Are you Grapeful? For wine that is at Leeds’ inaugural festival
LET’S be fair, most people love a good tipple. Thankfully there is a new festival celebrating the glory of wine and bringing Leeds businesses together launching this May.
I spoke to Darren Potter, who is organising the event. It will be the latest in a series that he and his colleague have overseen, including the Leeds International Beer Festival, which started off with 4,000 attendees, and three years later is expected to attract over 10,000.
Mr Potter said: “With the beer festival, we wanted to capture the popularity of the craft beer scene in the UK, but also make it more accessible. We wanted to make it more female-friendly, and get a wider range of people going. Last year’s event audience was 45% women, so I think we did pretty well on that! But people travel all over the world to come to the festival so it’s been a major success, and we wanted to replicate that with another favourite – wine.”
“Like the Beer Festival, we want Grapeful to be accessible, you don’t have to know anything about wine to sample it, and learn about it.”
Local businesses have collaborated on the event such as Belgrave Music Hall which is helping supply artists and DJs, Leeds-based artisan cheesemakers George and Joseph, and Ilkley wine merchants Martinez who are helping organise 100 wines around the world, including winemakers Stellenbosch from South Africa.
Jonathan Cocker of Martinez wines said: “We were approached by the town hall and asked if we would be interested – we’ve just opened a second shop and we’re doing up a wine bar, so Grapeful was an opportunity to show off our wines in the centre of Leeds to a whole new set of people. We’re supplying 100 wins in main room, with 9 winemakers from around the world as well as organising tastings and masterclasses.
“We’re an independent and would like to get more involved. If it’s successful we want to get more independent businesses involved. Wines will be priced between £5 and £40+ with free tasting on the 160 wines on show.”
The Grapeful wine festival will be held on 23 and 24 May, from 12pm until 10pm at Leeds Town Hall.
