Booze and Books Featuring Helen Lederer, Honey Spencer & Aleesha Hansell

Brighton Book Festival presents the very best in wine tasting and comedy. Celebrating the natural wines of the UK and those that love them.

Arcobaleno Brighton,18th June  7.30pm

Come and join us for an evening of laughter and a little bit of learning. You will have the opportunity to taste wines and learn about the process of natural wines under the tutelage of a seasoned sommelier.  Then our panel of comedians and wine lovers will talk about their own wine journeys professional and just for fun. Taking place in the beautiful venue Arcobaleno Brighton, 

Helen Lederer A hilarious and alarmingly honest memoir by one of Britain’s first female stand-up comedians of the 80s, when Alternative Comedy created a new generation of TV heroes. “I invite you to imagine a time when women didn’t do comedy unless they were fat, or an impressionist, or enabled by a man. Be happy you weren’t around in the ’80s. But I was. I needed to write this.’ And you need to read Helen Lederer’s memoir, Not That I’m Bitter; the alternative guide to the Alternative Comedy era; full of personal revelation, reflection, and insight, never losing sight of the funny.

Honey Spencer’s has worked around the globe at world-renowned venues including Sager and Wilde, London, 10 William Street, Sydney and NOMA Mexico and used to be wine director for Studio PASKIN, where she curated and executed the wine list for restaurants such as The Palomar, The Barbary, and 1* Michelin restaurant, Evelyn’s Table. In November 2023, she opened her own restaurant Sune on Hackney’s Broadway Market in London with her partner Charlie Sims, where she is co-owner and sommelier. She is a fierce advocate for sustainability within the wine industry, and is listed in Drink’s Business ‘50 Most Powerful Sommeliers in London,’ CODE’s ‘100Most Influential Women in Hospitality’, and a GQ Awards and Fortnum & Mason Awards Judge. Her book ‘Natural Wine, No Drama’ is published on 11 April 2024 (Pavilion Books).

Aleesha Hansell is the resident wine expert on ITV's Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh and can also be found discussing drinks on BBC Radio. She is a writer, judge and broadcaster. She writes about wine and drinks through the prism of food, travel, culture and lifestyle for publications such as Tatler, Decanter, Ocado Life Magazine, The Independent and National Geographic Traveller. She has been a judge for several drinks awards, including the Decanter World Wine Awards since 2021 and The Great Taste Awards. Aleesha was the inaugural winner of the Louis Roederer BAME Bursary and was shortlisted for the IWSC Wine Communicator of the Year 2022. She is a patron of the Drinks Trust and was recently announced as the wine ambassador for Ocado, and an ambassador for The Fairtrade Foundation. Aleesha is currently writing her first book about the anthropology of drinks.

Venue 

Arcobaleno Brighton, 120 St George's Road, Kemptown, Brighton,  BN2 1EA