The week in pictures

HRH The Princess Royal officially opened the Copper Rivet Distillery in Kent on Friday last week, unveiling a special plaque to commemorate the occasion.

During her visit Princess Anne tried her hand with the valinch with master distiller, Abhi Banik, and Bob Russell.

The annual Circle of Wine Writers Christmas Party was held this week on 4 December, in The Vaults at RSA House in London. The evening was a great success with sponsors Napa Valley Vintners providing some 90+ wines for the circle members, their guests and friends of the circle to enjoy. Patsy McGaughy, communications director of Napa Valley Vintners welcomed the guests and Rosemary George MW, Circle President presented a cheque for £500 for the Napa Valley Community Foundation (NVCF) Disaster Relief Fund which came from donations from circle members for tickets for the evening. One lucky guest on the evening was Chris Skyrme, PR director of Sopexa, who won a magnum of 2014 Corison Winery Cabernet Sauvignon St Helens – pictured here with Patsy McGaughy.

UWA Tequila, Scotland’s first tequila company celebrated a successful evening as the tequila supplier for Monday night’s Fashion Awards event which took place at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Co-founder and CEO, Michael Ballantyne is pictured here with Tinie Tempah and Professor Green.

The great and good of the drinks industry gathered this week to bid a fond farewell to David Cox as he retires as CEO of UK drinks charity, The Benevolent.

Amelia Singer and Caroline Hampden-White

ITV’s The Wine Show stars Amelia Singer and Joe Fattorini were among the guests.

Wine writers, Helena Nicklin, Mike Turner and Anthony Rose also joined the party.

Marketing maverick Anne Burchett proves there’s no such thing as too many cameras…

David Cox delivered a speech to his guests – there were several pairs of red trousers in attendance.

Like peas in a pod – Peter Richards MW and John Franklin.

JF Hillebrand’s Helen Cheshire and wine events specialist Sophie Jump were also there.

The new and the old – Chris Porter (above centre) is set to take over from David Cox (striking a characteristic pose, below) as CEO of the Benevolent.

Hugh Crichton, winemaker at Vidal, celebrates being named as Raymond Chan Wine Reviews’ ‘Winery of the Year 2017 this week with a glass of his finest red.

db‘s Sophie Allan headed to a St Andrews Day pop-up hosted by Dram & Smoke and Speyburn Single Malt Whisky. Held in a former furniture warehouse in Brixton, guests enjoyed a true celebration of what Scotland has to offer. 

The menu highlights included kedgeree with smoked Speyside salmon scotch egg, an epic Connage Dunlop cheese fondue with air-dried Scottish ham, fennel salami, rye crouton and pickles, carve-at-the-table saddle of Highland lamb and sticky toffee tart with toasted barley ice cream and salted whisky butterscotch. Guests were treated to talks from Speyburn’s whisky experts and were able to experience the distiller’s specially developed virtual reality. 

Purity Brewing Company won ‘Best Business with under 50 Employees’ at the Small Medium Enterprise (SME) Coventry and Warwickshire Business Awards this week.

David Mitchell and Victoria Coren Mitchell.

Some famous faces attended a private viewing of the exhibition From Life at the Royal Academy last night, where they enjoyed Patrón Tequila cocktails such as the Patrón Winter Margarita and Patrón Añejo Old Fashioned. From Life is a special exhibition project exploring the practice of life drawing while also looking to the future and how technology is opening up new ways of creating and visualising artwork. Artists in the exhibition include Jenny Saville RA, Antony Gormley RA, Michael Landy RA, Yinka Shonibare RA, Gillian Wearing RA, Jeremy Deller, Lucian Freud and Jonathan Yeo.

Bella Freud.