Regular visitors to Guildford Farmers Market will have have come across Fonthill Glebe Wines selling wine from a local vineyard at Teffont near Salisbury in Wiltshire.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/gu-ford.htm
 http://www.heureka.clara.net/surrey-hants/hampshire-fare.htm
 http://www.farmergiles.co.uk/pages/prods_serv/wine.htm
 http://www.hampshirefarmersmarkets.co.uk/producers/producer_detail.asp?ID=98

Unlike most English wine which is overpriced and not very good, Fonthill Glebe Wines sells a very good bottle of white for a fiver (maybe two for a tenner). Fonthill Glebe Wines sell a wide range of other wines, red, rose and sparkling, and liquors, but these I have not tried, although you can sample on the stall.

Fonthill Glebe Wines is also a regular at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, a five-day event. Had they not been kicked out on the first day, this would have been their 23rd year.

 http://www.gdsf.co.uk/

For the steam fair, they not only sell their wines and liquors by the bottle and the case, they also run a bar. Costs of doing this, excluding staffing costs and other expenses, are site fee £1000, marquee £500.

On the first day of the steam fair, Fonthill Glebe Wines were visited by an officious jobsworth from North Dorset District Council and told they had to shut down under health and safety ground as it was 'dangerous to sell wine in bottles'!

 http://www.north-dorset.gov.uk/

No reason or explanation was given, other than it was 'Council policy'. Nothing was given in writing.

Steam engines have a propensity to blow their boilers when running a full head of steam, but no attempt was made to close down the steam fair.

Other traders continued to sell wine in bottles. Why was Fonthill Glebe Wines singled out?

Fonthill Glebe Wines could have chosen to brazen it out, but had they done so they risked a £20,000 fine, so they had little choice other than to close down. As a consequence, they lost several thousand pounds worth of business from the five-day event.

Quite why it was dangerous to sell wine in a bottle was never explained, other than 'it is Council policy'. That nothing was given in writing is highly suspicious.

Corruption is rampant and widespread in local authorities. Was the council official looking for a backhander? If not, why nothing in writing, or was it just another example of the bloody-minded arrogant incompetence which is now the norm in local authorities?

There are far-reaching ramifications of what happened at the Great Dorset Steam Fair.

Already, for example, if you drink outside a pub in Brighton, you have the ludicrous situation of being forced to drink out of plastic, thanks to an edict from the local council, Skidrow-on-Sea.

 http://www.heureka.clara.net/sussex/brighton.htm

What happened in Dorset may well be challenged in the courts as a test case, due to its far-reaching ramifications.

Fonthill Glebe Wines: The Winery, Teffont, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 5RG tel/fax 01722 716770 mobile 07703 353518