Previous meetings, 2013/14

Friday 6th June 2014

Bordeaux by Halves with Paul Mapplebeck

Half bottles can be great with meals for one or when you just want a glass. They also mature at a faster rate than full size (75cl) bottles and this gives us an opportunity to try fine wines in a mature state earlier than we might otherwise do. Join us this month when Paul Mapplebeck showed us a range of fine Bordeaux in half bottles. This includes wines from the Medoc, Graves, St Emillion, Pomerol and Sauternes so that we can see how taste changes from area to area within Bordeaux.

Friday 9th May

Portuguese Wines with David Carter

With more than 250 indigenous varieties of grape offering exciting and distinctive flavours, Portugal is in the enviable position that it can produce wines to suit every occasion…fortunate when you consider the breadth of its cuisine. We will be tasting just under 20 of these grapes, some as single varietals and the rest as blends.

Using the grapes that go to make Port, producers in the Douro are crafting stunning and highly distinctive red and white wines that rank among the country’s most intense and complex, well suited to the smoked hams and roasted game favoured in the region.

Further north is the Minho, a lush green countryside producing lip smacking, thirst quenching Vinho Verde in shades of white, rosé and red. A perfect complement for everything from shellfish to suckling pig.

To the south and further inland is the huge, sun drenched region of Alentejo. The rolling hills are covered with cork oak and olive groves, lavender fields, sunflowers…and vines. The area is noted for its beef and the famous black pigs that roam freely through the cork oak forests munching happily on the acorns. Wines from here can be found in many of the best restaurants in Lisbon.

Modern technology and world class winemakers have combined with Portugal’s fertile land and rewarding climate to produce wines which are a joy to drink.

Friday 4th April

Park + Bridge

Paola Tich of the Park + Bridge wine shop in Churchfield Road, Acton, W3 will lead a tasting of wines that are made a little less conventionally. Where intervention in the vineyard is minimal, organic/biodynamic practices are followed, no inoculated yeast is added to aid fermentation, and sulphur is kept to a low level. This is a chance to explore the world of real wines.

Park + Bridge is an independent, local neighbourhood wine shop offering a collection of interesting and different wines that are all great examples of their style or type. From every day, good value drinkers you can enjoy on their own to some grown up finer wines that can bring a meal to life.

These are the wines you’re unlikely to find alongside the pet food and washing powder at any supermarket. Artisan wines that are made with care by people who love what they do. Remarkable wines that come from interesting producers and have a bit of story to them…

They have organic, biodynamic and minimal intervention wines, in styles you may know – and plenty that you may not have tried before.

Park+Bridge’s founder, Paola Tich, has written about wine for several years under the nom-de-vin SipSwooshSpit.