Whitewater Valley Wine Society

It is with enormous pleasure that we welcome back Alun Griffiths, Master of Wine, to present our November tasting. Alun is a great friend of our Society and needs no introduction to many of our members. Alun is now non-Executive Chairman of Thorman Hunt, a family-run specialist wine shipper sourcing premium artisanal wine. Tonight he has chosen to present wines from the Loire Valley, building upon a recent visit to the region.

In December we celebrate Christmas by doing things a little bit different.   Full details will appear here later.

We start 2024 by welcoming Nicholas Corfe, Managing Director of Go Brazil Wines. Established in 2010, Go Brazil specialises in importing and distributing wines of Brazilian origin to the UK market and they are proud still to be the only UK company to do so. Nicholas' pick of wines will show us the best of modern Brazilian wine-making and will incorporate a wide range of wine styles, producers and regions.

We have many wine enthusiasts within our Society and it’s always good to taste wines which are recommended by them. That's why this month we will open the floor to eight of our members, who will each introduce a wine of their choice.
This tasting will be preceded by a brief AGM.

It's been many years since we welcomed Brian Davis to our Society, so it will be great to have him back.  Brian is a specialist wine educator passed his WSET Diploma in 1999 and regularly runs wine tasting events across Surrey and Berkshire. He'll be presenting wines from Southern Italy, always a popular choice with our members.

This month we're delighted to welcome Richard and Eka, who together run Taste of Georgia.   We're very excited to be able to explore this Eastern European region and its wines which are the product of 8000 years of unbroken wine-making heritage. Nevertheless, it's a region which may well be unfamiliar to some of our members.   So it's a great opportunity to come along and taste some wines from their portfolio.

It's always a privilege to welcome a Master of Wine to our Society, especially so when they are presenting to us for the first time.  Jeremy is Master of Wine at Amathus Drinks PLC, a UK national wholesaler importer and distributor.  He has 20 years wine industry experience, both in the UK and Australia. The Amathus portfolio of Greek wines brings us some the best available in the UK. So this is sure to be a popular evening.

This month we welcome back Dan Farrell-Wright, Director of Wickhams, an online wine merchant. They recently took first place in the International Wine Challenge Awards ‘Specialist Merchant of the Year England’ category. Dan will be presenting a selection of wines from Beaujolais and Burgundy.      

This month we're delighted to welcome Duncan Ross, who is Sales Account Manager at Berkmann Wine Cellars.  Duncan will be presenting wines from Argentina, the largest wine producer in South America and the fifth largest in the world.  Key wineries represented will be Pulenta Estate and Bodega Norton.   And reds will dominate!

We start our autumn tastings by welcoming back Janina Doyle, one of our most popular previous speakers.  Since Janina was last with us in 2019, she has moved on to Balfour Winery in Kent, where she is Brand Ambassador. Balfour Winery is one of England’s leading wine producers, pioneers for both English traditional method sparkling wines, and a new wave of English white and red still wines.