Local indie produce part 1: wine and passion with Bothy Vineyard and Rosalind Cooper

I love doing our big events - honestly. They can be exhausting, high-wire stress-fests that satisfy the adrenalin-junkie in me, but they are also great fun and will provide some very special memories when we eventually hang up our bookselling spurs.

But the essence of independent, community bookselling - where the magic happens - is small events in the shop. And we have had two fantastic events in the last couple of weeks: the booklaunch of Judy Stubley's The Story Traveller, and - at the start of June - an evening of wine tasting with Richard Liwicki of Bothy Vineyard and wine writer Roz Cooper.

Richard is a living, breathing advertisement for owning a vineyard (something he might be alarmed about - the economics of wine production are probably as precarious as bookselling). Almost uniquely amongst small vineyards in this country, his is a vineyard where the grapes produced go directly into the wine he makes, which allows him to produce boutique wines, and experiment with unusual grape combinations.

Over the course of the evening, we tasted three wines produced from last year's production: The Doctor's Bacchus 2010, Oxford Dry 2010 and the splendid rosé, Oxford Pink 2010.

Assisting him throughout the evening was wine writer and hugely experienced wine expert Roz Cooper, author of The Wine Year. Roz has worked in many different areas of wine production - from giving tours of vineyards, to importing and selling wines, to writing about wines in magazines and books. She was able to give her expert opinions on Bothy's wines - and also provide some context for the tasting.



(The fact that Roz lives not far away in Berkshire was an extra local touch that everyone appreciated)

Roz is just the kind of wonderful speaker you'd hope for - someone with plenty of superb anecdotes from a life in wine. She is an entertaining and passionate speaker, from speaking about how she got started in wine, to her experiences in business, the changes happening in the global wine industry (not all of it good of course) and the importance of discovering and cherishing our local producers.

Roz's book The Wine Guide is a gorgeously-produced distillation (or should that be fermentation?) of her experience, opinions, suggestions (yes, there are recipes in this book) and passion about her experiences with wine. There are interviews with great wine makers - this is a book you could sit and read in bed just as equally as cooking in the kitchen following "A Serious Sunday Lunch with a Spanish Twist".

It was a very warm evening, and after the first two wines, we decamped to the coolness of the courtyard garden for the third.

Richard answered lots of questions about his experiences of growing and producing wine. Bothy have won awards (and growing admiration) for their boutique wines, based on a reputation for experimentation and risk-taking coupled with attention to detail.

There were questions about terroir: I was amazed to learn that the vineyard itself sits in a very special microclimate, on a narrow strip of almost pure-sandy soil which runs from Boars Hill down to near Faringdon, which means that water just runs away quickly after the rain. Bothy also use an array of environmentally-friendly techniques in the production of their grapes.

Wines are available down the road at Added Ingredients - and we have signed copies of Roz's book in the shop. But I can heartily recommend a visit to the vineyard - particularly around harvest time when volunteers descend on the five and a half acres of vines for picking...

Grape Britain

Somewhat after the event, but now with some excellent photos kindly supplied by Harriet - on Friday May 23rd we did our first ever wine event in the shop - and it's something we'll definitely do again, if only because it was a lot of fun.

I'm sure that if we'd have done a straight wine-tasting (with a few wine books dotted around the place) it would have been a decent event. Similarly, if we had done a straight author event, possibly with a bit of English wine to taste, that would have been OK too. But doing them both together worked extremely well. It helped that the two people we had - Richard Liwicki (from Bothy Vineyard) and David Harvey (author of Grape Britain) were so passionate about English wine, and were such great speakers on the night.


On arrival, everyone was welcomed with a glass of Bothy's Oxford Dry. Honestly, you just cannot believe that wine of this quality, which one of our customers (who knows about these things) favourably compared to a good Sauvignon Blanc, could be produced less than five miles from Abingdon. Fantastic.Richard kicked off proceedings introducing this wine, and a red from another English vineyard. The pleasant evening meant we could make full use of the garden to ensure a relaxed tasting environment.

Then it was time to introduce David Harvey. David's story is really inspirational. He worked in a branch of Oddbins in Leeds, and was amazed to discover a great little vineyard close-by. This epiphany made him give up his job, and - completely off his own bat - chose to spend a year travelling around the country visiting as many vineyards in Great Britain as he could (in his battered Corsa, largely cadging places to stay from friends, etc.).

The result - published in May by Angel's Share, an imprint of Scottish whisky publishing specialist Neil Wilson - is Grape Britain, a wonderfully-produced guide to many of the now almost 300 vineyards in this country.

The book has developed a bit of momentum since its publication. David had just found out that the BBC had requested a copy of the book as a reference for Oz Clarke and James May's next series, a road trip around Great Britain. He confessed beforehand that he wasn't great at public speaking, but he needn't have worried - the guy has so much enthusiasm for - and is so knowledgable about - English wine, that he was very entertaining to listen to. We then had the final wine from Bothy - the extraordinary Paradox (visit Bothy's website and click on "our wines" to learn more about how the disastrous 2007 Summer floods played a part in its creation).

The evening continued with more tasting, and David signed copies and chatted about wine for the remainder of the evening.

Thanks to Sian and Richard from Bothy for working so hard on organising such a wonderful tasting, and to David for travelling up from London and making the event such a big success. Thanks also to Alison for putting together some exceptional nibbles in the children's room. As I say, we're definitely doing this again...it was too much fun!

Resting on our Laurels

We wish.

After the Reading Quest Children's Party last Saturday, we had four events this week (not counting our regular storytime on Thursday afternoon). Even for us, this is a bit rediculous and, as you can imagine, we're really enjoying the luxury of having two days off in a row for the bank holiday.

On Tuesday we celebrated Kipper's Birthday with a big party in the shop and garden.

The children who filled the garden waited patiently, put on their Kipper Ears and waitied patiently through the games and stories...but let's face it, there was only one thing they were all waiting for:
Alison had baked one of her amazing cakes. And her reputation is spreading, so lots of eager little hands crowded round for a piece. Cake was to feature heavily later in the week (he said, cunningly foreshadowing this post...).

On Thursday, I went with local science fiction author Ben Jeapes for an event at John Mason School.
The event took the format of two workshops, and whilst I skulked around at the back ready to sell books, Ben got the kids imagining their own alternative worlds and bizarre lifeforms. The creative energy and ideas flung up during the day were impressive - and surprising. Ben has written a great post about the workshop over on his blog.

Friday night we had our first wine event at the shop. Richard Liwicki of our local award-winning Bothy Vineyard hosted a brilliant tasting session of Bothy wines:

We also welcomed David Harvey. He is a young, gifted new author who is incredibly passionate about British wine. He talked about and signed copies of his new book Grape Britain. I'll post about this seperately - it was a fantastic evening - but here's a shot of the author during the signing:

Once we'd cleared the shop up it was rather late - but no time to rest, because we were back in early on Saturday to prepare for a big party to say thank you to everyone in and around Abingdon who helped us win our award.

We served champagne all day. Our new mayor mayor (newly elected last week) Patrick Lonergan, came at 11am for the big event - cutting the cake - accompanied by the town crier.(Note the high-tech Blackberry with his speech on it - very impressive). Abingdon mayors have a tradition of having specific themes for their term, and Pat's is focused on town centre safety and vitality, which chimes nicely with small independent shops.

We toasted The Queen, Abingdon and Mostly Books. Again, all the children there were waiting patiently, but Ben here isn't fooling anyone (despite a pair of Kipper's Ears we found in the back of the shop):
He's waiting for the main event - the cake:

Thanks to everyone who came on Saturday to make it a very special day for Nicki and I. We collapsed Saturday night, exhausted but extremely happy. Thank you to everyone.