WARE WINE & BEER CIRCLE
THIS YEAR'S MEETINGS
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2010 August: Annual BBQ 18 members, 4 ex-members and 2 guests attended the annual club BBQ, which was hosted this year by Elaine and Peter. The weather was a mixture of sunshine and cloud and there were a couple of light showers as Colin and Peter started to get the BBQs going, which probably dampened the coals a bit before Colin rigged up a cover that he just 'happened' to have in his car (not his van!). It got quite chilly towards the end of the afternoon. Everyone sat outside under two gazebos until all the food was eaten and most retreated indoors for coffee. Colin did his usual grand job of bbq-ing the chicken and Braughing sausages. Various salads and desserts were prepared by the members. Thanks to Elaine and Peter for hosting the event, and to everyone for preparing the food. August: Annual Computerised Wine Drive 12 people, including 2 guests from Hoddesdon, entered 10 bottles in the Annual wine drive. The members, split into teams of 1 and 2 people, judge one another's wines in a series of comparative tastings, the idea being that each wine is tasted at least once against every other wine, and each team gets to have a chat with every other team. The results are then entered into the computer and a league table develops with the results. The results were as follows: Joint 1st Commercial, John and Kevin; joint 3rd Colin, Elaine and Peter B; 7th Don Maguire; 8th Keith Barltrop; 9th Peter R; 10th Eddie. The commercial wine was a Spanish table wine. For the first time ever, the commercial wine gained top marks, shared with John and Kevin. These results are slightly different from those announced on Monday, as I found an error when checking them, which resulted in Kevin coming joint first. So well done to John and Kevin. On looking at the results sheets, most of the marks were 2-1, suggesting that the wines were all very similar in quality. Looks like better wines are needed for next year! July: Annual Walk organised by Ruth and Richard Tite This walk was the 25th anniversary summer walks organised by Richard and Ruth. On a sunny and reasonably warm evening, thirteen members took part in this year's annual walk. The walk started at the George IV pub in Great Amwell; we walked along a bit of the New River - constructed between 1609 and 1613 - and proceeded along footpaths, which were all dry and easy to walk along, to the Amwell Quarry Nature Reserve. This is described as one of the best nature reserves in the country. We walked to one of the hides - White Hide - and spent some time bird spotting. Most members had brought binoculars with them and a few had bird books as well! We saw the usual ducks and swans, and also herons, geese, moorhens amongst others. We also spotted a fox. We walked back to the George IV pub to collect our cars - the pub closes on Mondays - and drive back to Ware to the John Gilpin pub to partake of the usual refreshment; MC was waiting for us and Roger also joined us. We celebrated the first grandchild for David and Pat; Peter B presented a garden voucher to Richard and Ruth as thanks for organising most of the walks in the past 25 years. They have now hung up their walking boots - as far as organising walks are concerned - so volunteers will be required for the future walks. Thanks to Richard and Ruth for organising the walk. June: Quiz Nite with Dave and Sue Kenney 15 members formed 4 teams of 3 and 1 team of 4 for the annual quiz nite, with the teams again drawn 'out of a hat', even though Ruth and Helen were absent! There was a theme to the quiz this year, as all the questions were about food and drink. Dave forgot to bring answer sheets with him, so Kevin quickly tore up some scrap paper he had in his car! There was a tie at the end but the winners were the team who had won the most rounds, which was Margaret, John and MC. There was a food break half-way through the evening, with various nibbles supplied by the members. Thanks to Dave and Sue for organising the quiz questions and to the members who brought the food. May: Square Dance 80 members and guests of the wine club attended the annual square dance with caller and musician Peter and Chris. The event was held at the Age Concern Hall in Ware and was in aid of Marie Curie Cancer Care. Although it was a hot evening, everyone enjoyed the square, barn and country dances. A Ploughman's supper was provided. A donation was sent to Marie Curie Cancer Care. May: Beds & Herts Federation Show 2010 Peter, Elaine and Kevin entered the show again this year; Peter judged and Elaine and Kevin were stewards. Peter and Kevin got a 1st place each; between them they won 18 places. Full report and results on the NAWB web site. May: AGM and Italian Wine Tasting 14 members attended the AGM. The treasurer's report indicated that the club is still in a healthy financial position, although a loss was made overall for the year. It was therefore decided to keep the current subscription rate. The members have enjoyed a variety of meetings and wine tastings during the past year, some of them including food, which seems to meet the members' approval. There was a discussion about recruitment of new members and whether members wished to return to Place House for the meetings. All the current committee members were re-elected for another year. Sue Kenney then announced the results for the Founder's Trophy, as follows - 10th M C Black 1 pt; 9th John Grindell 1½pts; joint 6th Don Maguire, Eddie hunt and Peter Byford 4 pts; 5th Colin Lovett 7pts; 4th David Kenney 7 ½pts; 3rd Kevin Martin 20 pts; 2nd Peter Robinson 34 points; 1st Elaine Robinson 37 pts. Kevin Martin then presented an Italian wine tasting. The wines tasted were from the Percosi D'Altura vineyard and were bought at Tesco:
Well done to Kevin for an interesting blind wine tasting; the wines were not typical of their style; no one guessed them all correctly. April: Blind Wine Tasting (report by Peter Byford and Kevin Martin) The April meeting was meant to be the AGM; however Peter R and Elaine were stuck in Spain, due to the volcano erupting in Iceland. As Peter R had all the AGM paperwork, it was decided to postpone the AGM to May. Kevin put together a blind comparison wine tasting between The Wine Society and Aldi supermarket. The wines he chose were: New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc 2009 Aldi £5.99 Wine Society £6.99 White Burgundy 2008 Aldi (Macon villages) £4.99 Wine Society (Southern Burgundy) £7.50 Cotes du Rhone 2008 Aldi £3.59 Wine Society (non vintage) £6.75 Rioja Aldi (Reserva 2004) £5.95 Wine Society (Crianza 2006) £7.50 Kevin had chosen some nice wines and gave a brief talk about each wine. The final voting gave the winner as Aldi (41 to 27) much to our surprise. Thank you Kevin for organising this interesting and enjoyable evening at short notice. Well done to Kevin for the wine tasting. March: National Show at Weston-super-Mare Peter and Elaine Robinson were joined this year by Kevin for the annual show at Weston- super-Mare. As usual, a very good, if hectic, weekend. The weather was reasonable for the time of year. See the NAWB website for the full results and photos. They entered 132 bottles between them and the circle also entered the circle class for 3 bottles of wine for dinner, for which the circle came 2nd. They gained 41 places between them, including 2 1st places. Kevin won the Gerry Sparrow trophy for the general steward with most points; Peter won the Parrack trophy for most awards in the purpose wine classes, the fruit wine classes and the flower, vegetable and mead classes. The circle came 4th overall. March: Chilean Wine tasting by Peter Byford 17 members and 4 guests from Hoddesdon Winemakers enjoyed a wine tasting of 8 wines, from Chile, which Peter and Margaret visited in 2006. Peter also showed 2 videos of their trip, one sight-seeing, and one of the vineyards that they had visited. Margaret also made a Chilean snack. The wines tasted were as follows:
A competition was held - red and white grapes, which a number of members had made last year; there were 11 entries in each class. The results were as follows: white grape - 1st Elaine, 2nd Peter R, 3rd Don, 4th Colin; red grape - 1st Peter R, 2nd Elaine, 3rd Kevin, 4th Peter B. Well to Peter B for telling us a bit about Chile and for getting all the wines (mostly from Waitrose). February: World Beer tasting by Kevin Kevin brought along 8 beers from around the world for the 13 members to taste. There was a 'Lucky Beer' from China which came in a bottle with a Buddha embossed on it; there were two beers from the Cairngorm brewery in Scotland - Nessies Monster Mash and Black Gold; Robsons Durban Pale Ale came from South Africa and was thought to be a bit high in alcohol at 5.7%. We tasted a Casablanca beer from Morocco, a Ghurkha beer from Nepal, and two beers from 'Les 3 Brasseurs' in France - Brune and Noel - provided by Peter R. All the beers, except for the French ones, came from Beers of Europe. There was also a selection of cheese and home-made chutneys. An interesting evening; well done Kevin. January: Judges Comments and what they really mean by Peter R Peter showed a slide show of judges comments from various sources relating to commercial wines and home-made wines. These were interspersed with appropriate cartoons from a well-known cartoonist. He also took the members through the judges marking process for home-made wines (from the NGWBJ handbook), the system used in the USA for judging home-made wines and the WSET system for judging commercial wines. Members then split into three groups and Peter passed round 4 wines for them to comment on. The first wine was a home-made greengage and rhubarb wine, which was thought to be a bit astringent. The second wine was a 1994 wine from St Nicolas de Bourgueil in the Loire; this was slightly past its best. The third wine was an orange and raisin home-made wine; it had a good bouquet which reflected the ingredients. The fourth wine was a red dessert wine that was a special recipe for the 2000 Stort Federation show; the recipe was provided by John G; John unfortunately could not remember what the ingredients were; it had a good fruity nose but was starting to dry out. An interesting evening. Thanks to Peter for setting it up. |
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Last updated:
02/09/10 |
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Copyright: 2001 WWBC |