International Festival Of Fine Wine & Food, Olympia, 10 October 1997

The Wine Festival by Albert Anker

OK, it wasn’t all that long ago and Olympia didn’t exactly look like the above picture when we went there for the food & wine fair.

I’m pretty sure Janie and I went more than once to this event, but 1997 might have been the first time.

The Standard gave it a short preview here:

Fine Wine & Food Olympia 10 October 1997Fine Wine & Food Olympia 10 October 1997 08 Oct 1997, Wed Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

So there it is – a classy booze fest.

My then-mate-to-be, Alastair Little, doing the celebrity chef bit. I don’t think we went to that bit – Janie and I didn’t tend to go to the big showpiece parts of such events – we just liked going around, picking up ideas and sampling things..

Who’d have thought back then that I’d end up getting to know Al so well:

Janie barely remembers the event at all, other than the vague recollection of going to such things a couple of times.

It seems they still do something a bit like it at Olympia twenty-five years later, but in the spring…

…and also the late summer for posh grub.

I’m not sure whether it was this occasion or another visit to one of these fairs, but I recall a very beautiful “English rose” of a young woman marketing Kentish wines, persuading me to try her wares. At that time (or at least this particular wine) was very ordinary wine at an above ordinary price. I have a strong memory of trying to find kind, encouraging and positive words about the wine without seeming interested in actually purchasing the stuff. She smiled sweetly throughout the exchange, so I am quite sure I got away with it.

Trying to find the right words in 1997