Norwich Wine Festival Sponsors Duck

Norwich Wine Festival is thrilled to have sponsored a duck in the Break Grand Norwich Duck Race. Painted by local illustrator Roberta Wood, the Norwich Wine Festival duck is now ready to hit the water. The ducks will be released at St George's Bridge on Monday, 29th August 2011.



All proceeds from the Duck Race go to local charity Break. We hope to see you there!

Wine Festival 2011

Huge apologies that none of us has blogged for such a long time, but we've been beavering away behind the scenes sorting out this year's Wine Festival.

It's going to be bigger and better than last year's, and is a lot easier to understand. For those of you who came along last year, you'll know we sold booklets of tickets that were redeemable in the participating bars. Well, while this was great on some levels, it didn't necessarily encourage people to check out venues they didn't already know. So, this year, we have put together a festival programme (costing just £5) which entitles you to all sorts of offers and discounts at the different participating venues. If you make the most of your programme and get out there and try all the venues you'll save over £100. All that for just a £5 outlay... Not bad, eh?

On top of that, as well as many favourites from last year, we have some new venues on board this year. We have the Raffles restaurants: Pinnocchios, The Library, Pulse and St Benedicts Restaurant; we have the Iron House on Ber Street; 103 Unthank Road; and for those of you who live in South Norfolk we now have the Kings Head in Brooke and Caistor Hall.

Have a look at the events page of the site for info on all the tastings we are organising. As I write this we have several events lined up, but I know there are many more being sorted as I type, so keep an eye out for all the new ones.

In the mean time, get buying your programme and set your timer for September 1st, when the 2nd ever Norwich Wine Festival will kick off...

Mixed Case Winner

As those of you who bought tickets for the wine festival may or may not have been aware, everyone who purchased was entered into a prize draw to win a case of wine from The Perfect Wine.

At our post wine festival meeting on Wednesday we drew a name out of a hat...

And the winner is....


SALLY LLOYD of Myriad Marketing.

Huge congratulations Sally, your mixed case is on its way to you...

Battle of the Wine Merchants

The first Norwich Festival culminated in an event on 1^st October at which local wine merchants went head-to-head for the titles of Best Red and Best White. Each merchant entered two bottles, each of which had to retail for less than £10.

Over fifty members of the public dropped in to the WinePress @ Wensum wine bar to sample the wines and vote on their favourite. Labels were covered to make sure that people weren’t swayed by preconceptions of different grapes or regions, and each bottle was numbered.

Aaaaand, drum-roll please, the winners were:

WHITES:

WINNER – Number 3: Naked Wines’ Sylvia Reserve Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2010

2^nd PLACE – Number 5: The Perfect Wine’s Lenotti Colli dei Tigli 2009 Bianco del Veneto

3^rd PLACE – Number 4: Virgin Wines’ Dom des Grands Presbyt`eres Muscadet sur lie 2009

REDS:

WINNER – Number 7: Naked Wines’ Chalk Hill Assemblage 2009

2^nd PLACE – Number 10: Virgin Wines’ Dom des Grands Presbytères Muscadet sur lie 2009

3^rd PLACE – Number 9: The Perfect Wine’s Chateau Haute Fontaine Tradition 2006 Corbières

Thank you to everyone who came along and voted! The wines can be found on the merchants’ websites.

The wines were revealed at the end of the evening – but for any early-comers who left before the announcement and are wondering which wines they voted for, the complete list of wines is :

WHITES:

1. Mellasat Vineyards: Chenin Blanc 2010

2. Premium Wine Collections

3. Naked Wines: Sylvia Reserve Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2010

4. Virgin Wines: Dom des Grands Presbyt`eres Muscadet sur lie 2009

5. The Perfect Wine: Lenotti Colli dei Tigli 2009 Bianco del Veneto

REDS:

6. Premium Wine Collections

7. Naked Wines: Chalk Hill Assemblage 2009

8. Mellasat Vineyards: Revelation 2009

9. The Perfect Wine: Chateau Haute Fontaine Tradition 2006 Corbières

10. Virgin Wines: Dom des Grands Presbytères Muscadet sur lie 2009