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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Cookery courses - travel to a bakery or cookery course - or learn online

 I looked up the IRCA recipes and found that they offer courses on bakery (making bread and pastries), gelato (Ice cream) and chocolate!They are in Italy, where they offer one to one courses and one to many courses. But also soon online.

If you want a free demo of what to do, the contests at the trade shows offer opportunities if you are not anchored to a stand. If you are looking for a distributor, you could stagger your lunch times so that your stand is always manned but use a lunch break to go off and watch the contests.

Courses

Who are the courses for and where can you do courses? For students and the professionals, to update, to train your own staff, as a perk or prize, as a holiday where you come home with a skill, to improve your status as a spouse or on a dating site, or to gift for a birthday or Xmas for a child (or spouse or sibling) or a grandchild. 

UK Armed Forces

At an exhibition in London I saw a stand by the navy. School leavers without academic qualifications and aptitudes, those who are more practical and like using their hands and seeing results, can sign up to the catering corps and receive in house (or on ship) training, accommodation taken care of, instant friends and social life.  

Not the usual situation of take a training course and then have the stress of applying for a job.  Instead a guaranteed job at the end of the training in a situation you already know,

Singapore

For the retired or approaching retirement, Singapore has a Skills Future programme which subsidizes courses within Singapore.

 Annual Training

For some years now it has been a requirement for workers to take about four days of training every year to update themselves in new technology, and to brush up their old skills and re-ignite their enthusiasm, as well as connecting with colleagues or others working in the same field as well as the experts. You have probably heard about teachers being away from schools on training courses - sometimes as surprise or inconvenience to parents!  My father who had two optician's shops, after retiring did locum work a couple of days a week, and he had to take updating courses on the latest equipment and identifying abnormalities inside the eye for noting possible diseases to ensure that patients got checked out medically. My son did an NLP course with doctors from a London hospital, keen to improve patient's morale and the doctor's bedside manner and the staff-patient relationship and communication.

My husband took a course on wine with WSET in London, which has now expanded worldwide. I have seen courses on chocolate making offered by chocolate shops at Xmas time. You can also give a cookery course to newlyweds, as retraining for the redundant, or as a new interest. The opportunities are expanding.

Warning

After a day at the exhibition, despite walking around the Singapore MRT stations, and around the exhibition halls, my weight had gone up!

Useful Websites

www.fhaHoReCa.com

https://www.irca.eu/en/company/history

https://www.irca.eu/en/recipe/recipe-detail-slug~192476

https://www.myskillsfuture.gov.sg/upskill/?

Technical stuff - what those in the trade know about wines they are selling you

Problem
If you stop at a cellar door, often the seller's family are offering tastings and know about their own wines, which they are promoting. But how much do people in supermarkets and wine shops worldwide know about what they are selling?

Answer
A surprising amount. The big supermarket chain will usually have a Master of Wine somewhere in their organization. Staff further down will have taken and be taking other exams.

My husband just did the diploma. As you rise up the ranks of the exams, the time taken increases, the number of exams you have to take increases, and the numbers of people who are in the trade increases.

If you want to take a course in wine-tasting, you'll find groups for taking exams, and groups just for fun, all over the world.

WSET run courses in the UK and several countries. The French have sommelier courses in French.

In London you can go to dinners and tastings, exam courses run by WSET, and tutorials, dinners, tastings and by Berry Brothers and Rudd who have a shop near Picccadilly and historic cellars for their wine tasting events.

grapedeal.com/the-wset-diploma

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

July 4 in the USA: what did you and I miss? A quiz for you on the USA.

Map of the USA from Wikipedia.

Problem
I wasn't in the USA on July 4 this year, 2017. The British papers which I read on line, the BBC News and the Daily Mail, did not report much. I found a few people and places in London, such as pubs and American theme restaurants which were offering American food and drink.


In Hatch End we have Baskin Robbins. Their website says:
Headquartered in Massachusetts, USA, Baskin-Robbins is part of Dunkin' Brands Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: DNKN) along with sister brand Dunkin' Donuts. 

We are forever indebted to the Americans. I remember going to the USA in 1967 and being astonished to see shops selling several varieties of ice cream. Back in London, England, post-war, an ordinary shop or restaurant only had vanilla ice cream. The top places offered you three sorts, vanilla,  chocolate and, if you were lucky, strawberry.

B, back to July 4th, 2017. It was too late to go there because I was out all day in London at Imbibe at Olympia. I had hardly had time to notice it was the 4th of July, and looking at families with children whose faces are painted feels like I'm introducing on somebody else's family party.

One reason for the shortage of news from the USA on July 4th could be that London, England is five hours ahead of New York. So it's still 1pm, lunch time in New York when Londoners get home from work at 6 pm.  New York is still early evening, 7 pm, if we go to bed in London at midnight, if we stay up that late. The West coast, San Francisco is even further away, timewise.

July 4 Picnic
When I lived in the USA, in Rockville, Maryland, in the late 1980s, on July 4th we went for a picnic on a hillside in the south near the military cemetery overlooking Washington DC.  The fireworks were not until late in the evening, a long wait, and they were far away. Now I understand why we saw so little festivity.

We didn't realise that family picnics are just that, like Christmas Day, a day off work when families can get together. We expected parades or events all day everywhere. Nothing much happened in our park. Just a lot of families having picnics. We would have seen more at home all day enjoying our swimming pool in the morning then watching morning parades from the west coast on TV in the east coast in the afternoon.

Never mind. No point thinking about the past. Learn from that. Plan to be where you can see something happening next time.

Another member of my family had a picnic in Central Park on the 200th anniversary in 1976.

July 4 Plans
Nowadays everything is on line for you to enjoy, even if you are in another city or another continent. So what can you see of the 4th of July celebrations that you missed this year?  What could you look out for or join next year?

Answers
1 Don't rely on other people. For your selfie photos stock up on American flags and face paint and keep everything together in a bag with stars and stripes on it, as you would for Christmas. Note where in your attic or basement the American theme items are kept.
2 Check your dirty ahead and see which clubs are meeting that week so you can suggest an American theme. Bake red white and blue cakes or biscuits or put flags on the food. Ask all your friend to bring red white and blue. Find a flag for your emails, websites, newsletters and blogs.

Quiz on America
Plan a quiz for children or adults on:
1 American states.
2 American state capitals.
3 American Presidents.
4 Who was your favourite American President and why?
5 Which President did the most for America?
6 Which First Lady most inspired you?
7 Make a quiz on American quotations.

My Quiz
1 Which year was the Declaration of Independence? 1666, 1776, 1886, 1996?
2 America declared independence from: Canada, France, Great Britain, Mexico, Russia, South America, all of the above?
3 Who was the first American President? Jefferson, Lincoln, Kennedy, Washington?
4 Who are the four Presidents on Mount Rushmore? Lincoln, Washington, Jefferson, ....?
5 The National anthem is: America the beautiful. The Star Spangled Banner.
6 The motto is: All for one and one for all. In God We Trust.
7 Where is Mount Rushmore? Washington state? Colorado? North Dakota? South Dakota?
8 Which of these states are on the west coast? California. Washington. Oregon. California. New Mexico? Alaska?
9 Which of these states are on the East coast? New York. Virginia. West Virginia. Florida. Texas. South Carolina, North Carolina. Maryland. R h o d e Island. Massachusetts. New Hampshire. Vermont. ...?
10 Which of these states border Mexico? New Mexico. Texas. California? ...?
11 Which states border Canada? New York State. Michigan. Washington State. North Dakota?
12 Name an American film star who became a President.
13 How many American states are there? And how many stars on the American flag?
14 Name an American female film star with the initials M M.
15 Name an American singer with the initials E P.
16 Buffalo wings are made of what? Chicken. Buffalo.
17 Which American President said: the business of America is business.
18 Which President said: Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.
19 Name three to ten ten tourist sights in the USA in NY, Washington DC, Dakota. Add one American connected site in London, England.
20 Name the previous and current presidents of the USA.

Answers
1 1776
2 Great Britain. Being independent, all of the above also applies, but specifically America wanted independence from Britain. (And from the taxes. Remember the Boston Tea Party?)
3 The first President was Washington. Maybe that's why the capital is called Washington DC. Maybe that's why there is a Washington state, but no state named after others.
4 George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Thomas Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt.
5 The Star Spangled Banner.
6 In God We Trust. All for one and one for all is from the novel The Three Musketeers.
7 South Dakota.
8 See map above. I can tell you. But you will remember better if you look at the map and memorise it.
9 See map above.
10 See map above.
11 New York state - of course, Niagara Falls is both sides.
12 President Reagan
13 How many states in the USA, 50, (although some say, 52, but only if you count 'territories' etc, Puerto Rico, and Washington DC. The stars on the American flag are therefore 50. (13 stripes - recalling the early days of the USA.)
14 Marilyn Monroe.
15 Elvis Presley.
16 Chicken. The dish of chicken wings was invented in Buffalo. I discovered this when I lived in the USA. At the Grand canyon we saw lots of Buffalo. Buffalo wings was on the menu. I was disappointed when I got chicken and not Buffalo. I complained that the server had brought the wrong dish. She thought I was crazy. I discovered my error a year later when I met a lady from Buffalo and asked her if her state had any national dish. Thinking about it, I still blush and wince and cover my mouth and shake my head and tut and run my hands through my hair.
17 President Calvin Coolidge.
18 President J F Kennedy.
19 Statue of Liberty. Mount Rushmore. Lincoln Memorial. Washington Memorial. Benjamin Franklin House museum in London, England.
20 Barack Obama. Donald Trump.

Use as many questions as you like, one, five, ten, or fifteen. Add your own questions. Award prizes or certificates or titles such as Top of the Class and Last But Not Least or Last But Not Lost. (I just made up 'last but not lost'. If you use it, please attribute it to me.)

You can use the quiz to entertain the family when travelling by car or train or plane, having a party or picnic or when hiking. You could make prizes for the winners, which a small certificate. Or list everybody's score and time answering.

On July 4, 2017, I did a competition at Imbibe exhibition at Olympia, London, on the WSET stand. (WSET stands for Wine and Spirits Education Trust.) I was immensely pleased to have my name up on the wall.  Even if everybody's name is on the wall, and you are last, your name is still on the wall.

Photo of Angela Lansbury Proudly Pointing to Her Name on the Top of the Class board at WSET stand at Imbibe, London, July 4, 2017, England. 

Tips For What To See In The USA or UK on July 4

Morning - see parades in person or on TV news. Parades:

Evening - see fireworks. Fireworks: San Francisco. New York.

All Day: Lights on Miami Tower in Florida.

MORE INFORMATION FROM

http://www.baskinrobbins.co.uk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Rushmore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States

US visitor and visa information:

https://uk.usembassy.gov/visiting-united-states/

https://www.visitbritain.com/gb/en

http://www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org

https://americanmuseum.org (near Bath, England, UK)

WSET

http://www.westlondonwineschool.com/catlist.

Imbibe.com

FLIGHTS

www.virginatlantic.com

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Author of Quick Quotations (Lulu.com)
Author of Who Said What When (Lulu.com)
My two previous posts are on the IMBIBE exhibition and one post mentions Prince Charles and Camilla. If you work for a tourist board please keep me updated with new attractions, museums, hotels, restaurants, films and books. I have several other posts on Benjamin Franklin, quotations, the USA, and London, England and tourism worldwide, everything from monuments to tips on packing your suitcase. Please share links to your favourite posts.

Streatham Wine House, new wine bar in Streatham, London

Where is it? Just down the road from Streatham Hill Station, opposite the gigantic bingo hall which keeps changing colour. If you stand or sit near the bar window, you can watch the lights changing colour.

The bar is run by three people, Jimmy Smith, wife Beth, and friend Matt. Jimmy runs courses on wine at the West London wine school. I studied and passed level one of the exam on wines and spirits. Another member of my family has taken levels one and two and is now doing the two year diploma course. Jimmy teaches wine buffs including people in the trade working as sommeliers or wine distributors so he knows a lot about wine!

Many of the people at the opening, like us, had responded to emails about crowd-funding. We had travelled from afar, but others we spoke to lived locally.

The cheese, pickles and salami I tried on opening night were good.

So were the two sparkling wines. Jimmy explained that the first wine we tried came from the region in northern Spain also famous for the human towers. The second wine I tried was another Spanish sparkling wine, a Cava, very good.

The company was very convivial. I met another author, someone in the music industry, someone who worked in a bank, a solicitor, others who had taken wine courses as high as Diploma level, and two members of a ladies' softball team.

The wine bar had been cleared of the furniture for the busy opening night. Apparently you will be able to sit on chairs or loll on a sofa.

At the back of the room is a mural of a camper van belonging to Jimmy and Beth, and a montage of photos of them and others. You'll also find all sorts of amusing items: maps on the wall. Books on wine. A wine game.

The toilet is modern, new, and has a wavy mirror and nice hand wash gel. See the previous posts: about Kennedy's fish and chip shop; and human towers.

Streatham Wine House
53A Streatham Hill
Streatham
London
SW2 4TS
Tel:0208 67 88 997
info@streathamwinehouse.com
www.streathamwinehouse.co.uk

Photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright. 2016.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
Please see my other blog posts here and on:
http://www.luxurytravelforless.co.uk

London Wine Fair - my favourite pictures ; plum, mulled wine, squirrels and Marilyn Monroe

Nyetimber bus. Of course as it's a London wine fair I have to start with a wonderful award winning wine from England.

Wine and Spirit Education Trust. A reminder of what I learned on my Level One course. How different wines paired with lemon or cheese or a sweet such as marshmallow will taste differently.

The free massage. Of course they want to sell you the machine at £149. The massage was really good, like three rotating golf balls either side of your neck or back or wherever you put the machine.

Speakers Corner

The audience members did blind tasting trying to guess the wine, whilst so did the speaker, Joe Wadsack. He told us what he looked for when guessing which wine it was. Red or white grape? Which grape? Aromatic or not? Which flavour? Tannic or acidic? From warm or cool climate country? If you can identify the grape, you know where it is likely to come from. Oak aged or not? My favourite wine was the sparkling white sweet Nyetimber wine, from England.

Origin colourful bottles and a stand with a tree. A major exporter from South Africa, now expending and innovating with wines sourced from other countries.

Plum wine from Japan on the stand showing Sake.

Red Squirrel wine. The rare red squirrel is beloved by the British. A recently set up company, 2012, specialise in importing unusual wines with unusual packaging.

Marilyn Monroe on label

Mulled wine from Forest Glow gives you a warm glow. (They were also smart enough to offer a free tasting of something on a cracker - a good move at wine fairs and in pubs, found everywhere at Tapas bars in Spain, and increasingly popular in England. Some people are willing to pay. Pubs which offer mulled wine and free food before lunch on Sundays in England in winter time are packed with drinkers who stay on to drink wine and dine.) 

Their wine is from Sweden, Europe, blended with fruit and flowers and spices.

More information from:

Nyetimber wine www.nyetimber.com

WSET Wine and Spirit Eduction Trust www.wsetglobal.com

Massager: www.begate.co.uk

http://www.marilynwines.com/WINES/MARILYN-MERLOT

Origin wines: www.origin

Plum wine and sake: Daishchi Sake Brewery Co Ltd 

Red Squirrel Wine: www.redsquirrelwine.agency

Mulled wine from Sweden: A Taste Of Ltd / Forest Glow www.forestglow.co.uk

If you are in the trade and missed this event, or want to read about the next one, it will be the 37th London Wine Fair, 22nd to 24th May 2017, again at Olympia, London, England. 

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

How you can identify bad wines and choose good wines at restaurants

Corked wine smells of damp cardboard. It is still drinkable but the smell is gained by an unsterile cork. Some harbour bacterial infections which get in contact with the wine. A particular chemical called TCA is the culprit. The maker can't tell. This problem is eliminated by screw tops.

Corked wines, pretty obvious, smell musty. A sommelier will detect lower quantities. The wine waiter would if he tasted it. Given the opportunity, if you are in doubt, he would often frown and grab it from you.

Wine can be maderised, kept too hot, smells like Madeira wine, storage problem, oxidation, smells like fruit cake.

Wine can be oxidised because too old, depending on how old you like your wine. Some would accept it, thinking it leather-y. Others would not drink it. Some people will collect wines back to the late 1970s. Others will only buy, drink immediately, or collect for drinking later, winds from the 1990s.

What about a wine that smells and taste completely sour so you want to spit it out?

This is not the same as people who don't like the wine, make a bad choice? You should really have the wine matched to your food, because this will alter the apparent taste. You can check styles of wine with food at home. For example, if you always order chicken and chocolate desserts, or if somebody in your family always orders steak and tiramisu, you can try out a wine at home so as not to waste money in a restaurant..

Serve two meals at home with particular wines. Note on a card index card how the first wine tastes with the main course and dessert. Check how a sweeter wine tastes with dessert. Then how the sweeter wine would taste if you tried it with the main course as well. Make a column on the back of the card index card of the wines which go well with your favourite dish or dishes. Make another column for wines which don't go.

Check the restaurant menu online to see which main courses and wines they serve. You can also check the year of the wine. Do they have wines at two prices, more for the older wine, or less for the older wine? Do you care?

This is up to the sommelier. Some sommeliers have an open bottle (left over from another table? - sh! - or more likely used to serve wine by the glass). Some sommeliers, it's even been offered to me by bartenders at a cheap place such as Water's Edge in Ruislip, if you ask, or are hesitating they might offer - they will pour you a tiny sip. Sometimes just one of the wine you are considering, or two if they have two rose wines by the glass.

I try not to try to many if I don't like either of the first two I'm inclined to refuse more out of politeness or embarrassment. Occasionally at a restaurant or a wine shop which has lots of open bottles for a wine tasting, you are offered even more, even three, (if you are pally or a regular or a big spender or at a wine tasting more) until you like one and choose to stick with drinking and paying for that one.

If you want to try regular tastings, a local wine shop might offer weekly events, sometimes free in the hope that you will buy wine. (Many regular customers feel reluctantly obliged to buy something.) Others are very happy to buy a bottle of one of the wines offered. Alternatively, if they don't like any, quite happy to buy somethings, in exchange for an hour or two's entertainment: drinks and nibbles for two members of their family, a chance to chat to the wine shop owner, a visiting vineyard owner, local shopkeepers, local people, visitors from overseas. if you'd had two glasses of wine in a local wine bar it would have cost the same and you would not have had a bottle of wine to take home. So it seems a reasonable deal to voluntarily top up from the shop (rather than the local supermarket) with one of the wines you want for the next weekend or for taking to a friend's party.

I have two birthdays and an anniversary to attend in the next three months. I will probably have at least one meal at home and at least one meal out.

I have already asked my family which sort of restaurant they would like. One member of my family likes Indian food. I wasn't expecting that. I prefer non-spicy, Italian. They have named a restaurant. Time for a sneaky peek at the menu to choose my dishes. Then at the wine list to select my wine. Rather than arguing on the day, I can discuss in advance.

Studying Wine
I have reached only WSET level one. That involved about 20 hours of studying with self-marked tests which you keep doing until you reach more than the pass mark. Then a one day course with teaching and tasting and tests, ending with a multiple choice test. (The first level might be taken by a waiter or would-be sommelier and worker in a wine shop, or wine buyer or wine enthusiast.)

Every meal with family and friends involves discussion of wines, vineyards, the wines, or the recent discoveries on the internet.

Another member of my family has passed level three and is studying for the diploma, which involves several exams, which are several weeks apart, spread over a couple of years, with many people re-sitting some modules.

We plot our travels around vineyards, wine shops, restaurants, wine events. We check the vineyards on google maps to see the slope, the sun and shadows, the rainfall, the vineyard shop, the local village or city shops selling wines and restaurants serving meals with the local wines.

Talks and Workshops
I am Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, speaker. (Not related to the actress, who does wonderful publicity for the name which is shared by at least four people on the internet.)

I am the person you can contact f you would like a free talk to Toastmasters (of which I am a member of two clubs in the UK, probably joining another in Singapore) or a low price amusing talk to a group of under 30 for amateurs and novices on wine labels and wine personalities such as the merry widow, Verve Cliquot. I can also do a well-organised proper formal talk or workshop for a higher price for businesses or charities with a larger audience. (Anywhere in the world via Skype or if you pay for transport and any accommodation needed such as at a conference.)

If you want a workshop with slides and vertical tasting, the same wine such as one from Rioja through the years to compare different styles or production, go to grape deal.com

Angela Lansbury, BA Hons, CL,  ACG, travel writer and photographer, researcher, author, speaker.
More about Angela Lansbury on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Amazon, Lulu.com

Guess What These Place Names mean: Bury St Edmunds; Beaume de Venise, France.

I always try to check place names because it helps me to remember them, draws my attention to the spelling and points to places to visit, landmarks in the area. You might consider whether studying geography and history from books and the internet is a distraction from real life and work, a welcome entertainment, or a vital part of understanding the world.

Bury St Edmunds
Here are this week;s delightful discoveries. First I found in the Sunday Times (the British one, not one in Singapore) that the Place Bury St Edmund's is the burial place of Englands king Edmund, who was later made a saint, which brought the area huge amounts of medieval tourism.

Beaume de Venise
The second delightful discovery was when I ordered a glass of sweet muscat wine, Beaune de Venise. I knew muscat was a grape. That muscat wine is always sweet. But what did the name Beaune de Venise mean? De is French for of. I sent my sleuth's looking. I have a family member who is studying wine for an exam on wines of the world, level 4, examined by the Wines and Spirits Education Trust.

(I am toddling along behind. I passed level one, equivalent to an NVQ and requiring alone about 20 hours study and answering multiple choice questions after each chapter in a large booklet, following by a day of lectures, tasting and a final multiple choice exam, about 30 questions.)

My sleuth found out all sorts of history, going back through blogs on wine, getting academic permissions to read university articles not available to the public, and encyclopaedias on wine and history, including Jewish history. We read about the Italian popes in Southern France. The Jews in the area. The taxes paid.

The motto is q u e ben be u r a ... d i e u  v e i r a

I translate that at first glance as: who(ever) drinks well will see god.

The summary of the story of the origin of the word: Beame - an old word for cave. V e n i se was from the Latin, meaning a P r o  V I N C E, of Rome.  In Roman times. The word Provence means province of Rome.

So Beaume de Venise is the cave of the province.

I shall also always remember not just the wine but the meaning of the word Provence, a region of France, near the Italian border.  I envisage the Italians marching over the border to their province and having a nice glass of sweet wine from Beaume de Venise, the cave of the province.

Sweet wine has less alcohol converted into sugar. I thought that if you are a Roman soldier you deserve a drink, but you don't want to drink spirits and water it down or get over intoxicated. Tomorrow you have work to do. But tonight you can have a glass of sweet wine with your dinner, Beaume de Venise.

However, looking at the label, I am shocked to see that it is 15%, which to me is very high alcohol. No wonder you normally get a small portion of sweet wine at the end of a meal with your dessert. I thought it was because you had already had enough to drink or because the wine was expensive and the restaurant wants to give you less and they can get away with it because you are already full.

Misleadingly, the French words Vin Doux n a t u r e l do not mean wine which is soft or sweet and natural, nothing added. On the contrary, it means fortified wine, wine with added alcohol bringing it up to 15%.

Most wine I drink which is sweet is only 13%, sometimes 12 and a half per cent. Oo-er! Good thing I wasn't driving home.

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

Wine tastings? Who? What? When? Where? Why?

Where can you taste wines? Where can you taste free wine? Who gets invited? Why should I pay to taste a wine? How can you remember what you drank? Any discounts? Who are the 'experts' and why?

Knowledge and Exams
What is my knowledge? I just read an article in the Daily Mail. I'm only a beginner, I just passed Level 1 of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) exams, which is a one day fun course including learning to taste, (although most people have spent up to 20 hours reading the material.

Tasting at UK vineyards
I have been on four tours of vineyards and wine bottling plants in the UK. I had previously written a book on factory tours. I visited whisky distilleries in Scotland.

European Vineyards
In Europe the best organised tours were around the Champagne region.
When I visited the Champagne region in France I wrote a double page spread on Rheims for Take a Break magazine.

My favourite visit for learning something new was the Kir factory in France. A kir, named after Canon Kir, is the local dry Aligote white wine mixed with sweet cassis, or blackcurrant. Kir royal is mixed with bubbly - should be Champagne.

The vineyards in Germany had memorable names. But most visual was the big barrel tourist can climb on for a photo at Heildelberg.

The Great USA
Tourists would probably most enjoy the several in California driving north of San Francisco. Shops the size of supermarkets selling everything from label makers and label removers and books recording wine, books about wine, wine diaries, aprons, bottle openers. battle stoppers, walking tours, train tours.

In Rioja vineyards have shops and tours. For example, Muga.

Tasting Events in the UK
My family buy wine and do tasting several times a week having passed the WSET exams levels three and four, written a thesis on wines in China for the two year next level diploma. I have been to countless wine tastings run by Berry Brothers & Rudd, Antique Wine Company, the Wine Society in Stevenage (my family are members), the Vintners hall, linley hall at the royal Horticulutral, more at West London Wine school, I have helped organise wine dinners, done the blind wine tastings for my family in preparation for their exams (exams at level 3 ). I have also been to tastings on regions, such as ) I spent a week touring Rioja doing tours and tastings every day with the owners or managers of vineyards.

I have sampled lots of wines from Enoteca machines.

So what can I tell you, if you know nothing about it but want to know more?

Free tastings - freeloaders?
Sometimes a free tasting is given to the big spenders or regular customers as a thank you, with special offers. When you are feeling happy you are more likely to spend.

Are you under an obligation to buy. You might take the attitude that you will buy something, either a bottle, or a case, which might be more or less than the cost of the wine you have drunk, or even a book or tee-shirt. If it's a huge crowd, with a crush around the till to pay, half the items already sold out, probably the number of buyers makes up for a few who don't buy but add to the success of the occasion, 'the more the merrier'.

Drink or Sip and Spit?
To the novice it seems you would only spit out wine you didn't like. However, faced with 30 wines you have to spit if you want to try them all.

Who would want to try them all? If you just want something to buy and know that you don't like dry or don't like sweet, then you might well try only 5-10 wines. But if you are buying for a company, reporting to a magazine, feel under an obligation to sellers, studying for an exam, or want to learn, then you may wish to try all the wines in turn.

Generally, you start with one and work your way around the room to be sure you do not miss out any table or wine. If there's a crowd at the start you could go in reverse order.

An alternative is to pick your favourites in case you run out of time. Or select all the dry first and end on the sweet. Or the cheap first and end on the expensive, those you know first, ending with those you don't, or vice versa. Or light wines, then sparkling, then red, then fortified.

Those who drink a lot can often be recognised by their barrel shape, portly figures. A typical trade tasting has twenty or more wines to taste. You are given a page listing the wines and columns in which you can rate each wine by its colour, aroma, body or texture, initial flavour, and aftertaste.

A vertical tasting is the same wine from different years. If you have a garden you know that some years your roses and fruit trees receive the right amount or sun and rain, whilst other years are a disaster. The care of the gardener, and whether your plot or fence is facing the sun or not, also makes a big difference. You can't keep a dead rose except by drying it out. But you can keep good wines in bottles, gradually developing more flavour. The cost of storing wine is high, so you tend to keep only the better wines.

Who are the experts? Some people are experts in their own region. The grower or seller may be an expert in his vineyard and which years were best, or which wine would suit you.

How do you get to taste wines? Many vineyards charge for the tours. Free tastings are more common in wine shops. They tend to put out a smaller number of wines. Or they charge, and deduct the cost of the tasting if you buy wine.

Isn't it all subjective?

Yes, but you can guess what some people will like or they will tell you. For example, sweet wines have less alcohol, and will be more popular with women and novice drinkers. Fortified wines are more popular with heavy drinkers.

So pick somebody with similar tastes and experience and lifestyle to yourself for guidance, or a sommelier who will pick out what you are likely to prefer, rather than pushing wine of the week, or the more expensive wine which the shop or restaurant wants to sell.

A true test is a blind tasting, not influenced by the bottle colour and shape or wine label or name.

Consensus
Second, a good test is to have a panel of several tasters. At some club wine evenings and wine dinners everybody present (usually 6-40 people) will vote on the best value wine and the wine of the night (the one you would most like if price were no object).

If you simply want to try several wines and compare them at lower cost than buying a whole bottle, you can use the Enoteca machines. Those dispense a tiny measure of alcohol.

The Real Experts
The real experts are usually compilers of books. They do nothing but travel around wine regions. Jancis Robinson. They are often Masters of wine. This is a qualification requiring years of study - in fact its now harder to obtain than it was in the early days.

Berry Brothers & Rudd, 3 St James' Street, London (near Green Park tube station), wine shop,  tutored tastings and gourmet dinners (mostly upmarket, expensive, suitable for birthday presents).

Fulham - see my recent post.

Photos and descriptions of events of most of the places below are in previous posts.

The Wine Society, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, co-op with annual membership about £40, tastings and dinners.

Enoteca machines  and/or tastings and/or wine dinners at:
Fulham Wine Rooms, Fulham Road (Near Parsons Green tube station), London
Hedonism Upmarket wine shop with Enoteca and tutored tastings  (half way between Bond Street station and Green Park), grand staircase to basement.
Nicolas (pronounced Nicola) - French wine shop in Marylebone High Street near Baker Street station.
Ristorante Gusto - I have yet to try this, just found it on the internet: http://www.ristorantegustoso.co.uk  restaurant with Enoteca.
Vivat Bacchus: two branches, huge and expensive, rustic but gourmet and upmarket, very jolly for lunch or dinner, with cheese shop and events.

Around Wine (near Baker Street station, London. Wine shop selling bottles, decanters and Enoteca machines you can buy for homes and restaurants.

WSET website
Wine schools near Fulham and Hampstead by Jimmy Smith and elsewhere worldwide
WSET runs government approved courses for the public and trade. (Those taking the exams include wine shop staff, wine waiters, head sommeliers, chefs, restaurant owners, wholesalers, estate managers, vineyard owners and staff, tourist guides, wine buyers, drinkers, collectors, investors and enthusiasts).
http://www.westlondonwineschool.com/

Wine label, Workplace and Language Flashcards - Read or Make Your Own

I am studying for level one of the WSET (Wine and Spirit Education Trust) exam and I've been creating a set of slides in Keynote (apple equivalent of Powerpoint or Mosaic) about wine and wine label/menu languages in French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. I find learning from pages of vocabulary is tedious, whilst reading a wine bottle or chocolate label or clothes label is more interesting because you have a purpose and the word has an importance, telling you about quality, or safety.

The terms on wine labels make it easy to remember, but they are not quite same as the word in everyday language. It's easy to remember that vinho verde means literally green wine, but in context of wine this could mean white wine or young wine. Casa means house, but in the context of wine it could mean wine from a single vineyard, not blended wine.

I'd filled in a few Portuguese terms but needed more so I googled Portuguese wine terms. Up pops a site which has flashcards of Portuguese wine terms. The same page has links to other languages, (everything except French), Spanish, and Italian.

http://www.cram.com/flashcards/wine-portugal-glossary-of-label-terms-1889822

I then went back to the home page looking for French and German, the home page labelled Flashcards. Up pop pages of languages, everything you could think of, right the way from Afrikaans and Arabic down to Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish and Yoruba.

If you don't see what you want, you can create your own in any language, from a book, the internet, from signs you pass when travelling, or for example sitting on a bus or plane, talking to somebody from a foreign country or reading a menu in a restaurant.
cram.com is create and share online flashcards
http://www.cram.com/language

You can make flashcards for your phone to revise on the bus, and make flashcards for any subject, not just languages, but any subject you are studying, for exams, for holidays and travel, or a glossary of terms used at work, for example, computers, law enforcement, medicine, the military.

You could also print them off and use them for a Xmas quiz on Xmas and New Year greetings in foreign languages for a Xmas dinner or Xmas party.

http://www.cram.com/flashcards/create

Visiting the UK for wine tasting - picking the right night and day

I recently attended a wine tasting at the London wine school. We had a talk and tasting from one of France's foremost producers of biodynamic wines. Confirmed what I know already, that I like sweet muscat, but the red dry wines were really earthy.

I tasted a wonderful flowery perfumed wine - voted best value wine of the night. 

My only disappointment was that the winemaker did not go into fruit and wine days. I already had the calendar (pictured below). I had mistakenly assumed this was something to do with when you harvest wines.

I did a search on the internet under WINE FRUIT DAY and immediately found half a dozen sites dealing directly with the subject. To my surprise what popped up was the days on which the consumer should taste wines.

Biodynamic Wine Tasting--Fruit day v Root day. Don't call it bunk ...

forums.egullet.org › The Kitchen › Beverages & Libations › Wine

23 Sep 2012 - 1 post - ‎1 author

posted in Wine: Biodynamic Wine Tasting Fruit day vrs root day . call it bunk until you experience itFruit day vrs root day ... call it bunk until you ...

Fruit, Leaf, Flower, or Root: Tasting Wine According to the ...

www.chow.com/.../fruit-leaf-flower-or-root-tasting-wine-according-to-th...

30 Mar 2011 - Some people say that on fruit days wines show more fruit, on root daysthey taste earthier, etc. For me, however, it's usually just the difference ...

Biodynamics: Fruit and Root days | decanter.com

www.decanter.com › People & Places › Articles

 Rating: 5 - ‎2 votes

24 May 2010 - Do you have a favourite wine – one that you turn to again and again? Do you find that it tastes better on some days than on others? We're not ...

Fruit Day | Heliotrope Wines

heliotropewines.com/about/fruit-day

When the moon enters the constellations of Aries, Leo, or Sagittarius we go into fruit day on the Biodynamic calendar. These days are for cultivating plants that ...

A reasonably priced book on the subject is:

When Wine Tastes Best by Maria and Matthias Thun. This is available as a booklet (£3.99 Floris Books) and also as a download.

The first account I read suggested that you test it out by trying it out for yourself. The author had wines which were going off on subsequent days. You can solve this problem by buying a Coravin (from Harrods in London) which removes the need to open a bottle to have a tiny taste.

The author of the first blog I read thought the moon might affect the consumer's body clock rather than affecting the wine.  

The links above to the sites are for when I and you have time to read more. (Alas I must go back to work. I am a student about to take level one at WSET. Another member of my family is way ahead at Diploma level and I'm trotting along behind trying to keep up - without falling over.) My wine tasting must be saved for evenings and weekends and days out on winetastings at vineyards.)

Here's a wine calendar. When you should taste fruity or flowery wines? 

Nyetimber Wines

Nyetimber vineyards are open to the public only on special days when they conduct tours. I've known about their wines for a long time but not until visited them for a tasting on the open day did I realise that they are in more than one location.

If you are in the business you might get a complimentary invitation, or if you are a frequent visitor to a local restaurant which features their wines, but members of the public were also invited to apply for tickets on line for £20 per person which included tasting three of their wines and you could use your ticket for a discount if you then ordered wine at the event. There was no refund on tickets so if you are likely to be working at that weekend or to cancel for any reason, don't risk it. However, even on a dull day it was well wroth the trip to see the vineyard, the delightful buildings, hear the talk, meet the people, try the wines, and get the voucher.

Leave your high heeled shoes behind in the car. You need walking shoes or wellies to walk along the stoney uneven ground with occasional muddy sections.

Sommeliers in restaurants in England and worldwide and others who work in shops, warehouses and sales and distribution in the wine trade take WSET exams. Right at the beginning you learn about the grapes in wines. For the WSET (wine and spirit education trust - two members of my family are taking different levels - me only level one - another member of my family several levels higher, diploma level). So the first thing I heard was Champagne is Chardonnay - plus pinot noir. It's dry white wine from a green grape, with a little extra livening up from a black grape, pinor noir, noir being French for black.

The black skins add the vibrant red colour to red wines but also the taste of tannin which some don't like. Remove some of the skin and you get rose wine.

However, many times I heard that, I tended to forget. But you remember it instantly after visiting the Nyetimber vineyard. First you see Chardonnay the main green grape used in sparkling wines.

(Sparkling wines include the king of sparkling wines, Champagne, a region of France - traditionally only wines from that country and that region - or possibly in our times and in the future new world areas owned or licensed by a Champagne house).  But now Nyetimber has challenged themselves and others to produce top quality sparkling wines, coming out equal to or better than some of the Champagnes, at some blind tastings in shows, and depending on your taste as a tester or consumer.

The well-kept vineyards.

The area features in the Domesday book and the name Nyetimber means new timber or new wood, as in the nearby New Forest on the South Coast. 

Later, Henry the VIII figures in the history. On the estate are genuine old buildings in which the family lives and works. 

The old barn has been beautifully renovated in sparkling clean white inside. The owners got married here and hope it will be popular when they open it for weddings. 

Everything is elegant.

They add to the green grape, Chardonnay, two black grapes, Pinor Noir and another Pinot, Pinot Meunier.

I'd heard that grapes for wine are often not suitable for eating. I and a couple of other people tried tasting a green and black grape. They are small and rather tasteless when not yet ripe for picking. Not horrible and bitter as I had imagined, but not nice eough for me to want a second. 

But the grapes are good enough for the local badgers. Nyetimber say they are lucky enough not to be plagued by local birds nor flocks flying in. Local farmers' sheep are invited in to graze on the grass which is a win win season, food for the farmer's sheep, and saves diesel and wages and time of people who would otherwise have to cut the grass.

Where can you taste Nyetimber? If you are local, I can recommend Restaurant Tristan in Horsham where we went for lunch. (See my post on the restaurant, which is also recommended by many people on Tripadvisor and rated in the Michelin Guide.)

If you are in London or the rest or England, many top restaurants as well as theatres and concert halls. Overseas Nyetimber is expanding to Denmark and Japan and seeking distribution in more countries. You can also buy bottles in Britain in Majestic wine suppliers and Waitrose supermarkets.

http://nyetimber.com/where-to-buy/

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