Today I made it up to the 29th floor of Millbank Tower (possibly more famous for its political connections than wine ones) to attend Enotria’s annual tasting (www.enotria.co.uk)

I only had a short time to spend there, which was probably just as well. Whilst I was there, which was around lunchtime, the crowd of tasters and exhibitors seemed to be there in full force. Tables of wines were almost all packed with tasters, the coffee station was one of the busiest spots, and hundreds of staff and guests mingled, met, chatted, compared notes and generally rubbed elbows (and the rest!) as they tried to navigate the room otherwise known as Altitude360 (www.altitude360.com).

As an aside, despite its size, and the huge number of venues overall, London seems underserved by good places to hold wine tastings. We need something wide, not cavernous, bright and simple (oh, and no carpets to get damaged by errant spits) – shouldn’t be too hard, should it? However, the range of venues for a tasting on the scale of today’s event are not as many as you might imagine. If you know anything new and interesting, do let me know.

(oh, and if you can avoid venues requiring lifts, even better)

As for the wines, well, Enotria excels at Italian wines and I particularly enjoyed a great many unusual white varieties, such as the Falanghina & Greco di Tufo of Feudi di San Gregorio ( www.feudi.it), a Pigato from Laura Aschero (floral and nutty), a great value Falanghina from Cantina dei Cipressi. Heading over to France, I also picked out a white Corbieres from Cave de Castelmaure. In fact the latter’s range, including the good value Le Castelmaure and La Pompadour Corbieres were very enjoyable wines.

A very interesting range, and if the activity in the room is anything to judge by, the wine business seems to be recovering from a desperate past year. I hope this continues and encourages more buyers to be adventurous with their wine lists, giving consumers an exciting choice of wines to spend their precious entertainment budget on.