SATURDAY EVENING, 24^TH MARCH 2018

The BBWP is now established as a premier opportunity to meet and network with like-minded people in the Mallorca marine industry. This year will be the fifth edition of this prestigious event which is held each year at the Club de Mar. Every year it goes from strength to strength and this one promises to be the best ever.

The origins come from the fact that I had bought a 15 litre bottle of 2008 Waterford Cabernet Sauvignon from a South African Wine bar here in Santa Catalina which was going out of business. Being South African and a friend of the bar owner I generously said that I would buy his entire stock, however after he had said a very enthusiastic thank you, he eventually informed me that the cost price of his stock was €22,000 at which point I took a deep breath. I told him that at my age there was no way that I could drink that amount of wine before I die! In the end I introduced a lot of fellow locally based South Africans and I cherry picked the wine I wanted, the rest was all sold off at great prices. To this day I am not sure why I bought the 15 litre bottle except that it felt like a good idea at the time!

A year or two later we started to wonder what we would do with 15 litres of red wine (this equates to 20 bottles) and started round table discussions on what to do. The first suggestion was to invite twenty of our friends around to drink it all but this was soon killed as someone has to drive home afterwards. In this scenario you need maybe 40 people and then if you add in those that do not drink red wine you might end up with 50 plus for a good party.

This all sounded good until someone said – “what happens if you invite all these friends around and then when you open the bottle it has gone off?” – dilemma! My wife Anne came up with a good idea to say that we tell everyone to bring a good quality bottle of wine as you would to a dinner party, in which case if we opened our wine and it was bad then we could drink all the bottles that the guests had brought. As this plan started to take shape my good friend Carlos Feliu, owner of Can Feliu, and a prominent wine producer here in Mallorca, asked me why did I not run the party as a fund raising event for our charity. He suggested that we charge people to come and he volunteered to have a car full of his wine parked nearby in case we opened the big bottle and it was undrinkable. I proceeded to build a wooden gun carriage to carry the bottle and enable it to be poured under control. To my surprise and wonder it worked remarkably well!

Thus, the First Big Bottle of Wine Party was started back in 2014. By now the guest list had exceeded the number we could take in our house, so we came to an agreement with Mangiafuoco restaurant which was a 100 meters from our front door – Perfect!. It was a great success, so much so that everyone said we needed to do it again. Carlos stepped into the breach and said that he would refill the big bottle but by the time 2015 came around Mangiafuoco had sadly closed down so we moved the venue to Club de Mar. We have developed a fantastic relationship with Maria and Carla who manage the events at CdM and cannot give them enough praise for the help and support Marine Inspirations and the BBWP have received. Each year they donate, free of charge the venue which most of you know is spectacular, looking out at the marina over the swimming pool, and arrange delicious finger food from Restaurante Taronja Negre upstairs.

All money raised at the BBWP goes to Marine Inspirations which is an initiative started by Anthony Just and myself to introduce the Super Yacht Industry to disadvantaged youngsters with aspirations of going to sea. Anthony and I are both South Africans so the majority of the youngsters come to us from Southern Africa although we have also done some work with kids in the Caribbean. We want to show these young people what can be achieved by hard work and dedication and show them another side of marine employment. Those of you who have met any of these future mariners here in Mallorca will definitely confirm their enthusiasm, good manners and a thirst for knowledge. To date we have had over 30 kids that we have mentored over the years thanks to funds raised and the amazing generosity of the marine industry.

This will be our 4^th event at Club de Mar and each year it gets better and better. The BBWP is a great opportunity to have fun and to meet people involved in the Super Yacht Industries as well. This is primarily a party for my friends, most of whom are yacht crew and there is bound to be a large collection of Super Yacht Captains attending. For those of you who do not know I was a co founder of the Super Yacht Captains website, along with Colin Squire, which now has over 1,500 captains registered. Quite amazing and it is very successful. The BBWP will be announced on the website and a debrief report will be put up there afterwards Previous parties have been covered by both Ultima Hora and the Daily Bulletin as well as various other media organisations. If you are involved in the industry here in Palma, be it as a yacht crew or business, this is a great party to put in your diary. On the other hand if you just like a good party and superb wine then this is even a better excuse!

For more information please visit our website – www.MarineInspirations.org or our Face Book Page.

You can also email me on Phil@MarineInspirations.org for more information. We are actively looking for more sponsors as well as items for the raffle and auction, so if you would like to participate then please do not hesitate to send me an email.