A Wedding in Hampshire

Way back in 2018 Lisa hired an English intern for the harvest, Will Perkins. And then, thanks to Will’s skill with crafting sparkling wines, she hired him again in 2019. And then Will was working the vintage in Adelaide when we put the kids through school for a semester in Willunga in 2022, during which time we tried to adopt Will as a bit of a fifth Valtenbergs family member for our time in South Australia! We were also lucky to meet Verity during our time Down Under in 2022, just as she and Will were meeting and getting to know each other as flatmates… Over the years Lisa and Will have formed quite a close friendship so when we received an invite to Will and Verity’s wedding in Hampshire – which fortunately aligned quite well with summer camps for the kids – we jumped at the opportunity to enjoy a quick escape to England.

With direct flights to London from San Francisco it was a reasonably seamless undertaking to cross the Atlantic: we were on the London underground and at our hotel in Kensington with plenty of time during the afternoon for a jaunt up to Notting Hill to explore the Portobello Road Market. Portobello Road was on our list of sights for our visit to London during 2021 but we ran out of time and never made it… It was such a fun strip of the city with countless food vendors in the storefronts lining the main drag and everything from antique clothes to souvenirs in the stalls along the sidewalk. Lisa took a liking to some beautiful Scottish wool jackets, but with only hand luggage for our quick trip a Scottish wool souvenir will have to wait until next time. Our afternoon stroll down Portobello Road reminded us both of just how much the Brits love their pubs: it was 2PM on a Wednesday and already the pubs were almost packed to the gills!

Our digs in Kensington was a wonderful spot from which to explore the city: less than a five minute walk to the Gloucester Road tube station made accessing all the London sights a breeze. I left the camera at home for our first night in the city, when we pub hopped from Kensington down to Chelsea, stopping off at four or five pubs along the way as the UEFA Euro 2024 football preliminaries were playing in each. Such a welcoming atmosphere in all the pubs, everyone enjoying a pint after a day a the office and blowing off steam, a great part of English culture (although I’m sure the NHS would like to see the Brits imbibe in ales a little less!). We dined at a brilliant neighborhood pub called The Surprise in Chelsea, booking a table in the quaint Victorian-era upstairs dining room (thanks for the hot tip on that one Will Cazalet) where we enjoyed some delectable plates. Everything was scrumptious, but we both agreed the beef carpaccio was the most memorable dish of the evening… I can’t recall too much of the walk home post-dinner, but we did make it back to Kensington in one piece. Probably a good thing all the pubs in Kensington and Chelsea closed up shop by 11PM.

A trip to London just wouldn’t have been complete without a visit to Borough Market. It was one of the kids’ favorite spots from our time in London in 2021, all the aromas and international delicacies made for such a wonderful spot to explore. We had an evening engagement in Soho for a musical so dined early at Padella next to the market, their simple yet exquisite pasta dishes have made the restaurant quite famous and it was another spot from our list from 2021 that we didn’t quite make it to back then. While we were waiting on the restaurant to open we followed our ears to a quaint (but noisy at the time) lane in Southwark next to Borough Market, where the Old King’s Head pub was jam packed with Thursday afternoon revelers priming themselves for the England/Denmark UEFA Euro 2024 soccer game. It was hard to squeeze into the bar for a beer, or hear ourselves over the national anthem and subsequent yelling at the TV, but it was a very fun prelude to our pasta dinner.

One of the things we really wanted to expose the kids to during our 2021 visit to London was a West End musical. But back then the COVID restrictions for entry into Australia – which was our next stop after London – were so onerous that we toned down our socializing in London on the last stop of our European tour and saved a musical for another time. The theaters of the West End – rivaled only by the constant rotation of entertainment on Broadway – had a plethora of shows from which to choose. We decided on MJ the Musical, a much lauded performance chronicling the life and music of the rockstar with renditions of his many hits by the cast and some electric dance routines throughout. It was honestly fantastic, one of the best stage productions either of us had ever seen, the whole theater rocking to the music by the time the almost three hour performance’s finale rolled around. Highly recommended. The Soho neighborhood in which the musical played was also a real treat, it reminded us both of Bourbon Street in New Orleans with its thronging drinking establishments, fluorescent neon tuk-tuks and bustling restaurants. I think we were again fortunate the London pubs in Soho all closed up shop by midnight, we’re not in our twenties anymore!

We bid London goodbye after a jam packed couple of days in the capital, heading southwest into Hampshire for the main purpose of our trip: Will and Verity’s ceremony in Alresford. After some headaches finding a charger for our electric Polestar in quaint Winchester and time for a stroll around Winchester’s majestic cathedral we eventually made our way to the village of Easton and our digs upstairs at The Cricketers Inn. It was honestly a bit of a ramshackle place, but we really wanted to stay in a pub during our time in Hampshire and by the time we got around to booking accommodation for the wedding the options in Alresford and the surrounding villages were few and far between. Nonetheless, the couple who’d recently taken over ownership of The Cricketers were wonderful people and it was a great location from which to enjoy some of the hiking trails (English parlance: footpaths) along the River Itchen and into neighboring towns. It was nice to spend the evening before the ceremony with some of Will’s family at the nearby Tichborne Arms, after which Lisa and I ventured back into Alresford and closed down The Horse and Groom with a fun (but rough) eighties band and a colorful collection of Hampshire locals.

After traveling the world for five or six years, working at wineries from California to the Adelaide Hills, Will was offered a role to head up the newly established English arm of Champagne Pommery back in 2022. It was one of those roles that doesn’t come up very often, and the opportunity being located near his childhood stomping grounds made it quite compelling. The ceremony and reception were held at the location where the British arm of Pommery will be situated, a stunning estate housing Pinglestone Barn: the oldest freestanding barn in the United Kingdom dating back to the mid-fifteenth century. It was a beautiful spot and Will and Verity ordered the weather wonderfully for the afternoon (I need to get the recipe for Will’s mum’s sausage rolls, which were one of the features of the pre-ceremony bites and were absolutely to die for!).

The ceremony was held at a picturesque spot in the vineyards overlooking the Pommery property, with 360 degree views of the surrounding Hampshire countryside and a handful of the commanding English estates on the outskirts of Alresford. Will and Verity had obviously put a lot of thought into the afternoon, with some heartfelt stories about their lives together over the past two years and the ups-and-downs of trying to manage a relationship with visas and family illness and new jobs and half the globe to tackle in tandem. I never knew Will was such the orator, but he did a wonderful job of keeping the crowd engaged during the afternoon, as did the busking musicians that joined the party for entertainment along the way.

The post-ceremony lunch – which turned into an exquisite five hour journey through multiple courses back down at Pinglestone Barn – was so much fun, with wines from Will’s winery adventures over the preceding five or six years to accompany delectable dishes conjured by his brother Tom and his team. Tom is the author of a book – Spices and Spandex – chronicling his journey on bicycle from England to the southern tip of the African continent. It’s part diary, part cookbook and resides in our cookbook collection in California. The culinary influences from his travels were evident in the dishes we were served for the wedding, without a doubt some of the best food either of us had ever enjoyed at such an event. It was all immensely delicious, but of particular note was the whiskey-cured trout caught in the neighboring River Itchen and served up as one of the appetizers. Just absolutely divine… It was fun for Lisa and I to spend the afternoon and evening meeting more of Will’s close friends and family, and hearing lots of stories of pre-2018 Will from college mates and family alike. I think Lisa’s favorite tidbit was the fact Will decided at a youngster he would like to be named Monday, not Will. Such a fun day and both of us felt so honored to be included in the celebration. Congratulations Will and Verity!