Lutterworth's very first wine fair, held on Saturday in the Town Hall, turned out to be a great success!

For the wine-loving visitors there were loads of wines to taste on the day and to elicit the expert views of the various indepedent wine merchants exhibiting. And there were wines to suit every taste!

For example, did you know that we have two very local vineyards? Organic growers Ruth & John Daltry of the Chevelswarde Vineyard (www.chevelswardeorganics.co.uk), of South Kilworth brought along a selection of their wines, as did David from Welland Valley Vineyard (www.welland-vineyard.com), near Marston Trussell. Both produce a range of red, white and rose wines, and Welland Valley also produces cider!

With wines from further afield were independent merchants Aldeby Wines (www.aldebywines.co.uk), of Leicester; Bordeaux & Beyond (www.bordeauxetbeyond.co.uk), from Northamptonshire;  Amps Fine Wines (www.ampsfinewines.co.uk) of Oundle; Terra Firma Wines (www.terrafirmawines.co.uk) of Cheshire (also selling Amaretti!); Bertrand & Nicholas (www.caveavins.org) from Buckinghamshire and Sticky Wines (www.stickywines.co.uk) all the way from London with an amazing selection of dessert wines!

I can appreciate a nice wine as well as anyone, so I thought I might buy a bottle or two, but ended up buying from every exhibitor, as all had a fantastic range of beautiful wines at affordable prices! I know the supermarkets sell some good value wines these days but I have to say, I've never tasted a supermarket wines to match the ones available here.

Lutterworth Wine Circle also had a table and, having chatted to several of the members who manned the table during the course of the day, I think I might just go along to one of their meetings - they are a good bunch of people who sound like great fun! For more info contact Bob Howes on 01455 550027.

The best thing of all about the Wine Fair is that it was held to raise money for charity, and raise money we did! The St. Mary's Churchyard Project and the Lutterworth Town Mayor's Appeal (LOROS, Royal British Legion & Salvation Army) have benefitted to the tune of over £1,000 from the proceeds - how great is that??!!

So thanks to all the exhibitors and visitors for enabling us to raise that sum, and thanks most of all to Tony Hirons for having the idea, getting it all in motion and all of his hard work!

Photos show local MP Andrew Robathan chatting to Ruth & John of Chevelswarde and Bertie from Bertrand & Nicholas - guess which country his wines come from!!

Lots more photos on our Facebook page www.facebook.com/thebestoflutterworth