At the fair

THE WINE CLUB

I was in London for the LIWSF (London International Wine & Spirits Fair) 2006 this past one week, and came away thoroughly impressed with the slickly organised event, as well as the width and depth of participation by wine companies from all over the world.

Now in its 26th year, the LISFW is firmly established as the leading annual international wine fair worldwide, where everybody who is anybody in wines takes part.

The UK is the world's largest import market for wines (some 140 million cases), so competition is fierce "" French wines were overtaken by Australian wines in 2004, partly due to price-cutting, which has led to much breast-beating by French wine companies and renewed efforts by them to regain market share and volumes.

Not a chance, given the great value offered by the "new world" wines I tasted.

The fair itself was held in the ExCel Exhibition & Conference Centre in the London docklands "" a humungous complex on the Thames adjacent to the old Customs House, seamlessly integrated with the London Underground mass rapid transport system.

There were some 1,200 exhibitors taking part, and over 20,000 visitors visited the fair over the three days it was held (16-18 May). When one considers that each stall would have at least 20 different wines on show, we are talking about over 24,000 different wines being showcased.

As wine fairs go, the LISFW is not the world's largest "" that distinction must go to Vinitaly, held in Verona every April, where over 3,000 exhibitors sample their wares to over 25,000 visitors over five days.

What is remarkable about LISWF is the sheer width of participation, with substantial representation from practically every wine-making country and all the heavyweights of the wine world: Constellation, Gallo, Moet Hennessy, Fosters Wines, Freixenet, Codorniu, Concha y Toro, Diageo Wines "" they were all there.

The fair is open only to business visitors, although I have no doubt that many consumers and wine lovers make it their business to be there.

Visitors are encouraged to walk up to a stall and taste any or all of the wines displayed; the innumerable spittoons meant that much of the wine gets spat out "" I never did see anyone behaving badly, which was amazing, considering the huge crowds and the amount of wine being quaffed.

Apart from the stalls, there were a series of "LIWSF Industry Briefings", the "Normacorc Top 100 Tastings", the "LIWSF Seminars and On-trade Tastings", and "Featured Tastings" "" enough to keep anyone busy.

Lastly, the International Wine Challenge 2006 involved the evaluation of over 9,000 wines over six days by a dedicated tasting panel: France won the most medals (612), followed by Australia (490). What was really fantastic was the opportunity to then go to the participant's stall and taste the award-winning wines.

The quality of gold medal winners was just great, and some of the well-known brands were wines from Gallo, Concha y Toro, Etchart, Wolf Blass, Torres, Peter Lehmann.

Incredibly some supermarket wines also got gold medals "" including three wines from Sainsbury priced at between £7-£9 (Rs 600-765).

There were some celebrities there too: Sir Cliff Richard came to promote his own wine, Vida Nova, made in his Adega do Cantor (The Cellar of the Singer) winery in Portugal, while Mike Rann, South Australia's prime minister paid a visit.

In all, a "must-do" event for wine professionals anywhere that is strongly recommended the next year to those who missed this one.