The week in pictures: 24-30 June

This week saw a big tasting from the Wines of Sicily in London, a showcase of rare aged tequilas, a celebration of women and sustainability in the wine industry, and artist displays at a London restaurant.

Wines of Sicily

On Monday, 25 of Sicilia DOC’s leading producers assembled in London to showcase wines from Italy’s largest region in the grand setting of Westminster’s One Great George Street.

Since establishment in 2011 and the creation of the protecting consorzio in 2012, Sicilia DOC has seen some 7,902 winemakers with 24,000 hectares of vineyards.

The tasting featured more than two dozen producers, ranging from big names to those who should be on consumers’ radars. There was also a masterclass on Sicilia DOC from db editor-in-chief Patrick Schmitt MW. Find out more about the event here.

Maestro Dobel

To celebrate the launch of its third release from a series of ultra-rare, aged tequilas, ambassador Maria Grazia Modafferi of Maestro Dobel held a soirée in the upper reaches of Piccadily’s Maison Assouline. Representing 11 generations of tequila mastery, Maestro Dobel 50 1970 saw French oak matured tequilas from the cellar of creator and Maestro, Juan Domingo ‘Dobel’ Beckmann finished in Amarone casks. Just 50 bottles of the mahogany hued, supple, and long of finish spirit, which evokes milk chocolate, Specialty coffee, Brazil nuts, and an array of dried fruits, are available for the UK market, via Hedonism Wines and House of Spirits with an RRP of £2,200, or at The Connaught Bar, Mandarin Oriental, Lyaness, and Annabel’s Club. Previous editions have included 1967, finished in sherry casks, and 1969, finished in Sauternes casks.

Cecilia Beretta

In celebration of women and sustainability in the wine industry, Global Brand Ambassador for Pasqua Wines, Cecilia Pasqua and her cousin Riccardo, the Veneto winery’s CEO, invited leading sommeliers alongside the connector extraordinaire and founder of Curious Vines, Queena Wong, and Rebecca Palmer, Associate Director and Buyer for Corney & Barrow with which Pasqua has a 53-year relationship, to their first-ever tasting event and discussion concerning the premium on-trade wines of the Cecilia Beretta estate.

Over lunch at Mount St. restaurant, featuring pairings by head sommelier and IWSC’s 2023 Emerging Talent in Wine Hospitality trophy winner, Agnieszka Swiecka, the story of the estate, located to the east of Valpolicella, was revealed. Combining the surname of the seventeenth-century agronomist and poet, Count Giuseppe Beretta, with the first name of the modern-day Cecilia, the vineyards of Cecilia Beretta, once designated for experimental trials, and presently undergoing full conversion to organics, are today under the guidance of oenologist, Graziana Grassini .

To find out more about the pairings with a fuller insight into Cecilia Beretta, read Louis Thomas’ account here.

Sketch and Bombay Sapphire

Visual artists Tishk Barzanji and Shaquille-Aaron Keith are set to take over London bars Sketch and Silverleaf this summer with their creative visions, as part of the next stage in the Bombay Sapphire ‘Saw This, Made This’ installation series. The immersive installations are designed to inspire people to discover the creativity and beauty that exists all around them.

Each installation will channel the artists’ trademark style while taking inspiration from the unique visual identities of both venues, in a creative exchange. Guests will be invited to immerse themselves in the artwork of two of London’s most creative minds while enjoying bespoke ‘Saw This, Made This’ cocktails created by Sketch and Silverleaf, inspired by the installations themselves.

The ‘Saw This, Made This’ installation series launched at the Design Museum in London earlier this year, following a call out from campaign Creative Director and award-winning film director Baz Luhrmann for people to see the world as a gallery of creative inspiration.