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/

Birds on bottles of Prosecco from Tiziano Nardi

I learned to spit at the London Wine Fair where I tried 57 bottles of Prosecco. You would be under the table after three or for glasses, or 12 tasting measures, never mind 57.

The old saying goes, it's not what you know but who you know. However, what you know increases with who you know. I didn't know Ash but we got chatting. He pointed out that birds in the glass is a defect in a wine bottle, so he surmised that the manufacturer had intentionally put a pattern of birds on their bottles as a joke.

'PROSECCO is made in tanks,' Ash reminded me, not in bottles, bottled at the end of the process, making it an affordable alternative to Champagne for lovers of white bubbly drinks for celebrations or evening dinners and summer lunches.

Who is knowledgeable Ash? He works at Rathfinny Estate in southern England, south of London, on the outskirts of the historic village of Alfriston, not far from Easbourne if you are a train traveller.

They have a shop and restaurant, one open 10 to 5, the other 10 to 6 but check their website. You might be able to have dinner there if staying at accommodation nearby. Again, check their website for the latest.

Rathfinny Estate

They have a vineyard and sell bottles of wine made on the estate. 

 1 The bottle with birds in the glass.

Holding the bottle is Ash, whose surname is French.

My favourite was award winning silver medal Prosecco, Riva dei Frat, which had a pear aroma, and flavour. From the Wine Society.

Costing  May 21st 2025 was £26 for a magnum, £156 for a case of six. (Magnums? ). Free delivery.

On another website I saw £10.95 a bottle. I shall research this later and update.

Useful websites

www.rathfinnyestate.com

https://www.thewinesociety.com/

Wine society (check their membership details. Buy online, go to paid for wine lunches and events. Huge shop with Enoteca machine,  glassware and seasonal surprises on sale pre Xmas.

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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 Christmas wines and foods, tastings, dinners and events

Wine Society Christmas Food

Wine society shop in Stevenage. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

The Wine Society shop in Stevenage is seasonally decorated for Christmas drinks and foods which were displayed to members and guests at a tasting on 26 January 2015.


Wines - Prosecco At Moderate Price and more
I tasted several red and white wines, making notes on the sheet provided. I liked the Prosecco, which we started with, the wine society's own label, which is moderately priced. The last three wines were sweeter or dessert wines.  I must admit I am not really a fan of Madeira. But that's the whole point of the tasting, to find out what you like, so that you buy what you enjoy and don't waste money on what you won't want.
The Prosecco didn't have a lot of aroma, but it was good enough.
Prosecco Brut DOC. 11.5% so not overpoweringly alcoholic. £7.75 a bottle. £93.00 for a dozen. ref IT20511.

The Prosecco can be ordered in a gift pack with mixers of fruit juice including rhubarb, which you don't often see in supermarkets

Wine Society Festive Foods
Also to sample were the pates on crackers, wild boar pate, salmon pate. This year I didn't taste the rabbit.

I prefer their cheeses.

My top tastes were the Wine Society chocolates, really yummy. I mean the selection box. Very more-ish.

Wine Tasting Events


The Enoteca
During a tasting event you are already getting quite enough wine. So the Enoteca machines dispensing wine to taste by the mini-glass are turned off. I imagine the staff are too busy serving the wines of the event to be be selling cards and manning machines, refilling the bottles if one runs out.

But if you go on a day when no tastings are arranged, you can have your own tasting from the machines. One machine has some cheaper free wines to taste. The other machine takes a money card which you fill with however much you want to spend.

The Spiral Cellar

Another visual attraction, for the man who has everything, is the spiral cellar. It's always a good talking point. David, who lives in nearby Stevenage, is standing looking at it. He comments that people tend to walk around it rather than across it. However, was we watch, three people all walk across it. He challenges me to guess how much the cellar costs. (It's there installed by the manufacturers so that you can buy one, if you want it and can afford it. Dave says the bottles are empty dummies. I guess, "£5,000?" he shakes his head. 

I try again, "£50,000?" 

He smiles. Nearer!

I ask, "Are you from the company which sells them?"

No. He is retired and lives in nearby Stevenage.

Events Calendar
The events calendar tells you about the wine tastings and dinners at Stevenage.

Membership
Membership brings you a newsletter, emails, the card with your membership number which you need to quote to make purchases, book an event, or going a guest, plus a voucher for your first purchase of wine from the society.

Wine Society, Gunnels Wood Road, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2BT

Enquiries tel 01438 741177
Orders 01438 740222
website thewinesociety.com
member services@thewinesociety.com

Angela Lansbury,

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.

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 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/

My latest research on vineyards: England and Wales, Hotels, a campsite, Enoteca machines in Wine Shops

Winetrails in Wales
http://www.winetrailwales.co.uk/vineyards/

Llanerch Vineyard, Hensol, Vale of Glamorgan CF72 8GG
Tel:01443 222 716
info@llanerch-vineyard.co.uk
www.llanerch-vineyard.co.uk

Glyndwr (forvo.com pronounces it a cross between glan-doer and gln-do-or)
It should have a double dot above the w. Near Cowbridge where we had lunch and saw a botanical garden.

Wine in UK
For general history, grapes, laws:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_from_the_United_Kingdom

English Hotels on Vineyards
Hotels and a campsite:
www.theguardian.com/travel/2010/may/21/english-wines-vineyard-stays-uk

Enoteca Machines
To try several wines in the UK without visiting a vineyard in winter weather go to a shop or association with an Enoteca machines which dispenses a glass or tiny taster of a wine when you insert a credit card you can buy at the shop adding the amount you want to spend - such as £10 or £20 - of course you can use one card for a couple, family or group if you only want a glass or two each.
wikipedia.org/wiki/Enoteca

enomatic.co.uk
enomatic.com

Hedonism - Sales, Enoteca, Tastings
Hedonism in Mayfair is the grandest with a magnificent staircase and wine tasting events.
They also have the most amazing luxurious toilets for those on tastings. Sit down at some of the tasting events.

Wine Society - Shop, online shop, tasting events, Enoteca
The Wine Society in Stevenage if you join it has regular events, usually one a month at least, or you can pop into the shop if you are in the area and join up, and their website has Xmas gifts. Walk around tastings and stand up and listen to brief talk. A couple of seats if you are lucky.
The Wine Society
Gunnels Wood Road
Stevenage

Finally for the armchair traveller, if you want to buy oatcakes with seaweed, or Welsh wine, or non-alcoholic drinks with a difference, try
http://www.cwm-deri.com
Email:admin@cwm-deri.co.uk
Tel: 01834 891274

For their vineyard see
http://www.cwm-deri.co.uk/Welsh-Vineyard/
They also have two shops, in Cardiff and Tenby.
Cwm-deri Shops
Upper Frog Street, Tenby SA70 7JD
Tel: 01834 842999.
37 Castle Arcade, Cardiff CH10 IBW
Tel:02920 227168.
(Located opposite the main entrance to the castle.

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.   

Serving our wine matching the food at La Sophia Restaurant, Notting Hill

Three members of my family go to wine tastings and wine dinners at Berry Brothers in London and to the wine tastings at The Wine Society in Stevenage. One member of the family has completed level three of the wine course. A reunion of family and friends we have worked with in the past seemed a chance to practise pairing wine and food. But where? We wanted to meet in central London so the overseas visitors did not have too far to travel. After researched all the BYO (bring your own) restaurants in London we found one where staff were happy to accommodate us. La Sophia Restaurant's menu is French Lebanese with halal options and a small choice of wines by the glass and bottle.
The water was served in my favourite modern style of jug with the hole in the middle. We brought one bottle cooler and they supplied another and a carafe.
Let's go through my experience in order. We took a dog leg walk left our of the station along the main road, right along the Portobello market, left and then slightly uphill until we spied our restaurant on the left with tables outside for smokers.
Our reserved table was by the window. The ladies toilet downstairs (through the private room area) was amusingly decorated in black and mosaic and what looked like gold but was probably brass, would be improved by a bit of a clean up with bleach, I thought, with my landlady's eyes - I go for white, rather than black.
I was surprised that we did not receive any free nibbles before the starter (unlike the Italian restaurants in Hatch End and NW London suburbs), but in retrospect I realise that bread fills you up too much before the meal, but maybe an olive would have been welcome.
The menu choice was just what everybody wanted.
Starters were snails or shellfish for others, soup for me. Main courses, steak for some, and for me chicken and potatoes. The presentation was pretty, though I could not detect any of the truffle or truffle oil mentioned mentioned on the menu.
We chose to have extra cheese, served after the meat and before dessert French style so that real food fills you up before the sugar sates you and revives you with the coffee. I recently read dentists' advice that it's better for your teeth not to finish with sweets but with cheese. Our expert diner chose one of the cheeses to match his wine, rather than the selection. The selection might have been better. I deliberately go for bland food, but perhaps everything I had until that point seemed too bland including the cheese.
The cheese was unexceptional but again prettily presented.
However, all change for the grand finale. Our sweet dessert wine, Vouvray, was chosen to match the restaurant's dessert was a matching of sweet wine, with Tarte Tartin. Very interesting that the sweet wine tasted before the dessert seemed sweet, but after the dessert by contrast the wine seemed less sweet.
The Tarte Tatin was wonderful. The delightful fresh, filling tarte tat in was so tasty that it transformed a so far good enough meal into a total success. We entertained ourselves with the story of Tarte tatin, which I knew was made upside down with the pastry underneath by mistake, almost a serendipity, attributed to the Tatin sisters, promoted by a chef. What I had not heard previously was that one of the Tatin sisters made the mistake either because she was losing alertness as she got older or never had much of it in the first place.
Back to the restaurant. The service was faultless. The staff watched from the back room and caught our eye when we looked up and waved or signed and nodded back.
They served our wine as requested in an ice bucket, changed the red and white wine drinks glasses when we swapped bottles and wrapped leftovers for a takeaway.
We left in cheery mood having had a lively, long lunch, and a convivial time with goodwill all round to our companions and the restaurant staff.
We spoke to the co-owner who is Bulgarian studying wine. His wife/partner/business partner - I didn't quite catch it, is Thai and their other restaurants are or will be soon a Mexican restaurant and another restaurant in Bangkok.
Must check their website when going to Thailand.
I hope they stay with their restaurant in London so we can repeat the event.
La Sophia Restaurant, French and Mediterranean Cuisine
46 Golborne Road, Notting Hill, London W10 5PR
email: contact@lasophia.co.uk
www.lasophia.co.uk
Reservations tel:020 8968 2200

Wine Society, Welwyn Garden City Costa Coffee, White Lights

Wine Society
The Wine Society is a co-operative with lots of events at the warehouse cum shop and tasting room in Stevenage. Membership currently costs only £40 to join for life but you get back £20 to spend on their wines.
The wine shop has a tasting dispenser called on Enoteca. You pay for a card which is topped up with however much money you want to put on it. You can then help yourself to glasses of wine costing various prices by putting the card in a slot by the bottle.
The wines are changed regularly.
Within the shop is a bin end shop.
I recently went to their pre-Christmas tasting event. In addition to dry wines, I tried four sweet wines and liked the muscat.
I also got free tastings of their Xmas gifts: super smoked salmon, wild boar pate, good, pudding - can't go wrong, chocolate sticks with mint in the middle and yummy chocolate truffles. Did I mention the nuts, large, more-ish nuts.

Welwyn Garden City Coffee Stop
On the way up we hit traffic and diverted to Welwyn Garden Suburb town centre looking for coffee. Welwyn centre has a John Lewis and Debenhams department stores, a central green, assorted charity shops and several restaurants including Ask, and several coffee shops including Cafe Nero and Costa. We found a parking place for one hour near the Costa which had indoor and outdoor seating and was large and spacious. We shared my favourite raspberry and almond slice. I had a tall hot chocolate. The city centre had white lights for the winter-Xmas holiday season. In Singapore lights come down the day after Xmas, sometimes on new Year's Day, but it the UK they usually stay up until the 12th day of Xmas, January 6th. I sat reading the newspaper and could have stayed all day if the wine tasting hadn't beckoned. the toilets were upstairs, good for me to get exercise. I wonder whether they have a downstairs toilet for wheelchair users. But I had other things on my mind, wine tasting ahead, as we diverted down country roads to avoid the jams. I wrote a little ditty:
Jag-ged Journey
by Angela Lansbury

On winter days I love to drive
And hear old winter tales re-told
Where bright lights bring windows alive
I buy red hats, I leave, all's sold

As autumn nights grow short and cold
Out in the dark countryside
The driver is too late, too bold
Headlights' white glare, I duck and hide

We fly past every dark, deep ditch
The ghostly clouds and dead black trees
I dream of cities where the rich
Enjoy silver and gold cream teas

I dream of log fires, mulled red wine
Of singing by the Yuletide tree
The joy of crowds at Christmas time
Where friends and strangers smile at me.














At the Wine Society the entrance had white winter lights on fir trees.

Xmas gifts in the Wine Society shop included damson, fig, gooseberry, lime or quince chutney.

Which Wines Should I Serve At My Home Dinner Party?

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Champagne Quotations -
'In victory you deserve it, in defeat you need it.' Napoleon. (I used to worry about quoting quotations accurately. Then I found that famous people who found a witty line went down well would repeat it many times, differently each time. Misquotations are usually more succinct and sound better than the original.
Many famous quotations are translated from the original French in different English words.
I am a happy drinker and a happy wine writer.
Best quotations on drinks and Champagne? I dream of champagne. And making witty remarks about champagne. After a glass of champagne I have sweet dreams and think I have made witty remarks. I have to write down witty remarks, otherwise next day I just have a forgotten dream and big smile. See my book at the end. Now onto a beginner's guide to which wine to serve at your dinner party.

Wine Expert's Advice On Which Wine To Serve
Travelling Trevor is fast becoming a wine expert as a result of the wine tasting lunches, dinners, and evenings, at Berry Brothers near Piccadilly, where he is often sat (I mean that correctly in the passive sense - seated by others) beside the vineyard owner. The vineyard owner often challenges you to guess the grape ('hm - not too sweet, a little dry, only been in the vat xx years, slightly acidic' - so the year? ('wine going brown - may be older').  Trevor often identifies the grape and country and gets the year right or almost right within a year.

Trevor also visits to the Wine Society tastings, consults the wine guidebooks, reads the history of the vineyards, google maps show which bank of the river has the slope getting sun or rain. After years of tours around wine areas of Champagne, Germany, USA, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, now this year he visited Burgundy vineyards and stayed overnight taking photos for them and was rewarded by tastings of unusual wines. (He's an award-winning photographer - in the shortlist for a National Geographic stills competition and and outright winner for a video Boris in London competitions). We have also bought the 'bargain' (reduced price but still a luxury - but including wines you could never normally afford) at Petrus restaurant in London - Petrus being the name of a wine.

When we manage to gather friends from all corners of the globe in Singapore, or the family all meet up in London, we try to have two wines of the same type, but usually a cheap wine and an expensive wine, to compare. We all do a blind tasting and make notes on which wine we prefer, and guess which is the expensive one and which is the cheap one. Then Trevor reveals the labels and prices.

Alas, I'm only just learning to like the tanniny reds and acidic whites. I'm still willing to drink Portuguese Mateus Rose, though German Liebraumilch and Italian Asti Spumante (town of Asti, spumante meaning sparkling) are starting to taste like lemonade and make me wonder whether I am heading for diabetes with too much wine and sugar. So I try to limit myself to one glass with a meal, maximum two.

However, on special occasions I still look for a glass of French Champagne or Italian Prosecco or Californian sparkling rose, a zinfandel, plus a teeny tumbler of an after dinner Muscat. My eyes light up at really sweet wines, German Auslese, Spatlese (spat - late, like me, late but sweet) or a New World Icewine from the USA or even New Zealand.

But when Trevor is emailed by another younger member of the family for advice on which wine to serve at home-cooked dinner party, Trevor says with more authority:

Dinner Party Pairings

Re your dinner, any red wine goes fine with any red meat.  The matches we’ve been trying (mustard with Burgundy, pepper steak with Syrah etc) seem to me no more than interesting experiments.  My preference would be to match lighter meat (lamb) with lighter, fruitier wine (Beaujolais, Burgundy, Rioja or Chateau Musar).  Hold the Bordeaux, Syrah and Italian for steak.

No need for wine with desert (it would have to be a sweet wine though – sweet white if fruit-based, sweet red with chocolate).

Cheese is fussier.  Soft white cheeses, including goat, go very well with well-chilled Sauvignon Blanc.  For waxy yellow cheese like Dutch or Emmental I have yet to find a wine that works.  Hard, crumbly, yellow cheeses like cheddar, manchego and pecorino need a red wine and mature examples can soften any amount of tannin.  Blue cheese like Stilton is famously paired with port (salt vs sweet) but I think it’s too much richness altogether, would just enjoy the cheese.

Love These Links:

Berry Brothers and Rudd Shop, 3 St James's Street, London

Berrys Bros & Rudd
3 St James's Street
London SW1A 1EG
Tel:+44 (0)800 280 2440

Email: bbr@bbr.com

Frequent seated lunches and dinners can be very pricey but you still need to book early because they sell out fast.

Bin end shop Basingstoke (frequent tasting mornings with tutoring sessions for a small price about £5-10)

Berry Bros. & Rudd Hamilton Close Houndmills Basingstoke Hampshire RG21 6YB

www.bbr.com

thewinesociety.com (Wine tastings for members - you can join - it's a public co-op, and they sell wines, bargain bin ends, and glasses, books on wine and wine theme tea towels.) 

Angela's Wine Glass Etiquette and After Dinner Quotations:
Watch Angela Lansbury on restaurant etiquette on you tube

Buy books by Angela Lansbury on speeches and Quick Quotations For Successful Speeches, for after dinner speeches on lulu.com

'When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.' (Henry Youngman, 1906-1998.)
'If this is tea, bring me coffee, if this is coffee, bring me tea.' Abraham Lincoln.

Send offers of free dinners and news of wine tastings (press, public or personal).

Invitations to free dinners and wine tastings are accepted with blushes or gratifying (to you) and embarrassing (to me) eagerness! 
My email is annalondon8@gmail.com (I am not Anna but Angela. tried to get 'Angela London and a number but several others already had the same idea. However, I managed to snap up the Chinese 'lucky number' 8.)