Staffordshire Wines. 

Impressive wines, presented with passion and skill  by members of the team from Halfpenny Green Wines.

Over the years  our Wine Club has a seen mix of speakers, members, wine merchants and wine experts  come to show us the wines they like.   Sometimes, just occasionally, we are privileged to have speakers that are also wine makers.  These are the people that have the passion that comes from devoting their working lives to the production of the very best wines that they are able to make.  So it was last night with members of the Halfpenny Green Vineyard

Here the link to the vineyard

Our speakers were Ben and Helen, they gave a great presentation taking us through the history and growth of the vineyard, and also the technique and methods needed to make good wine in the English climate.

Amazingly the Wine Club has never had an evening devoted to English Wine, there can be no excuse for this, you would have to live on Mars not to be aware of the number of vineyards in the country and the number of wines winning accolades for quality, this particularly so with wines with bubbles.  So it would be logical to start the tasting with 'fizz' . Not just a fizz  though, two in fact, a white and rosé.

The first two wines, served with salty food, yes and we had to push the boat out here and accompany with salty crisps, well that is one recommendation, I suspect a cheese would be better, but the wines, both crisp and pointing up the difference often seen with an English wine.  The lack of sun can give a more acid wine.  With the fizz this was no bad thing but one that would need to become used to.  Of the two the Rosé was the preferred.

Now two whites.  Not just white wine but very pleasing white wines and wines made from grapes that we are not used to. A result in a clean and different taste.  Both very satisfactory and worth seeking out.

The Rosé wine was another hit with many, as readers will know rosé has become the wine of choice for many in the last year or two, and here was an English rosé, well named English Rose, this wine showed the crispness and acidity present in the English wine.  The feeling was mixed about the wine, for some not quite hitting the spot but for the others  a very good example of the wine type. 

The evening has a break here, and on this night a amusing quiz hopelessly run in the loosest possible way by the Club's organiser, very amusing and not taken too seriously.

The first red of the night was an extremely smooth red wine, a wine that could be easily be drunk as an aperitif or with fish or cheese based foods.  Very impressive and well priced.  Currently available from Marks and Spencer.

The last wine of the evening a stickie, oh my how lovely these sweet wines are, served with chocolate on this evening, just a lovely combo and super wine very reasonably priced and very good.

A number of members wished to buy wines, we will be emailing further info on this. 

AOB   Members may want to note the date of the next meeting and the year end meeting and as such a social evening, further details will follow, the date:   November 24th