The week in pictures

The jewel-like stained glass windows at The Ivy Club proved a pretty backdrop for the 4th edition of the annual db Green Awards on Tuesday evening.

Anthony Hawser, db‘s chairman, presents Jackson Family wines with the Green Company of the Year award.

And db‘s editor-in-chief, Patrick Schmitt, leads the applause as Su Birch from Wines of South Africa is named as the winner of the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 db Green Awards.

George Sandeman, chairman of the Sandeman Port house, introduces its 2011 vintage. The launch took place in the cellars of The Don restaurant in London, where the company bottled its Ports until 1955.

To mark the launch of the 2011 Sandeman vintage Port, guests were treated to a tregnum (three-bottle equivalent) of the house’s 1955 – the last vintage to be bottled in the St Swithin’s Lane cellars.

González Byass brought its very own venenciador to welcome visitors to this week’s Big Fortified Tasting with a copita of the producer’s latest Tio Pepe fino en rama release.

A new event from Wines of Argentina, “Cambalache – One Night in Argentina”, brought 700 consumers to MC Motors in Dalston, east London, where it recreated the music, art, literature and gastronomy of modern Argentina.

The “cambalache”, which means bazaar, gave guests the chance to taste 150 wines from 28 producers alongside a host of other Argentine attractions. These included wine and music matching, 40’s style cocktails from London bar Galante, street food from Borough market stallholders Porteña, tango displays, gauchos, graffiti artists at work and even lessons in Argentine slang.

Jeff Coutelou from Mas Coutelou talks to tasters at the Roberson Wine’s portfolio tasting, which took place at London’s Cavendish Square on Monday.

The Roberson Wine tasting featured more than 200 wines from around the world, as well as a series of informal round-table tastings with some of the producers throughout the day.

Intrepid whisky fans headed to Shad Thames on Wednesday night to take part in the Talisker Storm challenge, hosted by veteran weatherman Michael Fish.

At the Talisker Storm event, punters got drenched by a man-made rain shower and battered by the wind. They then recovered from the ordeal with a dram or two of the Isle of Skye whisky.

To celebrate the start of spring, Archer Street in Soho turned its downstairs bar into a polo lovers’ delight with its horsey-themed bar, Chukka, where fine fillies where champing at the bit to get their hoofs on a stable diet of Billecart-Salmon fizz and mojito cocktails washed down with sliders and mini cupcakes.

db’s Gabby Savage and Lucy Shaw were lucky enough to be invited to the Modern American Steak House (MASH) in Soho this week, to a dinner hosted by the affable João Nicolau de Almeida, chief winemaker at Port house Ramos Pinto, who told us of the new varieties he has added to the house’s 2011 vintage Port.

To stand up to various vintages of Ramos Pinto wines and Port, we opted for a Flintstonian Danish ribeye in honour of MASH’s Danish roots, and lashings of mash potato crammed with bacon.

The highlight of the night came in the form of the 1983 vintage, which performed beautifully on the night, having retained the vibrancy and exuberance of youth

An enviable line-up from the White Club’s recent dinner with nine decades of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. In this photo, aside from the DRC La Tâche 1972 and 1963 among others, is a 1983 Comtes de Vogüé Musigny, a 2004 Armand Rousseau Chambertin, a Hamilton Russell Chardonnay from South Africa and a 2001 Comtes de Lafon, Clos de la Barre Meursault

db‘s Rupert Millar travelled into the far off land of London’s zone 6 this week on a visit to the Forty Hall Community Vineyard in Enfield north London. The project is London’s largest vineyard and organic to boot. It is hoping to produce its first crop this year. Here, volunteers train vines for the year ahead.

Covering 10 acres, the original plot is being replanted. The vineyard is next to the Forty Hall Farm on land supplied by the local agricultural college, Capel Manor.

With the vineyard being so near a farm (also organic) and this being springtime, there were all sorts of small animals scampering around. Not least these piglets who were very sweet…even if they are future sausages.

Despite Enfield’s location within the ring of the M25, just when you thought it was all getting too rurally idyllic to be true, the faint outline of Canary Wharf on the Isle of Dogs could be spied looming through the morning haze.

and finally… Daisy Jones of sister title The Spirits Business and David Hennelly of db enjoy Mayfair restaurant Bo London’s new cocktail and dim sum offering