Newsletter summer 2025 from CBWS President
Dear members
Be careful what you wish for! Earlier in the year when we were experiencing cool and wet weather in the Costa Blanca, we couldn’t wait for summer to start. Today in Moraira we have an extreme weather warning of up to 39 degrees! So, as a wine society we know that means serving your white and rosado wines well chilled, and putting your red wine in the fridge for an hour or so, so that it can be served at the correct temperature of 16 to 18 degrees. Any higher temperature than this and red wine will (according to Jancis Robinson) taste ‘hot and thin’. It also starts to taste ‘jammy’.
On 19 June we held our last tasting before our summer break at the beautiful venue of Puerto Blanco. A report on the event can be found {HERE}
As usual we will have no tastings in July and August, so our next event will be at Costa Marco on 18 September. The event will feature the fascinating backgrounds of five of our members and we will taste their favourite wines. More details on that event and an opportunity to book your places will be included in a further newsletter in late August.
This week we had our latest committee meeting. In summary, your Society is in a very strong position (finances, membership numbers, attendance at events, etc.). The financial position will enable us to invest more than budgeted in the quality of wine and food for the last four tastings of the year.
We discussed membership at individual Tastings and noted some concern at the low number of events attended by some members. Whilst we fully appreciating the reasons; travel, health, visitors, etc, I would strongly encourage all members to make the most of their membership and to attend as frequently as possible.
We also discussed the maximum membership numbers. This is set annually at the AGM. It is currently 150. We are fully subscribed and also have 8 ‘pending members’ on our waiting list. Whilst attendance at tastings this year has been higher than the last three years and also higher than our long term average, we have always had some spare spaces available. (I should note that regardless of restaurant size and capacity, we always have set our own limit at 64 or 72 to ensure that the numbers are manageable.) Your committee therefore decided on the following actions;
– for the remainder of 2025, pending members will be given the opportunity to attend tastings as guests, but only after members have had their chance to book places.
– pending members will receive the monthly newsletters.
– at the AGM in January 2026, the Committee will propose increasing the maximum number of members to 170, with the proviso that maximum numbers at each tasting will not increase.
Finally, you will recently have received an email concerning the Autumn wine trip. Those who have been on our trips before know how well planned and enjoyable they are. It is testament to their popularity that this trip is already fully booked but the booking link is still there and will take you to a waiting list signup should you wish to be notified of any cancellations.
Enjoy the summer and let’s hope that the air conditioning continues to work.
Regards
Neville