Speaking at our first Food Festival - West Horsley Place 16-18th October ​

When we were invited to talk at West Horsley Place Food Festival

it felt like a great opportunity to meet you all and show off some of our favourite English wines.

But very quickly excitement turned to nerves...

Public speaking at any sort of event was still a new experience for us. But it needed to be done, someone had to pair wines for the amazing line up of cooking demos in the presentation tent...

And boy am I glad we did! Not only did we get to meet the lovely Allison Ferns from BBC Surrey & BBC Sussex, but we stood a charred cauliflower's throw away from masterchef finalists Billy & Jack!

With their take on cauliflower cheese we paired one of our favourite rosés: 2014 Bolney Rosé.

A bit unusual you might think, considering Summer is officially been and gone. But we're on a bit of a mission to reinstate rosé as a all-year-round wine. Yes, it's great on a hot sunny day sitting in the garden (but how often does that happen?!). It's also fantastic paired with spicy foods like curry, or with your meat-free-Monday dishes, like our good old favourite cauliflower cheese.

With Bolney being the 6th commercial vineyard planted in England in the early 70s, you could say they definitely know their stuff. You might have heard of their Pinot Gris, an award-winning white wine which has been served at Wimbledon since 2015. After all, where better to drink English wine?

But this lovely crips rosé is one of our favourites, with great flavours of gooseberry, apple and vanilla fudge. Like most English wines it's more dry than it is sweet, making it a perfect pairing for a wide range of foods. In this case, it had just enough crispness from the apple to cut through the richness of the cheese sauce, with just a hint of fudge to match the caramelised cauliflower.

Available in store and online here

We had an amazing time, and definitely look forward to our next event. Keep an eye on our events page for the latest updates, or remember that we can help organise a private tasting for you - simply pop us an email to discuss further,

no group is too small!