Wine shows for the trade and public

A Riesling show in London was open to trade in the day (Monday 16 May) and then to the public in the evening for a charge. I wasn't able to attend but a friend of mine went and told me about it. I asked if there were any sweet wines.
http://www.winesofgermany.co.uk/blog/german-grape-time-london-embraces-31-days-of-riesling-by-lopa-1
A Cava tasting was open to the public in the evening. at the wonderful Oxo building by the riverside.

After a wine tasting where do you go to eat?

Oxo Tower
My family once held a joint birthday meal at the smarter of the two restaurants, fulfilling my dream.  (Years ago somebody had said they might take me there but never did.
We wanted a window seat for this special occasion and eventually got moved when a table became free. You get wonderful photos. If your camera is able to take in dark lighting and get distant shots even better.

Oxo Tower For Birthdays
The Brasserie is slightly cheaper. If you arrive at the tower and they don't have your booking you may have gone up in the nearest lift to the entrance where you arrived and emerged at  the wrong restaurant.

Time
Allow extra time.  Five minutes goes as until you've got to the front of the queue. You, wait five minutes whilst you say you have a booking and they can't find it. They or you realise you must have booked the other restaurant. Another five minutes to gather your group, one from the toilets, another wandering around taking photos, reclaim coats. Then five minutes to get directions and find your way to the other restaurant and queue up again.

By now your fifteen minute window for arrival to claim your booking is is danger of being recorded as a no-show and allocated to other hopefuls. Or your window table, requested and confirmed, has been given to another group. By now  you have changed restaurants once and tables twice, so the desert with the candles  been forgotten or gone to the wrong people or sent back.

Birthdays
The Oxo Towers great for a well-organised group enjoying a birthday. If you have been to a wine tasting and you are a solo diner looking for something quick and cheap before catching the train home, head towards a station and you might pass several Indian restaurants.

Alternative Restaurants
If you are a fitness freak, you might think it's a good idea to walk off all the calories from that wine, even if you were spitting, to clear your head, to get the energy to travel home.

With luck your phone will send you some advertisements for restaurants nearby and offers. My friend was sent an ad for a Portuguese restaurant in a large hotel and was able to order one main course, which he declared delicious, before catching the train home.

Business Opportunities
Some of the people at trade shows are looking for distributors so your wine won't appear in the shops until a distributor is found. If you are in the trade and entrepreneurial, or run any kind of business, or have an extended family in business, people who are looking for idea for a new business, or a second business on the side can find opportunities.

Mixers and Tourism
If you are not into alcohol, there's usually something else on show, such as an olive oil, a low alcohol wine, a mixer or syrup, wine holidays, wine tours for tourists, either on show in a leaflet, or information available if you ask.If the sponsors include something not wine related, such as an airline or tourist board, you may be able to make useful contacts with them.

Tutored Tastings
If you are in the business and want to be admitted to the tutored tastings run by the Masters of Wine, arrive early, when the doors open, to be first on the list.

Wine drinking, like trying new foods, is a voyage of discovery.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, researcher, 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.

Sweet wines? Sparkling wines? Sweet and sparkling? What to choose.

Clairette de Die is a new wine for me. How about you? It's a sweet muscat with sparkle. More details below. I've listed the wines alphabetically by country, to make it easier for me to compile my list and see nothing's missing, and so you and I can find what we want quickly on re-reading later.

Just in case you are wondering, if you prefer dry wines, why anybody needs to know about sweet wines, here's why:
1 If you like dry wines, you want to avoid the sweet ones.
2 If you are a host, you may need to suggest sweet wines to your companion.
3 You traditionally have a sparkling wine for a toast, or aperitif. Champagne is mostly dry.
4 You might want a sweet or sparkling wine before or after the meal.
You might prefer half bottles to go with different foods, including a sweet wine with cheese or sweet dessert.

My favourites are:

AUSTRALIA
http://winefolly.com/review/types-dessert-wine/

AUSTRIA
Wine marked W e l s c h r e s i l i n g - from W e l s c h or west side the Neu new lieder (sea).

FRANCE
Clairette de Die
Might be the traditional C l a i r e t t e grape but it is permitted to use muscat. My latest find is the C l a r i e t t e de Die which is 100% muscat, white sparkling, with a distinctive sweet and sour lime flavour. (If you see the word Claudette, blame spell checker which snakes up - I wrote s n e a k s after you have checked the copy.)

See sauternes - a region in the soutane most part of Bordeaux.

Alsace

GERMANY
Gewurtztraminer gewürzt means spicy or tasty.
Auslese - late picked. (Any fruit whether apple or grape or other starts green and late in the year changes to a darker red or brown or mottled or plum colour and grows sweeter.

HUNGARY
T o k a j i - without the final letter i you are describing the region. With the final letter i you are describing the wine from that region.
The main grape is f u r m i n t . A second grape is Harslevelu. H a r s (not hard - that's spell checker interfering) means linden or lime. Level is leaf. the final U = ed. Leafed.
The grape is not lime but grape and apple flavour.
Tokay can be sweet or dry.
Sweet tokay with botrytis (noble rot) is called a s z u.

ITALY
Prosecco
Popular sparkling white.
G l e r a (Gloria is spellchecker's nonsense) grape is the new name.
Originally both the region and wine were named the same which caused confusion. Janice Robinson in her tomes on wine uses the old name.

PORTUGAL
Mateus Rose. Pink wine.Very light sparkle.

SPAIN
Cava sparkling dry.
Sweet sherry from J e r ez pronounced h e r e z .

USA
Ice wine.
Zinfandel. This grape comes up white, rose, or red.
Grenache.

New Zealand
Ice wine.

I have previous posts on sweet wine. Follow me on Facebook, here on blogger, link to me on linkedIn, browse my books on Amazon and Lulu.com
Angela Lansbury - for the best fun travel: art and attractions, wine and dine, people and places, facts, factories and fun.
Also see my blog on English spelling.