In June we welcome Marion Tardiveau, who is presenting to us for the first time. Marion is a Customer Services Representative at Thorman Hunt, a family-run specialist wine shipper sourcing premium artisanal wine for restaurants and hotels in London and the UK. Italy is one of her favourite wine regions and it's wines from that country that we will be tasting this evening.
In April, member Alastair Dudley and I were invited to visit the Slovakian Embassy in London, where they were hosting a wine tasting of wines from Slovakia. It's fair to say that the wines we tasted very much exceeded our expectations. So this month we welcome Lucia Dovalova, Director of The Naughty Grape, which retails wines from Slovakia in the UK. Her passion and enthusiasm for wine is remarkable and her knowledge exceptional. This is a tasting not to be missed.
In September, we welcome back Mark Bedford, owner of our local wine merchant Caviste. Mark will introduce the people and their stories behind 9 wines that Caviste has sold over the years. It takes commitment, skill, vision and a high degree of craziness and self-sacrifice to make many of the wines that we enjoy. We shall endeavour to identify both the terroir of the vineyard and the personality of the winemaker, while Mark amuses us with the stories behind the wines.
It is with enormous pleasure that we welcome back Alun Griffiths to present our October tasting. Alun is a great friend of our Society and needs no introduction to many of our members. We know that his evenings with us are always informative, interesting and fun. For the benefit of our newer members who may not know Alun, he has been a Master of Wine since 1991. For many years, he was Wine Director at Berry Bros & Rudd, following which he was based in Hong Kong for several years. Back in the UK, Alun lectures on wine and has been a panel judge at the International Wine Challenge and the Decanter Wine Awards Competition. He’s a regular member of the Decanter Magazine tasting panel.
More details later.
Tonight we'll be celebrating Christmas! And back by popular demand, we're going to do that in style by raiding the Chair's Cellar! Yes, as he did last year, Keith will be digging deep into his cellar to bring you some superb wines, which will hopefully get us in the mood for the upcoming Christmas celebrations.