Fine wines take a stand at LWF 2015

Visitors to this year’s 35th London Wine Fair (LWF) at Kensington’s Olympia will for the first time benefit from a tasting area dedicated to premium and super-premium wines.

New for 2015, The View Tastings have been created in association with fine wine cellarers Octavian and will comprise of a self-contained area featuring wines on pour from companies that specifically deal in “fine wines”.

Ross Carter, show director, said: “We have been keen to create a stand-alone fine wine feature into The Fair for a while now, and over the last couple of years have had encouraging feedback to support this from both visitors and exhibitors. The Fair’s scale has put-off some of this sector from exhibiting in the past, which is understandable when their target customer is relatively niche.

“The View Tastings will allow fine wine exhibitors to put their high end wines exclusively in front of decision makers from top merchants and restaurants from around the UK and internationally, in a secluded area, whilst benefitting from being part of the UK’s largest drinks trade event, and we are delighted that Octavian is supporting us in this new venture.”

All wines available to taste will have an RRSP of £30 with companies set to exhibit including Alliance Wine, Antinori, Astrum Wine Cellars, Flint Wines, Hatch Mansfield, Lea & Sandeman, Louis Latour Agencies, Penfolds, The Unions des Grands Crus de Bordeaux and Sogrape UK Ltd.

Louise Ellett, marketing manager for Astrum Cellars said: “For their exquisite quality and sheer worth, fine wines deserve to be set apart from all other products exhibited at the fair and a certain environment needs to be created to encourage visitors to take more time over tasting them. We thought the View Tastings provided the perfect environment in order to do so, with its specific design and layout. Fine wines will naturally attract a certain type of visitor and lend themselves to a different type of wine trade, so it’s highly beneficial that visitors and exhibitors alike can distinguish between the two areas. It adds yet another excellent element to the London Wine Fair which helps in placing this annual event at very forefront of the UK wine scene.”

2015 will see the LWF move into the larger venue of Olympia’s Grand Hall, adding an extra 10% to its available space. The show will take place from 18 May to 20 May.

For more information visit londonwinefair.com