London Wine Fair 2016

I spent much of last week moving between sessions at the London Wine Fair, getting disorientated by Olympia's awesome size and desperately seeking plug sockets to charge my laptop (and stealing moments in the sunshine when I could).

The London Wine Fair at Kensington Olympia

Day one hailed a fascinating panel discussion of wine's "craft credentials"; a spirited debate on the impact of drinking on your health; a "state of the union" address from the WSTA's Miles Beale; and a Premium Cava Masterclass with Richard Hemming MW. Exhausted already, on day two I tackled an interview with the delightfully honest and dedicated Denis Jamain (more at a later date on him); two Pinot Noir masterclasses – one Oregon and one Swiss; a talk on the "hamburger effect"; and a masterclass on the current state of Romanian wine. By day three I felt like the walking dead. Still, I struggled through a masterclass on Tejo with Jamie Goode; a panel discussion on "wine online" with Tom Cannavan and Wine Searcher's Jonathan Reeve; and finished the fair with a masterclass on judging wine quality from none other than Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, the Wine Advocate's Editor-in-chief.

You can read some (hopefully) more interesting thoughts, notes and ideas about everything I saw, heard and tasted on bbrblog.com, here. I said it there, and I'll say it here, the overarching feeling coming out of LWF 2016 is: London's the bomb. Generally this is true, but especially so for wine, it seems. There is so much going on, so much to taste and so many interesting people in the London trade, it makes you feel really quite appreciative of what is a rather special city.