NSPCC City Fine Wine Challenge 2019

by Charles Lea

The great and the good of the City of London were assembled last week for what we think was the 22nd edition of the NSPCC City Fine Wine Challenge. Lea & Sandeman is proud to have supported this event, supplying all the wines for the tasting as well as the Champagne for the reception beforehand, for the last 13 editions.

As usual, this year’s event featured a Champagne reception while in the main hall of the magnificent One Great George Street, fifteen L&S staff poured nine glasses of wine for each place on the 24 tables of ten (yes, that’s over 2000 glasses).

Richard Hemming MW of JancisRobinson.com conducted the quiz, written by L&S quizmaster Andrew Hooper,

while platter food was served to set off the wines.

Charlie Ross, auctioneer extraordinaire, put a lot of energy into selling the auction lots – including, on the screen here, a wine tasting for up to 20 hosted by Victoria Moore, wine writer of the Daily Telegraph, and Charles Lea, with wines supplied by Lea & Sandeman ‘to a value commensurate with the price paid for the lot‘, at one point telling the assembled company that what they’d bid so far for this lot ‘wouldn’t get you beyond screw-caps’.

This year’s edition raised in excess of £200,000, bringing the total raised since L&S’s involvement to over £2.1 Million. All of us at Lea & Sandeman are obviously proud of this, but also incredibly grateful for the generosity of all who have attended over the years and been so generous, as well as for the other sponsors and donors of auction items who make this event what it is.

You can see the list of the wines tasted on the night here.

You can have a go at 10 questions from the quiz on the Decanter website.