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[glass] Events: Michaelmas 2012

BottlesBacchus are very excited to have some fantastic wine producers and wine merchants coming to speak to the Society this term. We hope that you will be able to join us to discover, learn about and enjoy some exceptional wines.

See below for more details and to book your place at some of our events. (Booking opens seven days in advance. Please cancel your place if you cannot attend a tasting for which you have booked a place.)

Details

Beginner's white

White wine

Monday 1st week (8th October) and
Friday 2nd Week (19th October)

The start of Michaelmas sees the return of the ever popular Bacchus Beginners' Classes which aim to give you an engaging, unpretentious and fun grounding in everything you need to know to enjoy wine. Last year we sold out, so book now!

Due to popular demand, this year we'll be running two identical "White Wine" classes as well as two "Red Wine" classes, so pick the dates that suit you - these classes are exceptionally good value!

Our first class explores how to taste wine and how to notice, understand and describe the main components of white wine. In other words, you'll be able to make sense of phrases like "a powerful fruity wine with soft tannins, a kick of alcohol, low acidity". We'll also taste the major styles of white wine so you get a concise overview of the wine world.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College.

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Beginner's red

Red wine

Thursday 1st week (11th October) and
Monday 3rd week (22nd October)

The massively popular Bacchus Beginners' Classes aim to give you an engaging, unpretentious and fun grounding in everything you need to know to enjoy wine. Last year we sold out, so book now!

Having explored white wines in the first half of the BBC, this second half focuses on red wine. Again, the tasting is designed so that you can actually taste what sets different wines apart from each other and also explore the major red wine styles of the world. You can ask any questions you have and can expect a really fun evening of tasting ahead.

There are two identical "Red Wine" classes, so pick the date that suits you. Fantastic value is guaranteed!

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College.

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Bordeaux Wine Council

Bordeaux wine council

Thursday 3rd week (25th October)

Bordeaux is home to the most famous wine chateaux in the world (Latour, Lafite, Margaux, Yquem), and winemakers the world over look to her style for inspiration. And yet it's a difficult place for consumers to navigate as the region produces wines of quite varied quality. Bordeaux makes easily some of the best wines in the world but also quite a bit of table wine (which still costs quite a bit!). Tonight we invite Anthony Stockbridge, a WSET Certified tutor, to cover the basics of Bordeaux and the 60 appellations it includes. Tonight we will be trying both some well-known Chateaux and some hidden gems, and will discuss grape varieties, blending, some history and how to match Bordeaux wines with food.

Participants are invited to bring their own crackers, cheese and even charcuterie to this tasting.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College.

Bordeaux wine council website

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German Wines from the VDP

VDP

Tuesday 4th week (30 October)

German wines do not do well in the British market, a sad and undeserved fact, as this country produces some outstanding wines, and the quality of her top wines has never been better! A focus on her traditionally outstanding grapes, in particular Riesling and an insistence on the importance of terroir have raised her prestige sky high, at least in Germany and the USA. Tonight, we host Giles MacDonogh, who will take us through some of Germany's top wines and wine-styles. We will be tasting wines from the VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikats-und Qualitätsweingüter), one of the most prestigious growers' associations of the country.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College.

VDP wine estates

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Graham's Port

Graham's port

Monday 5th week (5 November)

The evenings may be drawing in and 5th Week Blues encroaching. However, Bacchus have got the perfect antidote. For nearly 200 years the Grahams family have been producing wines from Oporto and the name has become synonymous with excellent wines. This evening we have the pleasure of tasting a range of wines as Henry Shotton, winemaker at Graham's, leads us through the mysteries of the different styles of port. Whether a long-time port lover or a beginner seeking an informative introduction, this tasting will provide an excellent opportunity to taste some top quality wines: an excellent way to warm a winter's evening.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Mure Room, Merton College. NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE.

Graham's port

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Riedel Glass tasting

Riedel

Friday 5th Week (9 November)

You've no doubt heard people go on about the importance of the shape of the glass on the wine. But how much of a difference can it really make? Surely this is just a marketing ploy?

Well, no. But it has to be seen to be believed!

Riedel have been crafting stemware since 1756. Their best glasses are mouthblown crystal, etched with lasers and hugely acclaimed throughout the wine world. There is a special glass, optimized in shape, to the aromatic and structural profile of almost any type of wine that you can imagine (think different shapes of glasses for the different sub-districts of Bordeaux!).

Can all this really make a difference? Do the wines really taste substantially better from their own specialized glasses, as so many figures from the wine-world claim? At this tasting we will try a range of different styles of wines, from a range of Riedel glasses and hear first hand from Matt Knight, of Riedel, about the importance of stemware.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Baring Room, Hertford College. NOTE CHANGE OF VENUE.

Riedel glass company

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Felton Road

Felton Road

Friday 6th week (16 November)

Felton Road produces some of the most sought-after wines in New Zealand, made all the more impressive by the fact that their first releases were just fifteen years ago! Felton Road are particularly famous for their exquisite Pinot Noir, which has been declared one of the two most iconic in New Zealand and is providing Burgundian winemakers with serious competition. Tonight Felton Road's wines will be presented by Angela Reddin. This is a great opportunity to discover the New World at its best.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College.

Felton Road

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Wines from Croatia

Croatia

Tuesday 7th week (20 November)

Croatian wines are not very well known, possibly partly because of the unfamiliar names of many of their grape varietals. However, Croatian wines are becoming more prominent in the wine world - at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2010 a total of 53 Croatian wines won awards.

Croatia is home to a wide range of wine styles - ranging from rich fruity whites in the north resembling the wines of neighbouring Hungary and Austria, to big Mediterranean-style reds in the south. Tonight provides an excellent opportunity to get to know more about this under-appreciated wine region.

40 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Saskatchewan Room, Exeter College

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Cloudy Bay

Cloudy Bay

Thursday 7th week (22nd November)

This term we've gone kiwi-mad, as 7th brings our second instalment in New Zealand wine today. The eastern extremity of Marlborough's Wairau Valley was named 'Cloudy Bay' by none other than Captain Cook in 1770, but the winery that takes its name was not founded until 1985, when it quickly rose to prominence in the international wine market.

Today, Cloudy Bay represents one of the region's leading producers, and her sauvignon blanc has been one of the benchmarks for the finest expression of this grape's character anywhere, and sells out around the world within weeks of its release. Tonight, we invite Bethan Wallace to introduce us to some of their wines.

60 places available. £5 for members, £10 for guests. 6.30pm for 7.00pm start, Baring Room, Hertford College. NOTE DIFFERENT VENUE.

Cloudy Bay

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A Bacchus Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner

Tuesday 8th Week (27th November)

Bacchus will be finishing the term with an indulgent Christmas dinner at Portabello restaurant in Summertown, paired with wines from St John's College wine cellar. This event will be both a well-deserved celebration at the end of term and the chance to find out more about the wines Oxford colleges have to offer. Special dietary requirements can be catered to. Numbers restricted to 30. To book for this event, email president@oxforduniversitywinesociety.org. Places cost £30 for members and £40 for non-members, and must be paid in advance. Cheques payable to 'Bacchus Wine Society'.

Directions to Portabello Restaurant

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Calendar import

You can now import Bacchus events into your calendar. To do that, simply subscribe to our calendar using one of the following links. Once subscribed, this calendar will be updated with new events each term, so you only need to do this once. Each calendar event contains a short desription of the tasting, along with the room where it is located, so this is a great way to remember about our events and their locations without checking your emails or our website.

The events in the calendar come with reminders three days ahead of each tasting. You can disable these when subscribing to the calendar. You can also disable them at a later date in your subscription options.

If you use Microsoft Outlook as your default calendar client, clicking the iCal icon below should initiate subscription. If that doesn't work, follow the instructions below.

If you're using Apple iCal as your calendar, clicking the iCal icon below will just import the events into your calendar. Any future updates will not be active. Please follow the instructions below.

Right-click on the image on the left and select Copy link (or similar) to copy the calendar location. You can use that address to access your calendar from other applications. You can copy and paste this into any feed reader.
Right-click on the image on the left and select Copy link (or similar) to copy the calendar location. Please use that address to access our calendar from other applications. You can copy and paste this into any calendar product that supports the ical format. In your calendar application, select Calendar -> Subscribe (or similar) and paste the address you just copied. Recommended update fequency is 1 day (as we might add events at the beginning of the term). We will never cancel an event without sending out an email.
The link on the left contains a HTML version of our calendar. It is the same format as the one embeded below.



Photos of events

View photos of previous tastings and events on our alumni page.
If you have any photographs of events to submit please email web@oxforduniversitywinesociety.com.

Earlier Termcards