A busy week draws to a close

A gentle day in the office is in order tomorrow, after four rather hectic days. The LIWF (London International Wine Fair) has finished. It's an intensely busy time for anyone associated with the wine industry in the UK, and for journalists like me it's a great opportunity to catch up with all the winemakers and principals visiting from around the world - this is perhaps the most significant opportunity the fare presents, rather than simply tasting wines, which we're lucky enough to be able to do a lot of here in London, anyway. Even so, it's best not to look to carefully through the show catalogue because you just come away feeling that you've missed out on so much, rather than being content about the good work you got done.

After ducking out of the fair and spending Tuesday at the Natural Wines tasting, I spent the last two days at Excell in meetings, seminars, and even wandering the floor doing a bit of opportunistic tasting. Wednesday night was the PLB (a huge UK agent/importer/wholesaler) 25th anniversary party at Vinopolis, which just about the whole of the trade fair seemed to be present at. I watched the football and drank a lot of beer, but was shrewd enough to leave before transport options home got complicated or expensive. It was quite a jolly event.

But rather than talk in depth about the myriad experiences I've had this week, I thought I'd just share a few photos, with brief captions. They can be found here (currently blogger seems to be reluctant to post images).