Andover Wine Circle

THE May meeting of the Andover Wine Circle was held at the Wellington Centre.
The chairman, Keith Helsdown, announced the dates of social functions to be held during the summer, which included the ‘Chairman’s Picnic’ at Wherwell Cricket Grounds, the annual barbecue in the grounds of the Wellington Centre and a visit, in August, to Burbidges Bakery.
The winners of the homemade wine and cookery were announced, these being: red dry wine, John Olden; red sweet wine, Hazel Aldridge; white dry wine, Chris Olden; white sweet wine, John Olden; social wine, Hazel Aldridge; liqueur wine, Keith Helsdown and bitter beer, lager and stout, all won by John Olden.
Cooking: starter, Anne-Marie Firth and dessert, Joy Borrett.
The speaker for the evening was Nigel Knott, who told of his experiences as a customs officer at the Port of Dover. Methods used to import wines, spirits and drugs using the cross channel route and to beat customs duty was most interesting and also the efforts and methods used for detection by Customs and Excise. Some of the efforts used to avoid detection were very ingenious. The speaker was warmly applauded for his informative talk.
Certificated were then presented to all the competition winners by the president, D Borrett, and the evening closed with the monthly raffle