A Sunny Day Out at the Hereford Wine Festival

At the weekend we headed over to the land of the cows, Hereford, for the Hereford Wine Festival. After seeing a poster about it earlier in the year in the Secret Bottle Shop, I knew I had to go.

The Hereford Wine Festival fell at the right time for an early birthday gathering for me. So my friends Dr C (plus her fella) and Ms S joined Dr W and I for a fun weekend with all the wine. After a really rainy week I was so worried that the weather would be awful. But we completely lucked out! The weather was glorious, which made the venue and the day even better. Because wine tasting is fun, but it’s even better with blue skies on the terrace.

We got to the Left Bank event space just as the doors were opening. I wish I had gotten more photos of inside, but let me assure you that this is an incredible events space. Light, airy and the best thing is that the Secret Bottle Shop had chosen not to massively fill their event. At no point did I feel crammed in or pushed about. This made moving between the different distributors/reps really easy. I hope they keep it the same way if they run again in the future.

So each distributor was setup on a table and you were free to pick what you wanted to try. Or (like me) strike up a good old chat and discover something new. For the day I decided to stick to white and fizz, it was not a red wine day for me. There some famous names, your Veuve Clicquot, Dom Perignon and the like. But I tried to discover some new wines from vineyards I’d not heard of before. I tried some incredible Chablis, a beautiful Pecorino and an amazing low alcohol drink called Croft Twist. Which, is one of the most summery drinks ever! Trust me, there was a lot of wine, something for everyone!

On top of our entrance tickets we also purchased Champagne Masterclass tickets. This class was run by LMVH. During the class we went over the basics of champagne making. Then we tried champagne from various vintages but also different champagne houses. Typically Dr C and I were disruptive students who enjoyed the Dom Perignon most… as you do.