BBP Newsletter December 2024 Wine Tasting, AGM Date.

Welcome to the latest newsletter from the Bristol Bordeaux Partnership (BBP)  - the last one for 2024. Today we reflect on some further recent twinning events.

Bordeaux wine tasting.

Long time BBP member, Ian Abraham, who is also a WSET qualified wine educator, ran a very successful wine tasting evening for BBP members. The evening was themed, unsurprisingly, around the wines of the Bordeaux region and its nearby environs. We sampled Sauvignon Blancs, Semillons, Graves, Merlots and Malbecs from the regions.

It's fair to say that, although we learnt a lot, BBP  members also had a fun evening tasting and  rating the wines. 

Probably unsurprisingly the most expensive Red - a classic left bank claret -  was voted the favourite, although interestingly it was the cheapest white  - a cote de gascogne - that won that vote.

Everyone agreed we should run a similar wine tasting event in 2025, with a different theme  - keep an eye out in future newsletter for details. Sante !

If you want to read Ian's own perspective on the evening's tasting, and maybe learn more about wine generally by reading Ian's other posts, read his  Wine talks and tastings – Bristol Wine Blog

BBP AGM

More details will of course follow in January, but a note for your diaries.

The BBP AGM will be held on Thursday February 13th at City Hall. All will be welcome as we look back on 2024 and look forward to 2025.

Paris and Notre Dame

You will all have seen the re-opening of Notre Dame this month after the terrible fire of 2019.

There was a lot of talk at the wine tasting evening about the possibility of a BBP visit to Paris to see the refurbished cathedral.

This is in the early stage of planning and there are various options. One suggestion is for a long weekend in Paris, possibly in early May, with the optional add on of catching a train to Bordeaux and staying there for a few days.

If you are interested in popping on the beret and following in Emily's footsteps please let Gill Hood know at gannahd1@outlook.com

• your preferred month to visit
• whether you'd be interested in the extension to Bordeaux.

2024 - a reflection.

The AGM will see a more detailed review of our twinning activities in 2024 as part of the address by our Chair, Mike Healey.

However we couldn't end the year without a quick look back on some of the twinning activities we've facilitated in 2024.

• We arranged a very successful visit for BBP members to Bordeaux to coincided with the Fete le Vin.
• We hosted our sister organisation from Bordeaux  - the ABB - on their visit to Bristol
• We arranged exchanges of students from Bristol and Bordeaux Universities under the Mini Assistants scheme - placing students for 2 weeks in local primary schools in each city.
• We facilitation the re-connection of the Bristol Junior Chamber of Commerce with their Bordeaux counterparts.
• We helped to welcome Architecture students from Bordeaux to Bristol.
• We support Bristol City Council's International Twinning Office with a number of harbour based events, including Twinning Tuesdays at the MShed.
• As mentioned above we ran a Bordeaux themed wine tasting event.
• And BBP hosted a quiz night for the 7 Bristol twinning organisations.

We'll cover these topics, and many more, at our AGM. But, in the meantime, thank you to anyone who helped with these events and let's look forward to many more Bristol Bordeaux twinning activities in 2025.

Joyeux Noel

And finally the Bristol Bordeaux Partnership would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year - à  2025.

We hope that these updates on the recent activities of BBP are of interest and may even prompt you to want to become more involved and to help us with some of these initiatives. If you want to know more, please reply to this email. We'd love to be able to spread the message re twinning in general and Bristol's links with Bordeaux in particular.

A bientôt!

Mike Healey (Chair of BBP)  and Mark Atherton (Secretary)  for Bristol Bordeaux Partnership

www.bristolbordeaux.org