A Portfolio Tasting retrospective

When you’ve already tasted the three Guigal ‘LaLas’ and the 50-Year-Old Graham’s Tawny, sampled through the eight Grand Crus at the Louis Latour Masterclass, explored the likes of Tyrrell’s, Vasse Felix, Yalumba and Torbreck in the Australia section, made inroads into the sixty bottles open on the fine wine stand, and are waiting to be poured 1986 Haut-Brion … well you’d surely be forgiven for thinking ‘things could be a lot worse.’

And so the Annual Fells Portfolio Tasting has come and gone for another year. Almost 400 wines, over 350 attendees, a record number of producers and no one knocked a glasses table over.

So the first thing, now we’ve just about caught our breath, is to say an enormous thank you to everyone who joined us.

The London IET turned into a veritable ‘who’s who’ of the British wine press and trade, and we’re enormously grateful to everyone who gave up their Tuesday to learn a little about our producers and their wines.

We’ve been delighted with the feedback – and please do keep it coming, as it’ll help make next year better still.

But – as is often the case after a big, exhilarating and (yes) rather tiring event – it also puts us in slightly reflective, retrospective mood.

Without question, the portfolio is our crown jewel. We’re inordinately proud of it – and sincerely believe it to be the finest group of family-owned wineries put together in the UK.

We blazon our websites and email signatures with their names and logos, we welcome our producers individually to the UK throughout the year, we talk about them incessantly and we celebrate the astonishing wines they create.

But our Portfolio Tasting is the one time of the year when all of those producers and their wines appear under one roof. As well as the one time of the year when a huge number of our customers join us to taste, talk and share with us their love of wine and the people who make it.

Being able to work with wine – something that sparks that enthusiasm, interest, discussion and joy – is an enormous privilege. One shared by few other industries. Whilst we all know that life in the wine industry isn’t just a matter of sipping First Growth Bordeaux every afternoon, we’ve probably all experienced the flicker of slight jealousy from other people when they ask us what we do, and we tell them ‘I work in wine.’

More than anything, our Annual Portfolio Tasting stands as a reminder of that. Of how privileged we are, at Fells, to count all of those world-class, globally renowned producers as a part of the Fells family. Of how fortunate we are to be able to bring those wines to customers who love them as much as we do.

So – a huge thanks again to everyone who joined us and made the tasting what it was. Whether that was you, or whether you weren’t able to make it this time round, we hope we can welcome you to our Portfolio Tasting in 2027 and once again share the joy of our global wine family.