World of wine

The London International Wine & Spirits Fair is one of the main events on the trade calendar. Nigel Huddleston provides a preview and looks at why licensees should pay a visit

In just over a quarter of a century the London International Wine & Spirits Fair has grown from a humble get-together of a handful of suppliers and retailers into one of the premier events on the global wine-industry calendar.

The exhibition's growth mirrors that of the wine sector in the UK, not just in sales but in variety, competitiveness and professionalism. With the pub trade increasingly getting to grips with all of these aspects of selling wine, the fair has become an important date for licensees who take wine seriously.

Of the 14,000-plus visitors to the fair last year - at ExCeL in Docklands, as it is this year - some 22% were from the UK on-trade.

The specialised on-trade tastings that have been a feature of recent fairs have been dropped this year, but James Murray, exhibition director at organiser Brintex, says that the fair still has plenty to offer the pub trade.

Tracking the trends

"We're not running the on-trade tasting this year because, as with all these things, after a while it had become just a little bit tired and we had the feeling that it was time for a change," says Murray.

"It had been a very successful initiative, but a lot of people have come and visited the on-trade tasting over the four years that we've run it and we wanted to offer them something new."

The new big feature is a revamped top 100 tasting, which this year will focus on the growing profile of rosé wines.

Murray says: "Over the past couple of years we've featured a top 100 tasting based on a panel of wine writers' selections of the best 10 wines from the top 10 wine producing countries in the world.

"The problem is that, whichever wine writers you use, a lot of the same wineries tend to get featured, which is fair enough because they're clearly delivering, but I was wary that you could end up running the same tasting on an annual basis. This is just a way of freshening things up.

"One of the most noticeable trends of the past few years has been the growth of rosé, whether you look at the show floor, what your own circle of friends are drinking, or the sales statistics. This gives people the chance to taste the best. It's roughly a 50:50 split between the Old and New World and I think it's going to be an absolute corker."

Murray says there's still plenty going on around the fair to entice the on-trade visitor, particularly some of the seminars and tastings organised by individual exhibitors. One of these is a wine faults workshop, backed by the cork producer Amorim.

"It's really geared towards the service end and in particular staff who perhaps don't have the in-depth knowledge of faults that an experienced sommelier does.

"Not every wine that a customer thinks is corked is corked and hopefully this will give servers the confidence to be able to deal with wine faults in an authoritative way."

A learning opportunity

This year, the amount of floor space being taken up by the fair has increased by 5% and the exhibitor list is likely to pass the 1,200 mark. Among the new exhibitors are wine producers from Malta and Georgia, but there's plenty from all of the major wine producing nations too.

Murray adds: "There are so many agents with new products and interesting port-

folios. The show's a really big opportunity to dig deep and taste wines that you wouldn't get to taste on a normal basis, and in many cases meet the winemaker as well.

"It's the kind of opportunity you shouldn't miss, whether you're someone working in a pub who wants to improve their understanding of wine, or an owner with a focused

buying plan."

Visitor information & venue facilities

London International Wine & Spirits Fair

Where: ExCeL, Docklands, London

When: 22 and 23 May, 9.30am to 6pm; 24 May, 9.30am to 5pm

Nearest station: Custom House (Docklands Light Railway, Silverlink) two stops from Canning Town tube on the Jubilee Line

Parking: 4,000 cars

Accommodation: Fair accommodation

service, c/o Baxter Hoare Travel, 0207 407 5492

Register at: www.londonwinefair.com

The trade view

Head of marketing at S&NPE Matthew Woodward says he will be investigating some very specific aspects of the wine trade.

"I will be looking for the latest innovations and forthcoming trends that will be of interest to pubs," he says. "In particular, I am interested in rosé wines, which are becoming increasingly popular with consumers, with a view to pubs getting customers to trade up from glass to bottle. The Australian Moondarra Rosé (2006/2007) and French Ropiteau L'Emage Shiraz Rosé Vin de Pays d'Oc (2006/2007) are two entry-level wines from WaverleyTBS that I'll be keen to see.

"There is also a growing market for people who don't understand wine in detail, but want more than a basic choice. I'll be looking at varietal wines that will appeal to this market and can command premium prices."