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 Teaming up with a local independent retailer, Blackburn Cathedral in North-west England hopes to raise over £3 million to fund the cathedral's upkeep, community projects and to support its music programmes.
Prairie Lights , an independent book store in Iowa City came up with many people’s dream combination of a wine bar within a bookshop. It transformed its second floor café earlier last month to accommodate wine sales.
It has been a desperate plea by the British cathedral which launched its own wine brands last week. It will have four specially-created labels made available for the general public, two of which will include Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.
The wines are expected to cost £72 for a case of 12 bottles, while plans are afoot to add rosé to its portfolio next year.
According to a report in the Drinks Business, the community project director Rupert Swarbrick told the BBC last week that the labels’ creation was to market the wine to many different kinds of people.”We are hoping to keep this going throughout the year, it has had a good response already,” he added.
With a selection of six whites and six reds on offer, customers can buy wine by the glass or bottle from 3-9 pm daily at the Prairie Lights. Customers can buy wine by the glass in the $5 to $12 range, or bottles from $30 to $65, A small selection of mid-western beers is also available, together with a range of cheeses and fresh bread.
Prairie Lights has had a café on its second floor, but the bookstore's owners remodeled the space earlier this year and acquired a liquor license to serve alcohol alongside the coffee shop Although the wines tend to come from lesser known producers, Caymus Vineyard in California also features, since its wines include grapes grown in a vineyard owned by one of the co-owners of the bookstore.
The wine bar initiative has proved especially popular with customers attending the bookshop’s regular reading events with visiting authors. “We just want to provide a relaxed atmosphere where people can enjoy a good glass of wine, coffee, a conversation with friends or a good book,” says an employee who had mooted the idea.
In Delhi and in fact in most states, wine and other alcoholic beverages can be served at a private gathering after getting a one-off license at a fee which varies from being very nominal to affordable and mercifully, this is one area where the bureaucracy has simplified procedures, but sale is not allowed to public.
Wine sales have been allowed in super-markets in many states like Maharashtra, Haryana, Karnataka, Chandigarh etc., but Delhi government is still sitting over the decision to allow wine sales in the department stores, even though it had announced the policy decision giving it green light a few months ago.
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