Relive the aromas and smells of our Wine & Cheese Rendezvous Club Event at La Cave à Fromage
As we dash through Selfridges beauty hall with its Christmas candle aromas you can’t help but get in the mood for the season. 
And to further enhance the mood Lou Lou and I shimmy into The Beaumont hotel for a sharpening cocktail in the bar. Lou Lou is coming down with a cold so goes for a Brandy Sour. I go for a Cosmo – well because I like a Cosmo.
We are off to South Kensington to renowned fromagerie La Cave à Fromage for our first Rendezvous club event. As we enter the cute candy-box style shop, the doorbell chimes and a great waft of fragrant parfum de fromage engulfs us, making us salivate in anticipation of savouring the source of that essence in combination with delicious wines and great company. We are introduced to our hosts for the evening: Fred our sommelier and Katlin our cheese connoisseur.
Katlin and Fred are busy compiling cheese plates. The Epoisse, they suggest, should be saved till the last minute – it’s so ripe it’s going to run right off the plates, they enthuse. I get busy putting place cards on tables – no Madge the badge today! This is an intimate dinner for 18 where the guests do not have to bring a friend of the opposite sex, and I am really excited that we have such an incredible group of lovely participants along for the launch.
I start to gr
eet our guests; one of the first to arrive is a tall handsome man wearing that classic cologne Terre d’Hermes. I linger a little too long saying hello – is it just me ladies or is that just the most delicious male fragrance on Earth!
Its 7.30 now and most of our guests have arrived, so we start to seat people at the long narrow table (perfect for cross-table conversations); the ladies all hoping to meet their grand fromage and men their petite chèvre. But before getting stuck into the gorgeous cheese there’s networking for starters – as business people we all are master networkers, so that bit’s easy. The entrée is making friends; ladies with ladies, men with men. Then, à la Francaise, comes the cheese as we engage with potential partners. If that goes well then there may be plenty of sweet things to look forward to. C’est à vous. Rendezvous set the scene and put the people in the room; the rest is up to you. Of course if you see someone you like the look of we’ll be only too happy to make the introduction.
All was going swimmingly at the Cave, with everyone making all the right moves with charm and panache as the night progressed with delicious cheeses ranging from a chèvre from the Loire valley, matched with a light red from Languedoc-Roussillon, to my favourite Marzolino al Tartufo (always partial to an intense Italian!), matched with a Grenache rosé. Really the cheese and wine pairings were superb; a credit to Fred and Kaitlin who blended just the right mix of professionalism, perkiness, and fun. I couldn’t have asked for an easier crew if I had recruited them myself.
The night ended with a final couple of bottles of red, while numbers were exchanged and people made plans to go on afterwards. I said my goodbyes and was whisked off into the night. Another bar; a final Cosmo.
