mixers, spirits and juices.

Those attending might include owners of wineyards, winemakers, owners of bars and restaurants, sommeliers and head waiters, students of wine (not necessarily youngsters) people celebrating weddings and anniversaries.

Suppliers of wine such as Berry brothers also have wine tastings before Christmas and at intervals throughout the year.

If you order a case of wine, or even do an internet search, you might be sent useful advertisements and invitations and information about wine events and societies. 

WSET

WSET runs courses for the interest of amateur enthusiasts, sommeliers, and those specializing in sake.

Wine clubs have also been started by members of big businesses such as banks. You might find that your company already has a wine society. Or if there is a newsletter, you might be able to start one. It is a good way to network with others in your company, or to network if the club is open to guests and outside members.

Why would you need to give your details or pay money in advance? First of all, for the security of the venue, and the event. Secondly, to ensure there is enough wine, water, crackers, bread, or food, for all attending. Thirdly, you need enough wine glasses. Even if the event is bring a bottle, if ten people each bring a bottle, you either need a tasting sheet to provide information and enable people to note which wine they liked, or enough glasses of different types.

What if the event provides no food, or asks you to bring your own wine glasses?

Big events open either to trade only, or to anybody willing to pay, are held at major stadiums, in London at Olympia, and Excel. In Singapore a popular venue is Expo. Get on their mailing list. You can also look at Eventbrite and Meetup.

If you order wine by the case, for a wedding, anniversary, birthday, housewarming, club Xmas party, you might be able to hire for a fee, or free, glasses from major wine shops or warehouses. You then get on their list invited to tastings or events.

Another option is to join the Wine Society. You can then visit their huge shop in Stevenage has large selections of wine bottles. You can join online in advance for about forty pounds which gives you a discount towards your first purchase. 

For the driver of your car, there will be water, or a coffee machine. And toilets. And at Christmas chocolates in gift boxes, and other snacks and gifts. 

My husband and I have attended several lunches. At one of them we made permanent friends of another couple who meet us in London to have lunch at an art gallery.

Before driving all that way, to Stevenage, check their opening times and events. It may be possible to ask a member to take you in as a guest, or to stop at the cashier and pay for membership on arrival, without waiting, but please check the latest regulations of the society, and the UK laws on club membership and drink driving.

No Alcohol Drinks

For non drinkers, it is very handy to see the variety of low alcohol and no alcohol drinks which you can give to drivers and non drinkers, and people on pills for temporary or permanent conditions. You can now buy no alcohol wines, beers, ciders, and decaffeinated teas, and coffees.

Alcohol In Food And Drink

Keeping informed about spirits in food is also handy. For example, you might see alcohol in the list of ingredients in Christmas pudding and other dishes which you wish to buy or serve. The same applies when you look at menus or get served in restaurants or people's home, when you responsible for events serving adults or children. 

Useful Websites On Wine And Events (alphabetically)

Central London Wine Society

https://www.67pallmall.com/

wine@clws.org.uk

Berry Brothers & Rudd

https://www.bbr.com/events-and-experiences

Decanter

https://events.decanter.com/london/your-details

The Wine Society

https://www.thewinesociety.com/

WSET

https://www.wsetglobal.com/wset-school-london

-ends-

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What you can see and do at the Wine Society in Stevenage

 

The Wine Cellar at The Wine Society. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The wine society is about wîne but there is lots to entertain and impress those who are not wine drinkers or don’t know much about wine.

So it is a good place to stop for a break on your way out of London going north or back on your way from Cambridge. 

1 I am always entranced by the spiral staircase under circular glass leading down to the wine cellar.

2 Another novelty is what you can do with cork or imitation cork. Make a stool.

Corks at The Wine Society. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

3 You can take them your old corks for recycling. The donated corks are sent to Portugal.

What's free or cheap?

At the door on Wed 29th October 2025 we were offered a tasting of two Greek wines. 

The Enomatic Machine

Except on special occasions, the enomatic machine is free offering you a teeny taste of several wine which they are promoting. 

Enomatic, which I have previously thought of as a generic name is actually a brand name, so it must have a capital letter for a proper name, and not be used for any device other than their own branded product. Eno is related to the name for wine, and matic as in automatic, a wine dispenser, operated by a card. In shops and restaurants or restaurant-bars such as machine is operated by a card which you buy. Like a train card, you can add amounts of money to the card, and keep using it until the money runs out, then top it up. 

The Wine Society has a well organized double room or shelving. You can look for a country. Or a style of wine such as Spritis or Sweet Wine, Red, white. Also beer. Low and no alcohol.

If you are not a drinker, or are driving and want to taste and spit, or sober up, or entertain a non drinking passenger, there are coffee dispensers which have drinking chocolate as well as fresh milk in a minifridge. Also water. And toilets. 

What to buy for yourself or non drinking friends to eat, or just general gifts? And chocolates. Seasonal items, for Christmas, when we were there. Boar pate. Duck pate. Olives. Crisps and nuts. The selection changes all the time.

They also have ends of stocks at reduced prices. And mixed cases of six bottles with damaged labels for about a hundred pounds or more. The tops of the boxes were open so we were able to look in and see what was there. You might not want to serve a bottle with a damaged label for a festive occasion, or in a restaurant to a VIP customer. But for yourself, or a friend who likes a bargain, that is an option. 

Useful Websites

https://www.thewinesociety.com/

Wine Society Wine Tastings

Christmas trees outside provided a welcome and a free taste of c r e m a n t (sorry, auto correct tried to convert this to creamed. C r e m a n t is a sparkling white wine, not allowed to be called Champagne which is a French place name, and protected). This event was held n Stevenage but go to their website and you'll see they have paid for events all over Britain, sometimes in Europe, which despite the price are often sold out before I get to read the website. Luckily a member of my family is a member and takes me along, and gets news of events like the pre-Christmas tasting which is really hard to find on the website.

The Wine Society is a mutual society, a bit like the Co-op. It costs about £40 to join, and you get £20 back to spend on wines. Once or twice a year they have a free tasting of 10-20 of their wines. The Christmas tasting was free. If you can drive to Stevenage - or visit a friend or stay in a hotel overnight, it's a lot of fun. Some people drive all the way from the south coast of England or down from the Midlands.

A lot of people live in London and zoom up the motorway and back. One person has to be at the designated driver who knows how to taste and spit into a spittoon. If you are not drinking at all, or even if you are, the foods appear within an hour of the start of the tasting. It was from 4 pm to 6 pm, so not for those who work, unless you take time off work, hence a lot of white haired couples, plus a lot of young couples and solo beards.

The Christmas special foods are not on sale other times of year so it's a treat to try them and a chance to buy them. Everyone has different tastes. Others were enthusing about the pates, venison, rabbit, boar. (I'm a chicken liver pate person and none of the pates appealed to me.) But I was impressed by the cheddar cheese, and the honeycomb in chocolate, and the chocolates.

I loved the huge salted almonds. I've never seen such large almonds. The ones in supermarkets the world over are much smaller.

You can buy lots of novelties as gifts. Plum pudding (Christmas pudding), sticky toffee pudding, parkins (a northern biscuit - more details and recipes in Wikipedia and on other websites), tins.

Plus the expected wine glasses, bottle openers and novelties. Our purchase was the balls for cleaning the inside of a decanter or a wine bottle or plastic bottle you use for carrying small amounts of wine. (How does it work? You roll the balls about then empty them out.)

The Stevenage shop and tasting room has two Enomatic machines. The free tasting section is turned off during the free tastings. You don't need it since you are trying the half dozen or dozen wines they are offering and have in stock.

You can still use the paid for machine. The price for the teeny tastes is less than similar machines in shops in central London. The Wine Society has bin ends in a separate room of more expensive and unusual wines. But the vast majority in the main room start from bargain hunter or average person friendly prices.

For example, you might try a taste of a wine from the machine, at just 45p. Contrast that with a shop in Kensington, London, where you might pay £30 for a tasting of a wine costing hundreds of pounds which you would never otherwise get to taste. (I had a sip of one of those very expensive wines from somebody else's glass in central London, and it was wasted on me. The Wine Society is just right for me.)

Whilst I was there, I looked at some of the special sections. One was on English wine and rosé wine. The English wine I noticed was Three Choirs. Many people in Europe are surprised that England has even one vineyard or commercially produced wine.

The staff are all very helpful and knowledgeable. You can ask them anything you like. (Not, 'Are you married or single?'!) You can ask: 'Which food goes with this wine?')

More details from:
Thewinesociety.com

Photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright 2016.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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Pudding wine and puddings at the Wine Society

The Wine Society, Stevenage.

At the wine and puddings event I tried about ten sweet wine and pudding combinations. 

Bread and butter pudding.

Mandorla is Italian for almond.

Hard biscuits containing almond pieces. I say hard, but they are good for dunking in coffee. Also, if you suck them, they do melt in the mouth.

Cantuccini - Tuscany is the home of cantuccini, says a website selling Italian biscuits or as they say, biscotti.

http://www.mediterraneandirect.co.uk/BISCUITS-CONFECTIONERY

Tiramisu

Tiramisu with the matching sweet red wine.

Chocolate pudding served with another matching wine.

I took a video of the melting chocolate centre oozing out when the pudding is cut. We looked up chocolate pudding and were surprised to find it's a lot easier to make than it looks. You simply cook it so that the outside is cooked but the centre is still soft. Then when's it's cut the melting centre emerges.

We reserved this event as soon as we were notified on line. Some people will be going to the overflow event, same puddings and wines a little later in the year. The next event, next year, is on our mental list of things to do.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Sweet wines, pudding wines, wine tasting events UK and France

The Wine Society is holding a wine tasting event Feb 13 2016 in Stevenage. They are offering tasting of eight sweet wines with a little sweet food to match each one. The price is £55 which sounds a lot, yet they are already sold out.

Yes, this event is already sold out but other events are available throughout the year, walk around wine tasting, seated tasting events and full dinners. You need to become a member of the Wine Society (£40 a year but you get £20 off your first wine order) or to go along with a member. If you join you receive a copy of their newspaper with features about wine as well as regular emails about events and the annual catalogues of wines to buy and bits and pieces for yourself or gifts, such as tea towels, aprons, wine glasses, bottle openers, cheese and crackers and seasonal novelties such as chocolates and Xmas cakes and puddings.

I love sweet wines and here's my research into how to remember which is which.

Pudding Wines
REISLING
A popular half sweet wine is Riesling.

GEWURTZTRAMINER
The German name means spicy.
HUNGARIAN TOKAI or TOKAY
This is likely to be a dry red unless the bottle says aszul (sweet).

Fortified wines include PORT from Portugal.

Finally, the sweetest, my favourite, most expensive often a tall thin bottle, half bottle, almost candle shape, often from the USA or Canada or New Zealand.

What's it all about?
When the grapes are picked. The longer you leave the grapes the sweeter they become, like all fruit, which starts sharp early in the season.

Cabinet -grapes picked in August, just for your (kitchen) cabinet
Spatlese - spat is late, l e s e means left (on the vine), S for Spat and S for September
Auslese - imagine an O shape handwrite A, October ' left out later
Beerenauslese = 4th category, longer four syllable word, B for better, picked in November

Trockenbeerenauslese - T r o c k dry, not dry wine but dry like a raisin, extra sweet, seven syllables. Finally
Ice wine - distinctive bottle, very sweet, pricey.

The most syrup

Bad enter too - Eiswein is overtaken in sweetness.

Here's a memory aid:
Kebab Shops Are Bad To Eat.
is a well known genomic, slightly misleading because Trockenbeerenauslese is sweeter than Iceman.

Kabinet, S p a t l e s e,  Beerenauslese, Trockenbeerenauslese, Eiswein (same initial letters).
This doesn't sound very politically correct, nor do I find it memorable. Words starting with the letter
K are are: Kettle, Kin, Kinky, Kinship, Kip, Kirsch, kind, kiss, kite, Kiwi, Koala,
Koalas snatch all bags to eat. Goals search all bags to eat.

K S A B E T or KSABIT.
Koalas such at big eucalyptus trees.
Koalas squat/sit /swing at big eucalyptus trees.

The Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, SG1 2BT.
TheWineSociety.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher and author.

Wine Society - Spiral Staircase Wine Cellar to see

If you join the Wine Society, which costs £40 a year, you get invited to wine tastings, some free, some for a fee. You get their newsletter. You can try wines in their Enomatic machines (often half a dozen free, the rest at assorted prices). You are invited to events which include talks and tastings and sometimes snacks or meals (various fees). And if you are a member and visit you can see the newly installed wine cellar, which you could buy to store a wine collection under a home, hotel or business, for a few thousand pounds. 

This is what it looks like with one of the glass display covers lifted so that you can descend to see the wines. 

I asked, 'What if you got stuck inside?' A button inside at the top releases the cover which lifts automatically. The wines are temperature controlled. And there's a free flow of air so you can breathe with the doors shut. 

I suppose you could hide down there. Or cover you lid with a rug to hide the wines.

If you don't want to buy one, it's an amusing feature to see.

To visit the wine society, you must join or be taken by a member. But it's really only £20 because your membership fee of £40 gives you £20 off your first purchase of wine.

The Wine Society, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Herts SG1 2BT.

Tel: 01438 741177.

https://www.thewinesociety.com

Opening times are 10-6 Mon-Wed and Friday, Thurs an hour later, 10-7, Sat 9.30-5.30 (closed on Sunday).

The Wine Society is in Stevenage. Whilst in the area, you could visit Stevenage Museum, which is free, or Hatfield House or Knebworth House. For a description of the Stevenage Museum, beside the spiral staircase church tower, see the previous post.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer, author, speaker.

Stevenage Museum is free and shows an old kitchen, motorbike and cinema

Stevenage Museum is free and easy to find, on a huge motorway though road, underneath an ultra-modern church, with a striking freestanding column with a spiral staircase visible up the middle and a cross on top, next to a Holiday Inn Hotel.

The only money to pay is for parking, any donation you make, or buying souvenirs. We parked in the car park opposite which has a machine which takes money and gives change.

Photo courtesy of Trevor Sharot, showing the entrance to Stevenage Museum.

Embroidery and history? That idea has been around since 1066 and the battle of Hastings. The current exhibition at Stevenage museum is on embroidery and you can see several unusual items inspired by Stevenage history, such as a large wall embroidery of a map. Another item was a mirror with a frame of embroidery with sayings inspired by an old letter.

But I was soon into the main museum which has displays showing outdoors and indoor life through the ages. You start with a giant time frieze above eye level showing evolution from cave life era through to modern times.

I enjoyed sitting on an old cinema seat watching a video display about cinema and cinemas seats through the ages. Then in a mock up of a kitchen I looked at the old square sink, the shopping list. What did they buy and not buy?

Exhibits are designed to appeal to all ages and interests. I was intrigued by the birds and animals. Others were looking at the Vincent motorcycle and its log book from 1937, a machine built at the local motorcycle factory.

Children could use worksheets and colouring pencils and quizzes. Older people would love the stories of popular music through the ages.

If you reach the end before your companions there's a sofa for a snooze, a coffee machine where you can buy coffee, or browse the display of things to buy, books, postcards, a few items of jewellery, lots of toys and games for the young and young at heart.

We spent about an hour but only read about half the display boards. We intend to go back.

Last entry on a Saturday was 4.30. We stayed until about 4.50, then drove off to old Stevenage and had coffee in a Costa.

General Museum Information
http://www.stevenage.gov.uk/about-stevenage/museum/

You can read reviews on TripAdvisor.
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g190726-d4481165-Reviews-Stevenage_Museum-Stevenage_Hertfordshire_England.html

For pictures see:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/uv?hl=en&pb=!1s0x487631d101ce78e1:0x954a4850a334b399!2m5!2m2!1i80!2i80!3m1!2i100!3m1!7e1!4shttp://www.panoramio.com/photo/10393913!5sstevenage+museum+-+Google+Search&sa=X&ved=0CIgBEKIqMA5qFQoTCLfGjqrUj8YCFYNbFAodbG0ATQ

Stevenage Museum, St George's Way, Stevenage SG1 1XX.
Tel: +44 1438 218881.

Wine Society Xmas Gifts

The Wine Society in Stevenage sells wines you can try for free in its Enomatic machine. Leading up to Christmas there's a large range of foods to buy for parties or Xmas stocking gifts, such as cheese, chocolates, cheese flavour crackers, stollen, Italian bread, pheasant pate and pork scratchings.

Using a wooden wine case cover as a cheese board is an amusing idea. I liked the stilton. I heard others praising the cheddar. 

I was disappointed in the smoked salmon. Also in the stollen. I thought the small stollen in a tin was dry and lacked the moist marzipan centre you get in the bigger stollen on offer some years from supermarkets. 

However, I thought the Pannetone with moist fruit scattered through it was excellent. 

Enomatic machine. Pop in your card and pick a drink to taste. The wines offered are changed at regular intervals so there's always something new to try, and, if you like it, buy a bottle. 

To the right of the free Enomatic machine is another Enomatic serving a small shot of premium wines at assorted prices.

Have a taste from this magnum! One of the Xmas Xtra staff. What a great Xmas job to have. 

Not everybody gets out in front helping the customers face to face. In addition more staff are needed operating the phones taking the Xmas orders.

Service and advice from the regular staff at the Xmas wine tasting event in Stevenage. They also have events all over the UK. Here's their events page:

https://www.thewinesociety.com/shop/TastingCategory.aspx

https://www.thewinesociety.com/

London Canalside Gourmet Restaurant Dock Kitchen

The Dock Kitchen, near the famous Kensal Green Cemetery, was the unusual venue for a Wine Society Dinner. The Wine Society, whose events are mostly in Stevenage at their wine shop, hosted a group dinner in NW London, started with drinks downstairs by the riverside windows, then a seated dinner upstairs.
The wine tasting events are far less sociable, you scarcely speak to anybody, unless you make a point of it as everybody is charging around seeking the next glass of wine to taste, spitting in spittoons and making notes. But a sit down dinner is an opportunity to meet other people as well as enjoying a restaurant.

Our event started with drinks in the Dock Kitchen bar area overlooking the water. Delightful venue, bricks and arched windows in the bar. Whole place most amusing. Case displaying items for sale including napkin holders. Paintings of people on the door to the Ladies' and Gents' toilets.

Starter
Platters to share. Chicken livers - great; Indian salad, Curried tomato, all good.
Chewy Indian breads.

Main Course
Lamb and spinach. What - no potato? More Indian breads.

Cheese
Three great cheeses paired with Greywacke Reisling 2011.

Dessert
High point of the meal. Pistachio and nutmeg cake. Paired with Greywacke late harvest Pinot Gris  2011.

Coffee: All kinds of coffee. (But no chocolates - at least not for us.)

Waiting Staff
Helpful and friendly.

Clientele of Group
My end of my table was mostly middle aged or retired couples or half couples (pair of men whose wives were at home),  all either retired and/or with children in their twenties or thirties.

Cost
A three figure sum per person. But that includes:
1) Talk by wine expert, pre-dinner 'aperitif' drinks.
2) Four course meal including Indian breads, three platter starter, main course, three cheeses, plus dessert and coffee.
3) Also drinks; plus three glasses of different wines including a main course wine, a cheese wine, and a sweet dessert wine.
4) Bottled still and fizzy waters. Service included. And no charge for taking coats.

The Event and The Venue For Group Dinners
I heard and saw the speaker by pushing towards the front, but when you have a speaker in a long room over three areas you need a microphone.
Upstairs the long tables were great for getting to know people. But the speaker who had travelled all the way from New Zealand to tell us about his wines was cut short so we could start dinner. It was a pity he was not given a microphone so he could have continued the talk to both rooms simultaneously, or in succession. Some of us had booked the event specifically to hear about his wines and ask questions.
This was a Wine Society event mainly booked by married couples, so how do I describe it? Business? Or Couples? It was a private function organised by a club or business for a pre-booked event, not couples wandering in off the street, but the food was cooked by their regular kitchen.
Transport

Buses outside take you back uphill past the high walls of the famous Kensal Green cemetery. Make sure you get the right bus to Kensal Green. Cross the lights going uphill. We took one bus which went left at the lights, another took us right at the lights, and we found a hug complex with a hidden Sainsbury's supermarket, which would have been handy another time but not when we were trying to catch the last train.

Dock kitchen

Portobello Docks, 342-344 Ladbroke Grove, London W10 5BU

Phone:020 8962 1610.

www.dockkitchen.co.uk

.

Their online menu says: £24.50 for three course set menu on Mondays.

Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road,
Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 2BT
Enquiries: 01438 741177
thewinesociety.com

It costs £40 to join the Wine Society for life but you get a £20 voucher to spend on their wines in shop or on line, and you can take one or more people who are not members to free and paid-for events - just apply for tickets.