
In case you missed it, we’ve been celebrating a very special year in The Wine Society’s history in 2024. And for the Tasting & Events team, this year will go down in history as our busiest and most ambitious yet. We’ve been taking our Anniversary and Generation Series wines – created exclusively for our 150th year – to more than 12,000 members and guests at more than 60 locations across the country.
We’ve also brought the extended Wine Society family of long-standing producers and creative collaborators together for four special Exhibition Weekends, seven simultaneous Celebration Lunches, 39 walkaround events and dinners – and all alongside our regular events programme.
We began our 150th events extravaganza in January with the first of our 150th Roadshows and our first Exhibition Weekend in London. As with our Generation Series wines, we themed these events around the first quarter of our history from 1874–1924, featuring wines connected to that era and the styles enjoyed by our founders.

Celebrating our first 50 years
Throwing open the doors of The Law Society, we welcomed 1,700 members and their guests, alongside the producers of our Generation Series #1 and Anniversary wines. There was the chance to taste 80+ wines, hone and test tasting skills with how to taste and blind-tasting tables; explore historic estates such as Trimbach, who have been making wine in Alsace since 1626; learn about the Champagne riots of 1910; find out about phylloxera and its effect on the wine world and so much more. If you’re interested to read more and view the wines tasted, you can download a PDF of the notes here.
What’s been so apparent throughout the year is the mutual pleasure between members and producers sharing the joy of good wine, and what it means to be a member of The Wine Society.

One of our core aims in 2024 was to share our celebrations with as many members as possible. It was wonderful to return to Belfast in April, where we received an especially warm welcome, and in a Wine Society first (we believe), we also made it to Llandudno in North Wales.
To all the members and guests who welcomed us on our travels, thank you for your enthusiasm and warm reception! We’ve loved chatting with everyone and have also been highly impressed by the venue staff who have worked alongside our team – many of whom caught the wine bug – potential Wine Society members of the future? Some members had travelled across the country to events and made a mini city-break out of the experience, and at least one couple attended all four Exhibitions!

A weekend of celebrating in Bristol, Manchester and Edinburgh
Our second Exhibition Weekend took place in Bristol in April, followed by Manchester in June and Edinburgh in September. The Bristol Exhibition featured the second release from the Generation Series and the next era in our history from 1924 to 1974. Members had the chance to explore more era-defining themes, including wines that survived Prohibition; a taste of France’s original six appellations; wines from the up-and-coming regions of this period and the great technological breakthrough of the era – Bag-in-Box! Read more here.

Manchester saw the unveiling of the Generation Series 3 wines and the past 50 years of our history. Members got to learn about milestone moments in the wine world’s history, such as the famous Judgement of Paris tasting; the infamous Austrian wine scandal; technological advances in grape identification using DNA; and all the great new things in wine that have taken off in more recent times, from the meteoric rise of popular Italian wines like Prosecco and pinot grigio, alongside trendy Provence pinks and Marlborough sauvignon blanc. Discover more about the wines of the era here.

The final release in our Generation Series, which looks to the future of wine, spearheaded the theme of the Exhibition tasting in Edinburgh. More than 900 members were treated to a taste of things to come, with a selection of wines to demonstrate the impact of AI on wine and to stimulate conversation on its role in The Wine Society, plus vertical tastings of claret to demonstrate how wines age; a line-up of wines from winners of our Climate & Nature Programme; a delicious demonstration of the wine regions we think will be popular in years to come, and drinks from the burgeoning low and no category, among other topics.
The most ambitious event (or rather, events) in our 150-year history also took place in September – seven simultaneous Sunday lunches in Birmingham, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London and Oxford. 1,200 members dined together, in homage to the lunches held in 1874 following the International Exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall. The lunches were organised by the Hall’s architect, Major General Henry Scott, to showcase the sadly overlooked, largely Portuguese wines leftover from the Exhibition. The lunches were a great success and led to the founding of the International Exhibition Co-operative Wine Society.

Even more members joined in online for our taste-along lunch with multi-Michelin-starred chef Simon Rogan. It was all hands on deck to open and decant bottles, welcome our guests and set up tech to share videos and photos from each event. The Anniversary wines paired with each dish were presented by producers in person and by video throughout the afternoon. You can watch the recordings here.

The spirit of conviviality was commented upon at each event with winners of our Member Moments competition echoing the sentiment of many: ‘We met new and interesting people on our table, and we all got on like a house on fire… my wife and I enjoyed the day enormously, and felt it was The Wine Society at its very best.’

The London event which the winners attended also had a few guests, including former Chair Ray Bowden and his wife Jill, who had been to the Wine Society’s centenary celebrations – a great advert for the life-giving properties of good wine!

We have loved celebrating our 150th anniversary with you, creating memories and adding to our history for the next 150 years. We're now in the throes of planning our 2025 programme and lots of tastings and events with tickets already available are on the website. We look forward to seeing you at another Wine Society event soon!
>> Find out more about our 150th anniversary
>> Browse our Generation and Anniversary wines