How to throw an English wine festival/Jubilee celebration in 3½ weeks.

Sunday 3 June 2012 marked the passing of the 1000 boat flotilla less than 200 meters from our shop for Her Majesty the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the beginning of English wine week and the anniversary of our first year trading.  We have received such tremendous support over the last year from our customers, the press and the vineyards we represent that not throwing an English wine event of some description was never an option.

With 16 square feet retail space, 3.5 members of staff and a budget that would just about cover a paid advertisement in a tabloid newspaper, we were under no illusions that it would be easy.  What we possibly had underestimated was just how much work goes on behind the scenes to make events look as effortlessly put together as Julia Trustram-Eve does with the annual English wine trade tasting. We also had just over 3½ weeks to coordinate the event, having wasted 2 weeks deliberating whether or not to take the plunge.

Our roots now firmly established in Borough Market and having recently participated in the Market’s St George’s Day celebration, the venue, the Jubilee Market, was straightforward.  The outdoor space is covered with a glass roof, which I remember joking would be perfect in the unlikely event that it rained, and meant we could invite British food producers from the Market to showcase their produce.  All we had to do was advertise the event, select the best wines to showcase and show up.

A website (www.boroughmarketjubilee.com), commemorative wine glasses, live screening of the flotilla and 15 colour-coordinated folders later, I can confirm there is a lot more to throwing a festival than fixing a date, time and location!  Especially, if you have aspirations to turn it into an annual English wine week event which will attract the very best English vineyards.

We therefore bought all the wines for the event, offering a selection of 60 different wines, and asked vineyards to volunteer their time to talk about English wine and inspire guests in the same way they inspired us to set up our business.  With so little time to coordinate and most vineyards opening their cellar doors for English wine week, this was no small favour to ask.

We were delighted when Nyetimber, one of the most prominent and internationally award-winning English sparkling wine houses, not only agreed to attend and showcase their latest and rebranded vintages but also bring down one of their customised pop-up bars.  Gifford’s Hall also send down a representative: their daughter Ellie, who is the most charming and enthusiastic 20 year old I have ever met.  Our expectations were, however, surpassed when the actual vineyard owners and two of the hardest working ladies we know, Ingrid Lindskog and Di Francis from Avonleigh Organic Vineyard, rocked up, gamely put on our Wine Pantry T-Shirts and poured/danced their way around the central wine tasting table – treating each of the wines with the same passion as they would their own.  Saagar Mirza (Nikki), Nathan Meyers of www.nathanswineshop.co.uk and, sustainability champion, Annabelle Woods were the perfect front of house/coordinators, with Nayan Gowda (Tw: @vinosity) in charge of the Hush Heath Estate table, being, as a winemaker, best placed to not only discuss the award winning Balfour sparkling rose 2008 and Nannette 2010 but also discuss the wine making, from planting to bottling.  Neville Blech, author of “A Guide to the Wines of England & Wales” was also on hand to sign copies of the very book we used to make first contact with English vineyards. Without their support and gusto on the day, our Wine Pantry team would not have had cause to celebrate, let alone the energy to raise a glass!

All the planning in the world could not have prepared us for the torrential downpour, which was further dampened by the BBC’s coverage of the Flotilla and my foolish decision to turn on the commentary rather than continue with the live band we had hired especially.  A mistake we luckily soon rectified!

The wines showed beautifully and we rewarded the most inquisitive wine tasters with sample sizes to match their enthusiasm.  Particular favourites on the central table were Camel Valley Bacchus Dry, Welcombe Hills Pinot Noir Precose, all three Breaky Bottoms, Jenkyn Place Rosé, Kenton Bacchus, Biddenden Ortega, Ridgeview Knightsbridge, Avonleigh Sparkling, Bolney Lychgate and Giffords Hall Rosé.  The Nyetimber and Balfour stands were particularly popular, going through almost 8 cases each as samples and by the glass.

The delicious hog roast certainly helped soak up the 350 bottles of wine, as did Glastonbury Cheese sandwiches and Bath Soft Cheese company platters. Ellie had her first ever oyster and, in another first, I must just have eaten a whole smoked eel by the end of the night. The Rabot Estate chocolate stand was surrounded by swarms of children and Ratan’s tea and Victoria sponge cakes from Konditor & Cook were the perfect combination for afternoon tea.  Greedy Goat ice-cream sales picked up toward the end of the afternoon when everyone had given up waiting for the weather to clear up, but not before we found our table dotted with ice-cream samples that our helpers kept digging into to keep energy levels up, which brings me back to the subject line of this blog: how to throw an English wine festival/Jubilee celebration in 3½ weeks. Don’t (you’ll end up looking like Dominique below)! If you really must, you need an amazing group of people to pull it all together, great wines and wonderful attendees (and definitely colour coordinated folders).

Sunshine isn’t necessary but we certainly plan to book some next year, together with more vineyards, more traders and hopefully a little more sleep.  As the vineyards we showcase have proven, passion, hard work and a little bloody-mindedness can surpass all expectations, especially when there is a glass of delicious English wine to celebrate with at the end!

Special thank yous to the Borough Market team, Wine Pantry members Dominique, Chloe, Chris, James and Sam for all their hard work before and after the event, Saagar Mirza (Nikki) whose contributions on the day and before were invaluable, John Gower for providing the highly coveted commemorative wine glasses in such a short space of time, Lisa Navarrol for switching from guest to server in super woman speed, Damian from www.Platinumpresentations.co.uk for delivering the televisions and adopting the role of technical supervisor, Better Bankside for lending us their AMP system, Skanska for putting up our bunting (and hopefully taking it down), Boston Sausages for lending us extra storage space, PIP Printing of Marylebone for printing our flyers and tickets with 2 hours’ notice, Helen Brooks and Tauqeer Jamadar for the website, Darren Pinder of Online Selling, Lenny for lending us his trolley, our twitter followers for helping us advertise the event, Southwark Cathedral for lending us tea cups and saucers… the list goes on, 15 colour-coordinated folders filled with people to thank, recommend and assure we will give much more notice to! If you are reading this, please consider this 11½ months notice for the next one .

To all attendees, thank you for coming and making the day so special despite the rain and please do watch this space.