Zoom wine tastings?

Events, tastings and meetups
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Another question from a Purple Pager that I didn’t have time to answer in this 15-minute presentation to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Peter Rogers asks:

Dear Jancis,
Back in September you took part in the FT Weekend Festival which I enjoyed very much. Are you planning any more such Zoom tastings?
Peter Roger

Thank you for your kind comments, Peter. The FT Weekend Festival is pretty special with some extremely high-powered speakers on a wide range of subjects. It’s usually in the atmospheric grounds of Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath but had to be held online this year.

I did that Zoom tasting of four new wave California wines for them because the FT is my employer and they always like my wine tastings - a nice contrast to economic forecasts and Simon Schama perhaps.

But I have to confess that I am no great fan of Zoom wine tastings - especially when the audience can’t taste the wines at the same time. I don’t really think wine tasting is a spectator sport - and even with communal tastings I am all too aware of how much our individual perceptions and sensibilities vary. (See Tam’s recent review of The Art & Science of Foodpairing for instance.)

However I do occasionally make an exception for worthwhile causes, ideally when everyone is tasting the same wine at the same time, and have agreed to host an online wine tasting in aid of the MS (Multiple Sclerosis) Society at 6pm on the evening (UK time) of Thursday 17 December. More details, including how to sign up for the wines, supplied by Corney & Barrow, here. You can also order my lovely glasses with a 15% discount.

You can keep an eye on similar events via our Where to find us section whch has, admittedly, been a bit of a graveyard in recent months. But I have a handful of online events to add to it and will do so today.

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Have now updated Where to find us and am rather alarmed by how much I have agreed to do…

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Funnily enough, the FT have just asked me to do another Zoom tasting on Saturday 20 March as part of their new Spring FT Weekend Festival online. As I say, I’m no great fan of online wine tastings but since they are my employer…

I need to come up with a theme for four wines that can be supplied efficiently to hundreds of individual addresses around the UK by a single outfit. Any ideas?

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Cabernet Sauvignon from four different countries: e.g. France, USA, Chile, Australia?
(or Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, whatever…)
It’s not brilliantly original, but cabernet sauvignon examples should be reasonably affordable and achievable to supply, and lend itself to have just enough interesting things to say.
If you could find a Chinese example, that would tick various boxes for the Financial Times, I would think (and be genuinely interesting!)

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So much discussion this year sustainable and BAME producers, what about something highlighting these?

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