Charlemagne Wine Club - About Us

The next tasting: 17th November
Flying Winemaking and Micro-vinification presented by Henry Laithwaite

Henry Laithwaite is a winemaker who specialises in producing small amounts of handcrafted super-premium wines in Australia, France and South Africa, specialising in micro-vinification. Henry has been making wine for over ten years now and travels to Australia (McLaren Vale) and Bordeaux (Côtes de Castillon, in the St. Emilion area) every year to source the best grapes from the best vineyards to make the kind of wines he wants to make and believes passionately in.

As an independent winemaker Henry doesn’t have to conform to external pressures and has developed his techniques and created his own unique style. He believes firmly in the merits of traditional winemaking, with as little human intervention as possible. He allows nature to play its part in his wine production, creating wines of great character and individuality.

Aside from an immense amount of love, care and attention being paid to his grapes, he will only add a little sulphur in order to let the wine speak for itself. Henry finds it fascinating to be able to taste the character of individual soils, climates and vineyards in the finished product. And this level of care and attention to detail has paid off with Henry having clocked-up numerous accolades and awards for several of his wines from both the Decanter World Wine Awards and the International Wine Challenge.

Henry will present his wines and discuss his methods and techniques of winemaking; there is nothing he likes better than sharing his wines and talking with fellow wine lovers about his favourite topic.

Henry is quite young for a winemaker, being in his mid twenties, but has been making wine since he was seventeen. He has worked with some of the world's finest winemakers, including Redheads Studio Winery working alongside some of the best garage winemakers in the business. He is the son of Tony Laithwaite, one of the UK’s leading wine distributors from whom he has inherited a love and a deep knowledge of the subject.

Charlemagne Wine Club was founded in 1974 by a Mr Rogers who ran a wine business in Pitshanger Lane and had a particular interest in Burgundy wines. Charlemagne the Great was King of Burgundy - hence the Club's name.
Please read John Ducker's historical appreciation of our club.
Charlemagne members share a common interest in learning about and tasting fine wines. All levels of knowledge and experience are represented. It helps if you can tell the difference between chardonnay and cabernet franc - but if you don't, you will learn!
Our professionally tutored programme includes both the popular and 'classic' regions of the wine world. Our tastings present an opportunity to try wines which you might not normally imbibe (lesser known wines not to be found in the average supermarket, or because they are too pricey for ordinary drinking, and so on).
Meetings are normally held on the third Monday of the month (except August) and typically cost £15.

Bookings and Cancellations
We try to organise bookings for Charlemagne so that everyone has a fair chance to attend.
Dates of meetings are publicised up to a year in advance, in newsletters and on the website. We accept bookings only after the monthly newsletter has been sent out. Paper copies of the newsletter are mailed out two to three weeks ahead of the meeting, and email notification four days later (keeping things fair, to allow for "snailmail" delays). Spaces are allocated on a first come, first served basis. Email bookings will be confirmed by email, but we don't send out any tickets.
Once a meeting is fully booked, we run a waiting list. If you book but then will be unable to come, please do contact us. If you let us know by Thursday of the week before the meeting, you won't be charged. After that, unless we can reassign your booking to a wait-list member, you should expect to pay. Again, all email cancellations will be acknowledged.
You can attempt last minute bookings and cancellations by telephone to the number in the newsletter - please do not rely on e-mail for these unless you receive a confirmation email.
Remember, Charlemagne is a purely voluntary organisation, so we need to organise things simply for the committee!

We ask that you bring your own set of ISO glasses to tastings.
For those of you who do not already have any ISO tasting glasses, we can provide new boxed sets of 6 Luigi Bormioli "Light & Music" 21cl ISO glasses for £12.50.
Stocks are now available again.
A set of 6 will offer the advantage of allowing you to keep wines to see how they develop in the glass while also allowing a separate water glass for those who wish. The box will also offer some protection to the glasses while being transported to and from tastings.
We will continue to have a few glasses for new members/guests and for unforeseen circumstances.