Hotel du Vin launches new wine and literary partnerships

Television presenter and wine expert Olly Smith is teaming up with boutique hotel group Hotel du Vin to host a series of wine dinners.

He will oversee four dinners across the country, starting with "The Classics: Wine's Greatest Hits" at the Hotel du Vin Birmingham in November and ending with "The Hidden Gems of Portugal" at the Hotel du Vin Brighton in June next year.

Costing £95 per head, the five-course dinners will pair wines with every dish, accompanied by Smith's informal guidance.

The wine dinners mark the latest association between Smith and Hotel du Vin, following the recent launch of a monthly wine blog written by Smith on the group's website.

Hotel du Vin, which currently has 14 hotels, is also to launch a series of writers' courses hosted by leading authors, in partnership with publisher Random House.

Known as The Writers' Academy, the courses will begin in September at Hotel du Vin Harrogate, with an introduction to crime writing from SJ Watson, author of Before I Go To Sleep, and Henry Sutton, a senior lecturer in creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Gary Davis, chief executive of Hotel du Vin, said: "These two partnerships give our guests the chance to add to their stay by learning, either about all things literary or about the very stuff of Hotel du Vin, the wine we feature. We're delighted to be working with both Random House and Olly Smith, two quite different entities, but each in their own way the very best in their field."

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