The week in pictures

Image credit: Richard Ford

HRH the Duchess of Cornwall is presented with a bottle of Hambledon sparkling wine after officially opening the new £2.5 million, all gravity fed, state-of-the-art winery at Hambledon Vineyard in Hampshire this week.

Courvoisier launched its new luxury travel retail range Le Voyage de Napoleon in Germany this week and created a “multi-sensory” shop to promote it.

Arran Distillery’s senior brand manager Louisa Young talks guests through the range of Arran single malt whiskies on offer at a tasting at The Whisky Shop in London’s Piccadilly.

The whiskies on offer at the tasting included the Arran Distillery 10-yo, 14-yo, and newly released Amarone finish. Also available were the peated Machrie Mooor and The Whisky Shop’s own exclusive 15-yo cask strength expression.

Kopparberg’s “social media wagon” parked up in Buchanan Street, Glasgow, creating a Swedish forest bar in the city centre.

Tennis legend Henri Leconte celebrated his 50th birthday party with Jean Luc Colombo’s Côte du Rhône wines at the Rib Room at Jumeirah Carlton Tower.  Guests included Bryan Ferry, Mansour Bahrami and of course his lovely wife Florentine.  Eric Lanlard, The Cakeboy, produced an over the top cake for the occasion.

Kelly Jones, the lead singer with the Stereophonics signs a Glenfiddich Spirit of a Nation cask, which will be taken across the UK as part of the brand’s support for Walking with the Wounded. A Glenfiddich team will also be taking part in an expedition to the South Pole to help raise money for the charity.

No, it’s not what you think… the mint in the French town of Angers was ripe for the picking by liqueur brand Giffard, which undertook the harvest this week for its Menthe-Pastille production.

Due to two weeks of glorious sunshine, Giffard’s mint harvest in Angers was brought forward by two weeks this year. We imaging the smell in the field post harvest must have been delicious.

Visitors to the new elBulli exhibition at Somerset House are greeted by this chap, made from meringue, when they walk in the door. The now defunct 3 Michelin-starred restaurant near the town of Roses in Catalonia, took its name from the two French bulldogs owned by the restaurant’s founders, Hans and Marketa Schilling.

One of the original wine lists at elBulli, illustrated with the restaurant’s bulldog logo 

As many of the dishes created by ebBulli’s head chef Ferran Adrià were incredibly complicated, the mastermind took to making them from plasticine in order to help demonstrate to his team how to make them. Three such dishes can be seen here, along with an array of plasticine ingredients behind them.

During his 24-year tenure at the restaurant, which was voted the best in the world a record five times, Ferran Adrià created thousands of avant grade dishes that turn convention on its head. Adrià believed in creating dishes that stimulated all five of the senses, with a sense of humour, theatre and surprise integral to the appreciation of each.

Over the years, Adrià has appeared on hundreds of magazine covers, including drinks title Wine Spectator. He was also turned into a character from The Simpsons by the cartoon’s creator, Matt Groening. A signed cardboard cut out of the illustration forms part of the Somerset House exhibition.