A town-twinning members' event was held in Hexham Community Centre. Each guest had a form to fill in, with five entries, one wine and its paired cheese. Guests had no idea which wines or cheeses were about to be served, the bottles were covered up. John Cobb was our sommelier for the evening, suggesting flavours and discussing the properties of each wine in advance of the revelation. He urged us to apply three stages to evalute the wine: the sense of smell before tasting, the colour and appearance of the wine, and finally its taste. All the wines had been opened in advance of the event to ensure that they could breathe. The mystery candidates included New Zealand, Italian and Southern French wines.

Marianne and Andrew Corder selected suitable cheeses for matching the wines. The cheeses were from the UK, France and Spain with a variety of textures and flavours, including two blue cheeses.