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Excellent Evening with Wickham Vineyards and Lyburn Cheese!

Posted: Thursday 3rd Jun 2010

Over 60 people attended last week’s Wired Wessex event “Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs Wickham Vineyards and Lyburn Cheese” at the elegant and historic St. John’s House in Winchester.

Guests were welcomed with a lovely glass of Wickham Vineyards Grand Mayne wine and a tasty preview of the cheese to come. Jo Nowak of Wickham and Mike Smales of Lyburn led us through the histories of each company and shared their top tips on why they’re successful Hampshire companies. What really came through in their presentations was the passion and pride that they had for their respective products.

Following the presentations, we indulged in a tasting of 5 very different wines, paired deliciously with three carefully selected cheeses, presented by the knowledgeable Liz Bateman of Wickham and entertaining Mike Smales of Lyburn.

A wonderful time was had by all, especially guests Joshua Spencer and Tim Tavender, who won Wickham wines and Lyburn cheese in the final business card draw.

Comments from the evening included:
“It helped me to appreciate quite a lot about the running of food businesses and although both working at the higher end, which you clearly have to rather than being ripped off by the supermarkets, they both had such delightfully different approaches from the down to earth start for cheese with cows to the more rarefied wine business. They were also both affordable when you want something special and I hope to use both companies when buying gifts for friends and family. In this respect they were both local businesses and part of being green and local.”

“It was a very enjoyable evening. The presentations were very good in that they were prepared to say the specifics of why they have done what they have and what the underlying principles are of the way they do business. Mike was clearly very entertaining and all speakers were good at ensuring the two products were seen as working well together. This was a clear case of the whole being a lot more than the sum of the two halves. The result is that I am even more of a fan of Lyburn Cheese and I now appreciate the quality of Wickham wines and will be drinking more in the future.”

“I thought the evening was great – the presentations were very interesting and it was great to see how both businesses have expanded their products to maximise their income.”

“It was a great evening. I love how every-time you have a net-working event it has a new interesting twist.”

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