Where is Godalming? Taurus Wines live there

10.31am, Tuesday 18th October, London Bridge, London, England, UK

Morning all, one more job from last week to write up and I’ll be ready for today’s events and beyond! I want to take you back out to another pretty, leafy green part of this country – to the county of Surrey and the town of Godalming – which is where you’ll find our mates Taurus Wines with the ever efficient English gentleman Rupert Pritchett safely at the helm! Just a bit further on through the township you’ll find the well-established (1992) Wildwood Golf Course. The upstairs dining room with a top view of a big fat, nearly full orange moon in a clear night sky was an excellent option for the Yalumba dinner – with 85 staunch Taurus Wines customers along to make it a bit of an event frankly! There was a “hard core we’ve been to these nights before” element, with their Yalumba jerseys, so thanks a heap for keeping the Yalumba dream alive in Surrey! And there were a lot of folks along to a dinner for the first time, but really switched on to our wines – so we had a headstart there, plus it was Friday, and just for one night – we banished the ever present voices of economic gloom and doom to the shadowy corners, and gave people a top night out!

Just for the record, not being a golfer, I only get to golf clubs when we’re doing these sorts of things. I’ve therefore been fortunate to be at some pretty famous golfy places – like Pebble Beach in California and Carnoustie in Scotland (very forbidding windswept piece of sand right on the Atlantic backing on to St Andrews). And Wildwood is pretty impressive folks – you cannot beat the seriously green foresty surrounds, and this gives you a bit of an idea what the place looks like.

We had the owner – PGA European tour golfer Phil Harrison – and his wife, the sales and marketing manager Louise, along, and you have to ask the question about their food & beverage manager who is listed in their handbook as Jim (mine’s a large one) McFadyen! As you can see, we had just the right venue for our dinner!

I didn’t get pictures of all the courses folks, as to be honest I just had a job getting around all the tables because everyone wanted to have a chat and ask 20 wine and state-of-the-Australian-nation questions. Plus of course – at the time – there were the inevitable prods from some of the boys about the cricket – thank heavens the English have the Ashes currently, as it gives them something in the sporting arena to be happy about! Especially given their recent national rugby and football (soccer) teams’ performances. It’s all good fun though, and if they only knew that I just don’t really have any interest in cricket at all. But they’ve worked so hard to come up with the witty comments that I feel I have to give them a bit of a win! The girls at the events are great though – they want to know what food to put with what wine, places around the world where you’ll find us on restaurant shelves, and whether I’ve met George Clooney yet! All the good stuff!

**Note! George Clooney is actually in London this week for the premiere of his new movie “The Ides Of March” as part of the London BFI Film Festival. Will we cross paths? We certainly hope so.

Meanwhile back in Surrey, upstairs at the Wildwood Golf Club, Taurus Wines and we were having a good night out. Here’s what we did wine and food wise:

We started with a mixed seafood entree and our 2010 Pewsey Vale Riesling and 2008 Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier. If you check the post I’ve done recently for “Where is Goring-on-Thames” then those wine words apply exactly here.

Then we did another double header wine course – of the 2008 Yalumba Patchwork Shiraz and the ‘big brother’ 2005 Yalumba Octavius Old Vine Shiraz with the clubhouse beef bourguignon.

Very healthy stuff with all that fresh cabbage!

To finish, we put our 2009 FSW8B Botrytis Viognier honey-apricot bomb with their ‘very last’ of the summer pudding. By this time of the evening folks, we had everyone onside, and I even got talked into spinning a few yarns. Lots of laughter and goodwill in that place that night. It was good to be part of actually, and when it’s like that, you always hear great stories from the people themselves. Like Lenny – you know who you are – who put UK figure ice skating on the map before Torvill & Dean were even born.

So thanks a huge amount Rupert, your Mum, all at Taurus Wine, all at Wildwood, and everyone from the Godalming area that is waving the Yalumba flag in Surrey. I promise we’ll be back in June 2012 to do it all again – and I will make sure I have some better stories for you, and news on the various projects that I have under way.

See ya when it’s summertime in Surrey.