Last week I hosted a wine tasting on Zoom for a friend of mine who is a member of a wine club. What does a wine tasting have to do with Metfriendly I hear you ask?

The reason I was hosting the wine tasting was to talk about a wine project I am involved in with friends that are all wine lovers and decided one day (over a few bottles of wine) to make a dream come true by making honest, iconic wines together. In a similar way, volunteers formed the Metropolitan Police Provident Association in 1893 to help widows of colleagues and retiring officers. Metfriendly has always focused on the needs of the Police Family and delivers products and services to help support you, our members.

Side by Side with the Police

Metfriendly is a mutual which means that we are owned by you, our Police family members and stand side by side with you, providing products tailored to your needs. Everything we do has your best interests at the very heart. We continue to support the Police family with relevant and pertinent support during and beyond their active service. This includes sponsorship of the memorial flame at Hendon, supporting the National Police Memorial Day with a donation linked to member votes at our AGM and donating all proceeds from our calendars to the London Retired Police Dogs Trust. These are just three examples of the way we provide support to the Police Family every year.

Making wine in a desert

If you are intrigued by the wine project, here is a little more on how it came about.

Our wine label tells our story, it has the signature and fingerprint of each investor on the label so you can see that it is a group of friends that got together to make iconic wine. Our wine is called “Alpasión,” a combination of the Spanish “alma” (for soul) and “pasión” (passion). It is wine with soul and passion to share with friends.

The project was born after a very good dinner (and maybe a bottle or two of fine wine) at Insead Business school in France, when one of my fellow course members suggested we set up a business as a reason to stay together after the course finished. The business idea was a vineyard as we all enjoyed drinking good wine. Five of us went to Mendoza, Argentina to investigate further and the rest is history. We bought a piece of land in the Uco Valley and built a vineyard from scratch. Ten years on, we have a lodge to stay at, a restaurant to eat in and a range of iconic wines to drink. Every penny invested in the vineyard has come by word of mouth from the original group, their friends and friends of friends.

Turning dreams into reality

127 years ago the power of friendship laid the foundations to build Metfriendly into what it is today, helping make dreams come true for you, our members and your families. Whether that’s to pay for the holiday of a lifetime, to buy a first house or to save for your children’s future, Metfriendly will be there for you every step of the way. And if friendship can make wine flow in a desert, then the possibilities are endless.

Kathy Byrne, CEO Metfriendly

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