Following our presence at the Wine+ Trade Show, we had been approached to sponsor the Country Living Magazine Gala Evening and exhibit/organise wine tasting at the fair. It didn’t take us much hesitation to accept the offer and there we were - last week busy at the fair.

The show took place at the London Business Design Centre in Islington lasting 5 days between 11th and 15th of March with some 20-30k visitors attended. On the day one, there was this Gala Evening where £4 from each ticket sold was donated to charity as well as each visitor could serve a glass of Cricova wine. The wines have been received very well by the general public and I managed to take a few pictures from the evening.

The fair was organised for the Country Living Magazine readers and prospective readers type, which meant a high female ratio with the earnings above the average and lots of free time. The main exhibition area was purely design/fashion/gardening and everything else that is less attractive to men:

The other, more interesting part (to me at least) of the show had to do with fine foods and drinks being called the Food Hall. Basically that was the place when visitors would come when tired and hungry. The primary focus of the fair wasn’t foods and drinks, yet the delicious foods and drinks had to take priority in some visitors bags before anything else that was still yet to be visited from the main exhibition area. There were mouth-watering, finger-licking pies, sausages, olives, cheese, parma ham, sauces that normally you cant buy in supermarkets and obviously the ones that tastes really good for one’s palate would trigger the unplanned purchase. Please see bellow a few shots of the other food and drinks exhibitors.

And last but not least below is our stand - Exquisite Wine presenting Cricova.

At the event, we were serving Cricova Collection wine as well as the Prestige 2005 ones. As mentioned, this was mostly a living and design fair and if anyone liked anything enough to sacrifice the space in their bags that was initially intended for other ‘more important’ merchandise from the main exhibitors hall, they would buy it. I didn’t expect to sell any wines due to them being heavier than an average pie or sausage, however big was my surprise when someone asked me to buy the first bottle of a Cricova Cabernet-Sauvignon 2005!

Over the  5 days and one evening we sold quite a bit of wine which I take as the most honest and inspiring  feedback someone can give. Of course, the end result again was that I lost my voice, but hey - it was worth every bit of it! We all really enjoyed the fair and the best parts of it was when visitors on many occasions were looking suspicious at our stand until I was managing to have them look into my eyes to start the conversation:

Me: Today we have wine from Moldova for tasting
Visitor: (getting closer) 
Me: I guess you never tried one before?
Visitor: (even though they didn’t have the smallest intention to try wine at the show) Erm… no
Me: Well, that’s your perfect opportunity to do so today
Visitor: Oh, come on then, you got me. Where is Moldova, forgive my ignorance?
Me: Moldova is in Eastern Europe right between Ukraine and Romania, just above the Black Sea.
Visitor: I see, used to be part of Russia!
Me, that’s right, its a small country with the population of half of that of London, yet it produces as much wine as nearly one quarter of what Australia does! (Official Statistics - http://www.wineinstitute.org/files/WorldWineProductionbyCountry.pdf )
Visitor: (intrigued and surprised) Ok, can I have a bit of red then?
Me: Absolutely, there we go! (pouring the Cabernet-Sauvignon 2005  wine from the decanter)
Visitor: (sipping a bit of wine). that is nice!

The rest was very different from visitor to visitor, yet many resulted into the wine being sold.

However, our special for the show was the Swedish Almondy Tarta (Thank you Sarah and Michael from Almondy) matched with our Cricova Gratiesti 1990 Dessert Wine.

A phenomenal 90-95% of those who tasted them, absolutelly loved the cake and the wine and the majority agreed that combination works really well. The big majority of those felt the nutty explosion aftertaste that could put oneself in ecstasy!

I really enjoyed when 2 ladies that were tasting our dry wines were just about to leave and then I ask:

Me: Do you ever drink dessert wine at all?
They: Nope, sorry
Me:  Never at all? even for Christmas?
They: Nope, never
Me: that’s ok, not to worry. I was just going to offer you a Swedish nutty Tarta with a bit of a 1990 vintage dessert wine from Moldova which we specially matched today.
Second Lady: erm… hm… ok… I like the looks of the cake… ok then, lets do it!
First Lady: (watching her friend with surprise)
Me: Ok, the way it works, (pouring a bit of dessert wine in a new glass), you take a bite of cake first and then a sip of wine to wash it with.
Second Lady: ok… (being a bit cautious, has a bite of cake… then a bit of wine…) ummmm…. oh…. ah…. oh yesss… that was reaallly niiiceeee… Try some (says to her friend)
First Lady: can I try some please too?
Me: Sure, there you go (hands over a bit of wine and cake)
First Lady: (follows the procedure).. Mmmmm, that is lovelly, uhhh…. ummmm.. ahhh. How much is for a bottle?
Me: Special fair price - £16, normally is £17.5 and that is for a full 0.75 bottle of this almost 20 years old delight. 
Second Lady: can we I have bottle please?
First Lady: I will take one too.
Me: Absolutely, thank you. And if you liked the cake, please have these vouchers that you can take them to your nearest Morrisons and claim 50p back next time you buy the tarta from them.

Classic! I was so proud that we managed to expand someones wine horisons to the extent of selling a wine that otherwise wouldn’t have ever been bought by them! This was the show’s pinnacle for us and marked the fact that we will be successful soon enough!