Our return to St James the Greater for GUWS tastings

Dear Members

Things have moved on apace since our August tasting and I am very pleased to tell you that our first tasting returning to the hall will be in October. The current situation is summarised:

• We will have wider spacing between members and tables (as currently managed in restaurants).

• We are putting our efforts into our return and ensuring that we respect Church/ Government advice on keeping members safe.

• We welcome your feedback and request any constructive comments be sent to the Treasurer via email by 1st September. Please enter ‘GUWS return’ as subject line.

• We are not yet prepared to resume sourcing and handling food, wines, and cutlery etc. for supper (for reasons of hygiene) and we will need all the available hall space to maintain safe distancing during our early tastings. We think it sensible to take things gradually. Members will be free to bring their own biscuits and nibbles to accompany tastings for the time being.

• We will ask members to pay their membership subscription in September at a nominal level of £15 per annum. This will help provide a ‘float’ to allow advance payment to suppliers.

• Thanks to the efforts of our Treasurer, cashless payment has been operating smoothly for over a year and we will expect all membership and tasting fees to be paid online in future (with one or two members still free to use cheques). We will ask for payment before each tasting to allow us to obtain appropriate quantities of wine.

• We have all appreciated the strong support from members during the crisis and are proud of the way we have maintained excellent tastings via Zoom with impressive distribution of wines. The list of tastings during lockdown is a credit to all involved. John Malpass, Chairman, on behalf of the GUWS Committee. August 20th 2021

We welcome your feedback and request any constructive comments be sent to the Treasurer via email by 1st September. Please use ‘GUWS return’ as subject line.

We all look forward to finally meeting up again in October.

John MalpassChairman, on behalf of the GUWS Committee. August 20th 2021

Next tasting - Friday 10th September

In September our tasting will be presented by John Freeland and John Malpass, and will feature 4 wines from Greece, Oregon USA, Spain and Australia. 

Please speak to your committee member as soon as possible regarding any AGM related matters. 

Note: This tasting will be presented via Zoom. Members are contacted prior to each tasting to order any wines they wish to try. 

What we tasted in August 2021

Many thanks for a fantastic turn out to our AGM and to Margaret and Ian Connor for arranging our member’s tasting.  Three varied and entertaining presentations over Zoom gave us a wonderful opportunity to try some interesting wines.

The wines tasted were:

1. L’Extra Langlois Cremant De Loire

2. Mt Difficulty Roaring Meg Pinot Gris

3. Definition Rioja Reserva

Many thanks to Roland Moss, Chris Lewis and Andrew Wetherby for choosing and presenting the wines.