Grape Off: The Local Wine School Edition w/ Simon Manchester LWS

Welcome to a NEW series of everyone's favourite wine tasting reimagined as a competative sport between Laura and her wine pals. This time we've invited other members of the LWS network to vist Leeds to do battle against Laura. Should be spicy!

For those of you who haven't attended a Grape Off before, it's a simple concept. Two wine pros (in this case Laura + guest Wine School owner) will select a range of wines around a particular theme and price point. Each host will present their wines and their arguments in a bid to win your vote. 

Round 1 (we imagine this a bit like the canapé round on Great British Menu) Head to Head with each host's fave fizz with an RRP under £30. 

Round 2 The Whites The visiting wine school owner picks a grape variety (eg Chardonnay), Laura then picks a country for that grape variety. The guest host then gets to pick a different country for that same grape variety. Each armed with the same grape from a different country, your hosts will select two wines (RRP up to £17.50 and RRP up to £35) to illustrate why their chosen country is the very best place to grow this grape. They will then plead their case to you, the judges. Your votes will be counted and recorded...

Round 3 The Reds We repeat the steps again, but now with Laura picking the grape first and the guest judge has first dibs on the country. In the instance that the hosts are tied on one round each, we'll go back to the votes for best fizz (just like in GBM) to decide the winner...

We promise, it's the most fun you can have on a Saturday afternoon!

10 wines to taste, many arguments to be settled and your votes to decide the winner. 

We have 4 of these in the pipeline, make sure you join us for alot of wine-fuelled fun, and maybe just a splash of education too...

 For our February date we are excited to welcome a long time friend and neighbour, Simon Woods. Many of you know Simon for the various prize-winning and best-selling wine books such as 'I know what I like, but I don't know why I like it'. Some of you are familar with his work through his ownership of Manchester Wine School. Our wine schools are Peninnes siblings in many ways. Laura was a WSET tutor for MWS for many years, and the MWS tutors (some of whom were Laura's students) often pop over to help out with our events. On top of that, some of you will have attended Simon's events here in Leeds including memorable tastings of wines of Ribera, Albariño and wines of California. Having worked together many times before, what might it be like when YWS goes up against MWS in a proper War of the Roses event?!