Visiting the LDN Fair RAW WINE welcomes the wine and food trade, the press and the general public. It is being held at 180 The Strand (London WC2R 1EA), a 3-minute walk from Temple (tube stop) and a 9-minute walk from both Covent Garden and Holborn tubes. What is RAW WINE? Come meet the growers. RAW WINE is a two-day celebration of some of the best wine talent in the world. Featuring over 150 growers, RAW WINE is one of the most exciting collections of fine, natural, organic and biodynamic wine artisans ever to come together in the capital. Their wines are pure, kind to the planet, very possibly better for your health and best of all they're absolutely delicious. RAW WINE is leading the charge for transparency. We believe that in an ideal wine world, any processing and additives will be clearly communicated to the drinker so that you know exactly what is in your glass. RAW WINE is a first step in this direction - we will clearly list all additives and processing on both the website and fair catalogue.

We are proud to be leading the way. RAW WINE is committed to empowering all wine drinkers through real, informed choice. RAW WINE is unprocessed. It is about truth, authenticity and frank wine talking, but most of all it's about showcasing really good wine. All the artisans who attend the fair produce fine, natural, biodynamic or organic wine with low intervention in the cellar. Their wines are authentic and a true representation of where they are from, and they are delicious. What is fine, natural wine? 2017 - Dates TBC! Join us in one of Europe's most dynamic cities - the brilliant Berlin. Taking place at the Markthalle Neun, come meet and taste with over 100 of the most avant-garde wine growers in the world. Visit the Berlin website Join us for our first foray over the pond. Taking place in Brooklyn (just before the US Presidential elections), we are delighted to be bringing together over 100 of the world's best low-intervention organic/biodynamic/natural wine growers.

Visit the New York websiteTwo very different wines — a bubbly and a sweet red — wowed the judges at the 2016 Wisconsin State Fair Professional Wine Competition.These wines — and their winemakers — reveal a lot about our state’s ever-improving wine industry.The top honors went to Sparkler from Door 44 Winery in Sturgeon Bay for Best Wisconsin Wine and to Sunset wine from Chippewa Fall’s River Bend Winery for the overall Best in Show award.Winemaker Steve Johnson and his wife Maria Milano own Door 44 and its sister winery, Parallel 44, in Kewaunee. They’ve made a habit of raking in medals. Parallel 44’s Petite Pearl, for example, won Best Wisconsin Wine in 2015.And while Johnson is not a fortune teller, he does like to look to the future, divining what might be possible for our state’s wines.He sees “great potential for sparkling wine” in the chilly Upper Midwest, which yields slightly underripe grapes that lend bright acidity and nice aromatics, qualities that work well with bubbly.

Cold-hardy Frontenac Gris and La Crescent are two of the best grapes for these wines, he believes.best wine sale sitesHe’d love an uptick in competition: “I wish more people would produce these types of wines so we’d have a critical mass, so we’d start to develop a regional style that makes sense of our climate. best wine destinations in usWhat can we do best? where to buy french wine in los angelesWe have to take what Mother Nature gives us.”where to buy bad cat wineIdentifying and developing a regional style won’t happen overnight — “It takes several generations to get on the map.”glass of wine to beer

Johnson makes two sparkling wines, both “more like Prosecco than Champagne.”best high quality red wineSparkler is a drier-styled pink, and Bubbler, from Parallel 44, is a semisweet effervescent white. top wine picks for 2015Both retail for about $21 and are available at the winery and at some retail shops around the state, including in the Milwaukee area.best wine dcOne of his reds also won big. city best wine londonDoor 44’s 2014 F2 (pronounced F squared) triumphed among Wisconsin reds, winning double gold and best in division. This top scoring Wisconsin red retails for $19 and is available only at the Door 44 tasting room.It’s made from Marechal Foch and Frontenac grapes, and Johnson notes that he submitted the same vintage of F2 last year and came up with a lesser award;

he couldn’t remember if it was bronze or silver.But the point is, according to Johnson, that reds made with Wisconsin-grown grapes, because of their high acidity, taste better after some bottle aging.“This confirms what I’ve been thinking, that we market the wines way too soon. It takes the acidity awhile to mellow out,” he said. “This shows how much change is occurring over a year.”It’s quite a different story with River Bend’s Sunset, which topped all the other wines in this year’s competition, which included just over 125 submissions from just over 20 different wineries.What’s surprising here is that this sweet red is made with Concord grapes purchased from New York State.Yes, the kind of grapes that go into the jelly you put on your peanut butter sandwich.But don’t forget there are quite a few wines — notably Lambrusco — made from Concord grapes, also known as Vitis labrusca.And many of the cloyingly sweet wines from New York State are made with Concord grapes.

But don’t imagine that Sunset is anything like those “jug” wines.“It’s a totally different style,” said winemaker Donna Sachs, who co-owns the winery with husband Al. “It’s not heavy, not syrupy.”As she describes it, “Sunset looks like a red and drinks like a white. And we like to serve it chilled.”River Bend does have five acres of vineyards with cold-hardy hybrid grapes such as Marquette, Frontenac and Brianna, but Concord grapes don’t grow well in their vicinity. “We don’t have a warm micro-climate here.”According to Sachs: “There are not nearly enough grapes grown in the state to support the industry. And most wineries in the state bring in other fruit, so the competition has a category to showcase wines made from those out-of-state grapes.”The judges also gave a big thumbs up to the River Bend LaCrescentcq one word here, a semi-sweet wine that won as best Wisconsin white, taking double gold and best of division.“These two wines are our best sellers,” said Sachs.