Win £50 worth of FREE tickets to the Taste of Gold Tasting
We have 5 pairs of tickets to give away
The most influential and prestigious wine competition in the world, the International Wine Challenge has awarded Portugal 35 Gold medals, and for the first time ever, consumers are able to go along and taste the award winning wines at the IWC Taste of Gold and Discovery Tasting at Lords Cricket Ground on 30th June 2010 from 6pm-9pm.
Simply answer the grape variety question below, e-mail your answer to sarah@jkmarketing.co.uk and the first 5 correct entries will win a pair of tickets for the event
Known as Tinta Roriz in northern Portugal, _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is rich in tannins and produces fruity (redcurrant, cherry, raspberry), dark and aromatic wines.
Come along and meet the UK’s foremost wine critic Oz Clarke and his fellow IWC co-chairmen, Tim Atkin MW, Charles Metcalfe, Sam Harrop MW and Derek Smedley MW.
Strictly trade & press by invitation only. Requests for invitations email or call 01829 720130
The 50 Great Portuguese Wines are always chosen by Portugal’s journalist of the year. This year Sarah Ahmed www.thewinedetective.com will present you with her personal choice of her desert island list of Portuguese wines. Sarah has spent weeks in Portugal over the last 12 months making her selection, which we can promise you will be absolutely outstanding. Join her at these prestigious events and discover for yourselves some iconic and very special wines from Portugal. Sarah will make brief a presentation about her selection at 12.30 and at 3.30.
Below is what Sarah had to say about the tasting:
“This year, Portugal has been No. 1 in terms of this particular lady’s wine detecting. My mission? To select wines for next year’s 50 Great Portuguese Wines tasting.
Five trips and still counting, I’ve travelled and tasted my way across the length and breadth of Portugal leaving no stone unturned. It’s an exquisite exercise – the palate truly never tires because Portugal has such a wonderful diversity of grapes, climate and soils.
Can I offer any clues to my selection? I would have to kill you afterwards so no, but I can tell you that February’s denouement will excite and surprise. It won’t just be the usual suspects – there’s plenty of new talent which has yet to hit these shores…”
Sarah Ahmed receives the award for the 2009 Portuguese journalist of the year.
Register for Manchester
Please fill in your details below to register for Sarah Ahmed’s 50 Great Portuguese Wines tasting in Manchester on Monday 14th June.
Please Note: If you wish to register more than 1 person, click here.
Register for Edinburgh
Please fill in your details below to register for Sarah Ahmed’s 50 Great Portuguese Wines tasting in edinburgh on wednesday 16th June.
Please Note: If you wish to register more than 1 person, click here.
Join ViniPortugal, the producers and importers of Portuguese wines at Lords Cricket Ground at their Annual Tasting of Portuguese Wines. Portuguese producers are exporting more and more wines to the UK. These wines offer the consumer something really different, and are great value for money. You will enjoy wine walks, talks, tastings and discover the diversity of this magnificent wine producing country.
AT THE TASTING YOU WILL FIND…
Producers looking for representation in the UK, so here is your chance to pick up some wines that could be unique to your company. Importers and producers showing new brands, new vintages of old favourites and regional groups
LOOKING FOR ANYTHING IN PARTICULAR? WE CAN MAKE A WISH LIST FOR YOU
If your looking for new agencies, specific wines at particular price points, certain styles to suit your clientele – We can make a wish-list for you in advance of the tasting: please ask.
TASTE WINES WITH SARAH AHMED ON THE HOUR, EVERY HOUR
Sarah will be hosting ‘short-burst’ tastings on the hour every hour; join her on a tour around Portugal – the regions and the grape varieties – and enjoy her pick of the tasting (from 12 noon).
VINI PORTUGAL: WE’RE HERE TO HELP
Find wines for your business and offer busaries for your Portuguese promotional activity. Promote your business on www.viniportugal.co.uk and we can also give you a Point of Sale material
THE EXHIBITORS
Taste wines with the producers, meet the UK’s leading importers and discover new producers looking for UK representation
THEMED TABLES
Focussing on some areas of current trade and press interest, you’ll find 3 themed tables at this year’s tasting – Moscatel, Touriga Nacional & Alvarinho
Boutique Wineries Tasting the theme for Anthony Rose’s column in The Independent and praise for the independent wine merchant (click picture to view).
Think Small
After the recent anti-alcohol rallying cry from the BMA, holding a wine tasting at the British Medical Association’s HQ might be thought of as akin to infiltrating Troy with a wooden horse. In this case however, the footsoldiers of wine were there not to bury their enemy but rather to praise the endeavours of winemakers around the world making quality wines from boutique wineries. There’s no precise definition as to what constitutes a boutique winery, but Judy Kendrick, who organised the event, Judy explained: ‘In these days of the “big brand”, talk of minimum prices for alcohol, and featureless bottles, it’s essential to remember that we’re in this business for the love of “real” wine made by producers …who are passionate about producing truly outstanding wines in limited quantities’.
The BMA knows the way
A first for the wine trade, it gave a number of the UK’s less-heralded independent wine merchants a platform from which to show that they can offer small volumes of quality wines that the big retailers can’t or won’t touch. That may mean not just a walk or drive to your nearest store to pick the wine up, but the growing efficiency of the internet and mail order makes it every bit as easy and often more convenient to use an independent wine merchant. So, for Gauntley’s of Nottingham (www.gauntley-wine.co.uk) for instance, it was a chance to showcase the excellent champagnes of their Ambonnay-based grower Eric Rodez, whose Blanc de Blancs, £34.95, is a chardonnay fizz of great finesse, while his Grands Vintages, £49.95, curiously semi-anglicised in name, is a magnificent blend of seven vintages from 1992 to 2000.
SWIG Wines (www.swig.co.uk) used the opportunity to show off growers from both Europe and the New World. Australian winemaker Tom Carson, ex Yarra Valley’s Yering Station, was on hand to show his new brand Yabby Lake, whose elegant cool climate raspberryish pinot noir from the Mornington Peninsula £14.50, was matched by an exotic, pineappley Yabby Lake Chardonnay, £21. Pyramid Valley is a tiny winery in New Zealand making excellent pinot noir, and its 2007 Eaton Vineyard Pinot Noir, £28, is a model of intensely flavoured mulberry and loganberry-filled fruit, £28. Closer to home, a northern Rhône syrah stood out, the 2007 Les Hauts du Monteillet Syrah, £13.50, from Stéphane Montez, for the sweet peppery aromatic quality of its smoky-peppery Côte Rôtie-like fruitiness.
Piantate Lunghe vineyard, Rosso Conero
A new name to me, Colosanti (www.colosanti.co.uk) is a small wine merchant bringing in distinctive Italian wines. Among their small winery offerings, I was impressed by a polished, beautifully oaked modern dark cherry and damson-fruity barbera, the 2005 Tenuta Olim Bauda Barbera d’Asti Superiore Nizza, £16.25. From Le Marche, I loved the excellent 2005 Piantate Lunghe Conero DOCG Rossini, £20.65, an ultra- stylish red made from the montepulciano grape in Ancona’s Monte Conero vineyards. It was full of vivid plum and mulberry fruit flavours with savoury fresh acidity and oak bringing roundness and richness of texture.
If growers’ wines of character excite you as much as they do me, I hope you’ll come to The Wine Gang’s Christmas Fair at Vinopolis on 7 November, timed to fulfil all your Christmas wine needs. I’ll be on hand with my fellow gangsters to walk you round to some personal favourites from over 600 wines and 50 exhibitors.
Discover how the Boutique Wineries Tasting performed the greatest stunt in wine tasting history to date, by watching the report on the Portuguese national news.
