The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

So, not long to go now, are you ready, because we are?

Tomorrow morning (Saturday), at exactly 9.21am, we will likely be found dancing a merry jig at the A303’s most famous landmark, Stonehenge, as we hope to catch a glimpse of the Sun’s rays through the stones, which are apparently perfectly positioned to align with the Sun’s path.  Yep, it’s the Winter Solstice, aka the Shortest Day, which I’m informed will last 7 hours 49 minutes and 42 seconds – equivalent to the AA’s estimated journey time from the Solstice Services to Winterbourne Stoke this weekend…

After that, anyone got any plans for next week?  Having looked at sales figures for previous years, we’ve decided to make it a short one.  Noticing that the historic trend is zero business between 25^th and 29^th December, we have elected to only open on Monday and Tuesday next week and then re-open on 30^th December – we’ll see you then.

Our usual trawl through the newspapers has not gleaned much to report – Elon Musk met Nigel Farage at Mar-a-Lago and, by all accounts, waved his wallet at him which, as we all know, is Nigel’s favourite sort of wave.  Prince Andrew continues to charm us with his antics whilst in booze news, yet another research study, this time from the University of Barcelona and the Hospital Clínic Barcelona, has found that a small glass of wine is better for the heart than statins – heartening to see that, almost 50 years after the concept was first discussed, the Mediterranean Diet is still winning fans!

So, what small glass of wine are you drinking?  Here are some suggestions:

LARGER FORMATS, FOR LONGER LUNCHES…

MAGNUM

Lopez de Haro 2019/20 Crianza, Rioja – £30.00

Château de Paraza 2019, Minervois – £38.00

Meerlust Red 2015, Stellenbosch – £38.00

La Cote Sauvage Cairanne 2021, Rhone – £40.00

Saransot Dupré 2019/20, Listrac-Médoc – £46.00

Roda Sela 2022, Rioja – £52.00

The Chocolate Block 2021/23, Swartland – £55.00

Valenciso Reserva 2018, Rioja – £55.00

Meerlust Rubicon 2016, Stellenbosch – £80.00

JEROBOAM

The Chocolate Block 2023, Swartland – £130.00

You’re gonna need a bigger glass…

Now, with just over 100 hours until the big day, we intend to tantalise your tastebuds with a couple of open bottles this weekend, to pair with your festive feasting:

Cape Mentelle Chardonnay 2021 – £23.99.  Cape Mentelle is one of the founding wineries of Margaret River in Western Australia and helped to pioneer the region’s styles.  Aromas of lemon zest, white peach and floral notes run alongside mineral characteristics and a hint of saltiness.  Medium bodied on the palate, with a silky succulence showing honeysuckle and lemon pie fruit character. Beautiful purity with real elegance and a great all-rounder, from your smoked salmon sandwiches, via your devils on horseback through to the turkey with all its accoutrements!

Sticking with our friends in Australia, for the red we have Paringa Estate Peninsula Pinot Noir 2023 – £32.00.  This is our ‘go to’ Pinot Noir, should such a thing be possible.  Hailing from the famous and beautiful Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, this is slightly unfairly referred to as their entry level wine!  However, we fully believe that this has more sophistication and character in its little finger than a number of Pinot’s demanding far higher prices. Lovely ripe fruit on the attack with some gentle spice coming through towards the finish and a fabulously long and silky finish.  We find New World Pinot Noir to be a great match for Christmas Dinner as they tend to have a bit more body and fruit than their Old World counterparts.

We also have the Breitenbach Winery Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos 2018 – £33.00, which is a delightful sweetie with a wonderfully deep golden colour.  The aromas are very inviting with dense, complex apricot and orange marmalade fruit characters which are supported by an exotic, floral nose.  Mid-weight and finely honeyed with beautifully poised acidity and spice on the long balanced finish, this needs to be tasted…

Plus, the Foxdenton Estate Christmas Gin Liqueur – £25.00 is open, as are a number of our spirits.  Two that deserve a particular mention are the Ninebar Italian Espresso Coffee Liqueur – £26.00 that has 12 cups of espresso in each bottle which could be very useful post-Christmas luncheon and also our much loved Hepple Gin – £38.00 that has had a really rather spiffy re-brand!

That’s about it from us for now, we hope you all have a very Merry Christmas with the appropriate number of small glasses of wine!

It’s the longest night coming up – we’re ready, are you?

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Well I have to say, my bingo card has been rubbish this week. I certainly didn’t have Assad moving to Moscow, or Sir Mark Cavendish being snubbed by Sports Personality of the Year.

Nor was I expecting archaeologists to be excavating Father Christmas’ grave! Archaeologists excavating the St Nicholas Church in Antalya in Turkey have found a surprise limestone sarcophagus which they are hoping will shed more light on whether this is St Nicholas’ final resting place.

News of the week for us was that GP, Dr Zoe Williams, in collaboration with Warburtons, has come up with the perfect hangover cure. Surprisingly, it is a sandwich containing eggs, bacon and avocado. Whilst we hold the front page for this news, it seems this is the perfect the mix of protein, salts and sugars to set you up for the day. On page two we talk about our fears for the whereabouts of Glenn Miller!

In completely unrelated news, the comedy gold that is a Kemi Badenoch quote continued it’s fine run of form this week. In an interview with the Spectator she declared that she didn’t like moist bread and that “lunch is for wimps!” No way on earth did I have her down as being played by Michael Douglas in the biopic, but here we are back in 1987! I guess that’s the ghost of Christmas past.

Time Magazine’s man of the year, Trumpolina, was in Paris this past weekend for the opening of the rebuilt Notre Dame. Did you see his meeting with Macron? I’m not sure if that was a handshake or the start of an arm wrestle between two children who really should know better. I thought Brigitte Macron was going to take them both by the ear and told them to grow up! Is Trumpolina the ghost of Christmas present?

Meanwhile, FIFA have awarded the 2034 World Cup to sole bidder Saudi Arabia. Throughout its history, the World Cup has traditionally been held in June. In 2022 it was played Qatar who disrupted all the domestic competitions by having to play it in December because of the heat. Given the 42˚C daytime temperatures in June in Saudi Arabia, I think we may see more of that. They are building eleven new stadiums to host it, one of them in a city that doesn’t even exist yet. Determined to head off any criticisms of the hosts, FIFA showed a video that included the words “integrity” “human rights” and “transparency” all linked by arrows to reassure us doubters. Looking forward to it already! Perhaps this will be the ghost of Christmas future?

Are you going to kick Boxing Day off with an espresso martini? Let me tell you about Ninebar Espresso Liqueur (£26). Made by our talented chums at Distilleria Quaglia in Piemonte, this is the real deal. 100% Brazilian Arabica beans toasted gently over birch wood, the liqueur has 12 espressos in every bottle. It has enough sweetness to balance that coffee bitterness without being oversweet. The name? I think that may be the ideal pressure on a coffee machine to make the perfect espresso. You’ll have to ask Lee!

CHRISTMAS OPENING HOURS

We’ll be operating our normal hours from today until…

SUNDAY 22^nd DECEMBER:  12 NOON – 3PM

MONDAY 23^rd DECEMBER:  12 NOON – 7PM

TUESDAY 24^th DECEMBER:  12 NOON -4PM

WEDNESDAY 25^th DECEMBER – SUNDAY 29^th DECEMBER:  CLOSED

MONDAY 30^th DECEMBER:  12 NOON – 7PM

 TUESDAY 31^st DECEMBER:  12 NOON – 6PM

WEDNESDAY 1^st – FRIDAY 3^rd JANUARY:  CLOSED

SATURDAY 4^th JANUARY:  12 NOON – 7PM

Then we will go back to normal!

Tasting this Weekend

As has become our tradition, we will start with a white. Pieropan Soave La Rocca 2022 (£39) – “The only oak-inflected cuvee at the estate. Aged in 100% used tonneaux, both French and Slavonian. Superb aromas of pistachios, peaches and dried mangoes. Broad and expansive, yet funneled into a vortex of tension by freshness that sublimates any sense of obvious power. A wonderful expression of a warmer vintage that suits perfectly this compelling site.” 96/100 Ned Goodwin, JamesSuckling.com, April 2024

On the red front we’ll be getting our laughing gear around Tenute Sella ‘Orbello’ Nebbiolo 2023 (£23.99) – Tenute Sella is located at the foot of the Alps of Biella, in Northern Piedmont. Purchased in 1671 by Comino Sella, for 350 years the family-owned property has been cultivated by generations of the Sella family. Here in Alto-Piemonte, they craft beautiful, ethereal expressions of Nebbiolo-based wines. Come and sample, we think it is really rather tasty!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Fourteen, some facts:

1. The number of days in a fortnight
2. Silicon’s position in the Periodic Table
3. The number of lines in a Sonnet
4. Valentine’s Day
5. Double the RDA of Deadly Sins
6. Thierry Henry’s Arsenal shirt number
7. And Luka Modric’s number at Tottenham
8. The percentage ABV of Meerlust Rubicon 2018
9. And Ridge Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2019
10. Number of pounds in a stone
11. The number of countries that share a border with Russia
12. Maximum number of golf clubs allowed in your bag
13. The number of letters in North Macedonia
14. The number of years we have been selling wine on Arthur Road

Yes, another year older, another year wider having celebrated our 14^th on Tuesday – Wayne celebrated with a Brick Lane Ruby whilst Alex stood in the shop before drinking Champagne with his wife – happy birthday to us!

As has often happened over the last 14 years, the news has been thoroughly disheartening this week with nothing to smile about really.  The BBC is in the crosshairs, again, largely courtesy of that human minion, Gregg Wallace, but is still asking us to pay £5 more to watch their output, from April next year.  £174.50 is the new figure – £14.54/month which compares to Netflix at £10.99/month (ads free), Amazon Prime at £8.99/month with all the other benefits and Disney + at £8.99/month (ads free), just so you know.

Here in the shop, as I’m sure you’ve all witnessed, we’re far too busy and focused to watch the telly, particularly at this time of year.  We had our last instore tasting of the year on Wednesday, a fabulous fizz night, with Wayne’s favourite tipple, Jean Gimonnet Millesime 2004 Premier Cru – £83 the clear winner (and why not, a Blanc de Blancs with 20 years on its lees for less than a ton is not to be sniffed at) with the Cantina di Soliera Lambrusco di Sorbara NV – £12.99 running a close second, which goes to show that it’s not all about price.

So for us, it’s head down, full speed ahead for the next 19 days and with your help we should be pretty busy.  Further to a gentle promotion of our Christmas cases last week, they are starting to get a bit of traction:

The Christmas Day Selection (PORT) – £150 including gift box

• Lété-Vautrain 204 Brut NV, Charly-Sur-Marne, Champagne, France
• Domaine Langlois Clos Saint-Florent Saumur 2021, Loire, France
• Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2023, Marlborough, New Zealand
• Akarua ‘RUA’ Central Otago Pinot Noir 2022, Central Otago, New Zealand
• Tenuta Marsiliana ‘Birillo’ Costa Toscana Rosso 2020, Tuscany, Italy
• Butler Nephew & Co 10 Years Old Tawny, Portugal

The Christmas Day Selection (NO PORT) – £150 including gift box

• Lété-Vautrain 204 Brut NV, Charly-Sur-Marne, Champagne, France
• Domaine Langlois Clos Saint-Florent Saumur 2021, Loire, France
• Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2023, Marlborough, New Zealand
• Akarua ‘RUA’ Central Otago Pinot Noir 2022, Central Otago, New Zealand
• Tenuta Marsiliana ‘Birillo’ Costa Toscana Rosso 2020, Tuscany, Italy
• Valenciso Reserva 2018, Rioja, Spain

The Claret Selection – £140 including gift box

• Chateau Guilhem 2010, Fronsac
• Chapelle De Potensac 2016, Médoc
• Château Lucas 2016, Lussac Saint-Émilion
• Château Saransot-Dupré 2016, Listrac-Médoc
• Clos Albertus 2018, Saint-Georges Saint Émilion
• Gaia de Chateau Puybarbe 2019, Côtes de Bourg

The December Fine Festive Selection- £250 including gift box

• Louis Roederer Collection 244, Champagne, France
• Sancerre Le MD de Bourgeois 2020, Loire Valley, France
• Westcott Vineyards Estate Chardonnay 2021, Ontario, Canada
• Chateau de Valois 2018, Pomerol, France
• Mt Difficulty ‘Pipeclay Terrace’ Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2017,
• Central Otago, New Zealand
• Travaglini Gattinara Tre Vigne 2019, Piemonte, Italy

Tastebuds tantalised.

We also see the return of the ever popular Foxdenton Estate Christmas Liqueur – £25.

Made with Winslow Plums and a blend of traditional Christmas spices including Ginger, Clove, Cinnamon, and Star Anise, our Christmas Liqueur is the ideal winter warmer.

All this needs is a mince pie and an open fire. However, it is equally at home in a glass of fizz making a rather fabulous festive cocktail – we’ve got a bottle open, come and have a taste.

However, before you taste the Liqueur, how about tasting the wines we’ve got open.

The white is more focused towards your Boxing Day ham or the December 27^th Turkey Madurai: Max Ferd. Richter ‘Zeppelin’ Riesling 2023 – £19.49.  Kingsley Amis once said ‘life is too short to learn about German wine labels’.  We agree to some degree but do not dismiss this wine.  Crisp, zesty apple and peach flavour with finely focused slate characteristics, typical for the vineyard.  In fact, wines from this vineyard were served in the luxurious restaurant of the Zeppelin airships in the 1920’s and 1930’s and have even been served at state functions at Buckingham Palace, which will serve as a good lunchtime conversation starter.

The red is one of our favourites from Ribera del Duero in Spain.  Bodegas La Horra Corimbo 2019 – £27.99 is rich, with spicy and savoury, game notes complimenting the forest fruit character.  On the palate the sweet ripe fruit has a lovely perfumed spice edge to the finish.  A bit fuller and rustic than a Rioja perhaps but not at all in a bad way!

That’s probably it from us, come in and have a taste, get yourselves out of the rain!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

As news breaks that Andrea Jenkyns has left the Conservative Party to join the Reform Party, one Tory grandee suggests that they thought she already had. Andrea herself said she was leaving ‘a sinking ship’ and that she thought the Reform Party ‘could save the country’. Save the country from what is not clear. Save the country from the effects of 14 years of the last government? Save the country from 5 years of this government? Save the country from an invasion of jelly fish? The list of threats could be endless but I’m not sure that Nigel Farage and his mates are the answer to any of them.

One of the threats could be Artificial Intelligence. We heard this week of a start-up publisher, Spines, that plans to publish eight thousand books next year by AI. They claim not to be the vanity project purveyor that most of the established industry seems to think they are. I’m not entirely sure how that benefits anyone in a world awash with unsold Boris Johnson books. They have persuaded somebody though, having received $16m of funding.

We also heard the story of a research analyst who was caught out by not speaking with one voice in a paper they produced. Using AI to write your opinion piece is not so smart when it cuts and pastes direct comments from your competition it would seem!

Where is he going with all this AI nonsense I hear you cry? Well, fellow wine lovers, during the course of our week we do the odd bit of research to see what is going on out in the world around us. This week we found ourselves reading an article in The Daily Express entitled:  ‘We tried the best Champagne and sparkling wine with a £12 bottle near perfect’. The iffy headline aside, the reporter seems to be a real person who has worked for several publications. However, we suspect AI may have been used for some of the content…

Remy Martin VSOP Cognac Fine Champagne – The Champagne has been described as “lovely” on Asda’s website and upon review can see why thanks to its sweet vanilla and honey notes it is easy to drink. Overall score: 7/10.

We know our readers wouldn’t fall into this trap, knowing that Fine Champagne refers to a blend of the two best regions of Cognac, Petite Champagne and Grande Champagne. Perhaps the word Cognac may provide a clue as to the presence of bubbles or not.

Indeed a quick look at the reviews on Asda’s website would have revealed this gem: “There was no Fizz and no pop so can’t see where the Champagne reference has come from. You pour it into your glass and it has a dark cognac colour and tastes of cognac but that is all. I have tasted better cognac so will keep to what I know next time. Don’t be fooled by the fine champagne cognac as you will be disappointed like me.”

So what do we think: a journalist who didn’t taste all the sparkling wines, or a story written by AI? We think that, despite our wives comments, there are writers out there less researched and worse at proofreading than us who actually get paid to do it!

In completely unrelated news, Shadow Home Minister Chris Philp has suggested we use robots for tasks such as picking fruit and vegetables “rather than simply importing a lot of low-wage migrant labour”. He went on to use Australia as an example of where the technology is deployed. I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison to be honest. There are farms in Australia about the size of Dorset. Dorset has 2241 farms, though most farm livestock rather than fruit.

Whilst on the subject of Australia, do spare a thought for all those parents telling their teenagers they can no longer have social media, following the government’s decision to ban it for the under 16’s. Who will help Granny set her phone?

Tasting This Weekend

We’re heading to France this weekend. Sporting the white sweater will be Domaine Guerrin Pouilly Fuissé Vieilles Vignes 2022, Burgundy (£30). Guerrin are located between the Roc de Vergisson and Roc de Solutré and noted for their exceptional sites within Pouilly-Fuissé. This is from three separate plots all on limestone soils with vines over 50 years old. I could tell you how delicious it is with its stone fruit character, satiny mouthfeel and crisp finish, but I think it’s better you come and taste for yourself.

Representing red wine, and trying not to spill itself down the white sweater, will be Château Les Ormes Sorbet 2014, Medoc (£39). In 1862 Chateau Les Ormes Sorbet became one of the first Bordeaux estates to bottle and sell their own wine. It is still owned by the same family, managed by Helene Boivert, Vincent Boivert, and Francois Boivert. The estate is about 10km north of St Estèphe and is a traditionally styled left bank claret. I could wax lyrically about how delicious we found it when we tasted it at Vintners Hall but why not come and taste it yourself?

Lastly, we have taken the liberty of attaching this year’s Christmas selections for your perusal.  Every year we design some cases to help you get through December – we have our usual monthly £100 case, we have a mixed Claret case for £140, we have two Christmas Day survival cases for £150 each (one with a bottle of Port and the other with a bottle of Rioja for those who don’t like the fortified stuff) and a really rather fabulous, push-the-boat-out case for £250!  Have a look and place your orders.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Hard to dispute this but I think we might be hitting winter.  Certainly the ski resorts would agree with me as they prepare to start their seasons, with photos from Tignes showing heavy dustings, whilst our friends in Oslo woke up to -7°c and sunshine this morning.

Still the good news is that it’s stopped raining.  Until tomorrow.  And Sunday.

But it’s not all gloomy news, some of it is trivial.  This week I learnt that 205 million people follow Elon Musk on his now retitled Twitter platform.  @elonmusk or Muskland (capital city Muskow, population 1) would be the 6^th biggest country in the world, sliding between Brazil and Bangladesh.  Whilst that sounds like quite a large population of Muskish, it is in fact only 2.5% of the world population so, happily, 97.5% of us aren’t really listening to him.

Whilst we’re still playing silly games, President Trump, before he was banned from Twitter, could have filled Turkey and Mauritius; Boris Johnson would populate Panama; Keir Starmer could almost fill Latvia whilst Joe Biden could inspire Morocco.  Rachel Reeves’ empire, however, would include Greenland, Faeroe Islands, Saint Kitts & Nevis, American Samoa plus the Northern Mariana Islands… lots of jokes to be made from all this silliness, we’ll leave them up to you!

Slow news day in Wimbledon Park, you can probably tell.

So, as we had time on our hands, we thought we’d have a look at our branding.  For over 10 years we’ve had a fairly solid message: the name Park Vintners is a simple yet effective description of what we are and where we do it; the logo (alright, you didn’t know we had a logo, I’ll tell marketing) is the corkscrew with the vine-leaf handle that doubles up as the ‘I’ in Vintners; our ‘motto’ – Wines with Personality is, again, simple yet effective.

So we thought we’d get rid of it all and re-brand ourselves as paRvin.

Parvin, from Persian mythology, is the name for the Pleiades constellation (also known as Seven Sisters), associated with the moon goddess, symbolizing beauty, radiance, and fertility – an obvious naming choice then for a wine shop in Wimbledon, or even Haringey. 

We’ve scrapped our motto and replaced it with a depiction of the star cluster which has 7 stars on it, as you’d expect.  To accentuate it, we’ve given it a periwinkle hued background and stuck a Union Jack in the corner (to confirm our provenance)… people may think it looks like the Australian flag but it’s obviously very different because the aussie flag has six stars, not seven…

We’ve also dropped the corkscrew logo because we’re now in a screwcap world and we want to push forward with our reinvention as we predict that 85 per cent of our customers in future will be new fans of our brand – younger affluent drivers looking for electric motors wine drinkers.

Basically everything you thought you knew about us, you now don’t – sound good?

Elsewhere, we hear that 800 people have been working on a radical redesign and re-branding at the car manufacturer currently known as Jaguar.  This seems to mainly have involved erasing the past and destroying a story that has been almost 100 years in the making and actively looking to alienate your current customers – who would do such a madcap re-brand?  Probably the same company that announced earlier this month that there will be no new cars available for purchase in the UK market until some point in 2026!

On reflection, perhaps best we don’t follow the Jaguar example…

In the world of quality booze, the trade magazines have little news to offer except for one morsel relating to Christmas drinking and which spirits will be most in demand – whisky leads the way as ever but the talking heads are also predicting a sharp rise in Rum, Tequila and Mezcal sales – invariably they get their predictions completely wrong, we’ll see if they stay true to form!

Here at the bottom of the hill, we’re starting to get a few more wines in for the festive season and we are also on the verge of completing our Christmas Cases which we’ll tell you more about next week, once November is pretty much done.

With this in mind, we’ll continue opening more seasonally focused wines over the coming weeks – this week I think we’ll go to Italy.

Poggio al Tesoro ‘Solosole’ Vermentino Toscana 2022 – £27.99 – This comes from the famous Bolgheri estate owned by the Allegrini family, next door to Ornellaia.  Most famous for their reds, we’ve always really enjoyed this white.  It’s crisp, fresh, with citrus and herb notes, a lovely texture and a great finish – a fabulous all-rounder, which at this time of year is exactly what we’re looking for!

Crociani Vino Nobile di Montepulciano 2021 – £24.99 – this is a perennial favourite of ours and indeed many of you and we just received the new vintage this week so thought we would get a bottle open! Made using local varieties, 80% Sangiovese, 10% Canaiolo and 10% Mammolo it has a distinct mineral and subtle oak influence from 24 months in Slavonian oak and a further two months in bottle.  A delicate and intense nose, with a bouquet of pronounced notes of redcurrants and violets and a palate full of red fruit flavours of redcurrant, red cherries and spicy notes give us a very well-structured drop, with fine grained tannins and a long mouth filling finish.

That’s almost it from us but just three quick recommendations before we go:

• The Christ the King Christmas Fair is this Saturday from 11am until 3pm – you can pop in there on the way to us…
• The England Rugby team is playing against Japan on Sunday – which sadly clashes with the Palermo vs Sampdoria football match in the Italian Serie B – I’ll let you decide which to watch!
• Take a brolly!

Ciao Ciao!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Happy halfway-through-November day!  A mere 46 days until 2025 with Christmas en-route but who’s counting….

Well, actually, we are and that’s what we are paid for.  Before then we have Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Thanksgiving, Wayne’s birthday, the shop’s birthday and Alex’s birthday – all of which deserve mention but are mere celebratory morsels on the way to the big festive banquet.

So now you know, six Saturdays between us and Santa.

Back to the here and now and we’re really hoping that at some point all of our favourite podcasts will stop harking on about the US election and start debating the real reasons for Gary Lineker leaving the BBC which I’m sure, much like the 9 player withdrawals from the England squad, has nothing to do with money.

But, I must confess, that I too cannot fully take my eyes off what is going on across the pond.  Yesterday we received an email from The Guardian, I think it was a round-robin missive rather than a personal note, telling us that they will no longer post on any official Guardian editorial accounts on the social media site X/Twitter.  They went on: “we think that the benefits of being on X are now outweighed by the negatives and that resources could be better used promoting our content elsewhere.  This is something we have been considering for a while given the often disturbing content promoted or found on the platform. The US presidential election campaign served only to underline what we have considered for a long time: that X is a toxic media platform and that its owner, Elon Musk, has been able to use its influence to shape political discourse.”

Elon Musk is now in charge at the DOGE, the body tasked with firing staff and cutting costs across Federal departments.

Elon Musk is also in charge of the company SpaceX, which has billions of dollars in U.S. government contracts through launch services, NASA crew transport, Starlink internet service, and the Starshield government business.

I can see no sign of any possible conflict of interest here and certainly it seems to be nothing to do with money.

Elsewhere, not a lot of news for us.  The article in The Drinks Business called Top 15 Pinot Grigios of 2024 failed to capture our imagination; Drinks Retailing News tried to distract us with news of the launches of Kylie Minogue 0% Alcohol Sparkling Blanc alongside Nozeco Still Merlot and Nozeco Still Rosé but still we find ourselves able to resist their charms, whilst Harpers offered us the headline Hospitality confidence plummets amid rising costs and falling footfall which informed us that:

• 41% of industry leaders are optimistic about their business prospects for the next 12 months (down from 49% in August)
• Confidence levels now match October 2022 lows, when inflation was at a 40-year high.
• 20% are optimistic about the industry’s overall future over the next year (down from 36% in August)
• 46% expressed a bleak outlook for the coming year (up from 21% in August)

Go and have a pint whilst you take this all on board/whilst you still can.

Having said that we would suggest that you don’t go and have a pint on Saturday afternoon from around 5pm onwards (this advice is for England fans) as current rugby form predicts tears for us and laughter for the Springboks.

Instead, why not pop in and see us for a bit of wine and a chat?  We’ll have a couple of bottles open to whet the whistle, one new one and one old favourite:

Domaine Langlois Clos Saint-Florent Saumur 2021 – £28.99 – now, we first tasted this at about midday on Wednesday 28^th February and were told that this vintage was due to land in the UK the next week.  We tried to order it on 26^th March and then on 4^th September but it actually only landed on Tuesday this week!  Admittedly, it has come from the far Loire Valley about 500 miles away so it makes sense that it took so long… anyway, when we tasted it 8 months ago we revelled in the rich Chenin Blanc fruit, showing more orchard fruit character rather than tangy citrus and a really nice weight on the palate.  All the grapes come from the Clos Saint-Florent, which is a top Saumur plot with vines that are at least 35 years old.  Having enjoyed previous vintages, we know this to be a wine that is delicious now but will also be equally as fabulous in 5 years’ time, if not longer!

Juliénas-Chaintré Fleurie ‘Cuvée Sept’ 2022 – £16.99.  Fleurie is probably the best known Cru Beaujolais and is sometimes referred to as “The Queen of Beaujolais”, so well regarded are its smooth, supple reds.  The light food friendly wines seem to be gaining a new following amongst some of smarter sommeliers in town, one taste of this and you’ll understand why.  Silky and fresh, with dark berry fruit character and soft tannins and delicious lightly chilled – forget the Nouveau next week, this is what you really want in your glass!

Finally, owing to an important delivery out of town, we will be closing at 5.30pm on Monday 18^th November.  We realise that Monday is not our busiest night but just wanted to forewarn you all!

That’s it from us, have a lovely weekend and stay warm!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

“Wow!” said Alex, “I’m glad I don’t have to write the email this week” before tucking into a bag of kindly donated Haribo’s with his morning coffee.

We’ll start on this side of the pond. Kemi Badenoch turned out to be the most popular/least unpopular* candidate to lead the Conservative party. One wag wondered if this was one of those gifts that Labour should be declaring. Maybe/Maybe Not*. (*delete as appropriate)

We think we’ll be in for a bumpy ride as she fires one-liners across the despatch box at Kier Starmer. This week has been all action, so she’s had her first go. In our opinion she’ll need to get a bit better. Suggesting, as the fourth leader of her party in five years, that Kier Starmer will be a one term leader seems a little high on the hubris scale. Kier Starmer’s comment: “If she’s going to complain about scripted answers, it’s probably best not to read that from a script.” Nailed it for us!

Next on the agenda is Trumpolina becoming the 47^th President. Now, in 2016 we could forgive the result as the Americans didn’t know what their vote was getting them. Not this time, they know fully what they’re getting and still chose it! Oh how we love the wonders of democracy, eh? For the benefit of doubt the USA has a population of 330 million to choose from and electing the lying Orange Man Baby is still, apparently, the best option.

Look out folks, those tariffs won’t cut inflation. The economy grew more quickly under Biden’s administration than Trump’s and Elon Musk has plenty to do without being in charge of the White House sinks. We’re looking forward to enormous, lovely crowds at the inauguration. Beautiful crowds, the best anyone has seen.

Germany, not wanting to feel left out, has decided this is the perfect time to collapse its Government. This is all going so well, I’m starting to wonder if Miranda is pulling all the strings. Such fun!

All jokes aside, according to FT research, globally every governing party that has faced an election this year has lost vote share, the first time that has ever happened.

In other news, we found ourselves stroking our chins at a rather tongue-in-cheek remark that maybe Boris Johnson should be made Ambassador to Washington. If only he could be trusted to work in our, rather than his interests, that might not be quite so mad as it sounds…

Sports wise, it’s been better to be a European club supporter than a British one this week, with only Celtic, Liverpool and Manchester United managing wins.

In Saudi Arabia’s Al-Jawf region they experienced a new weather phenomenon, snow. No, you didn’t misread that. Saudi Arabia, on Saturday had snow in the desert for the first time in history. This year of perfectly normal weather just keeps on giving, doesn’t it?

Time for a glass of wine me thinks.

We’ll visit Spain to start off and pull the cork on a bottle of Valenciso Blanco 2023 (£24.99). One of our favourite Rioja producers, this is a blend of Viura and Garnacha Blanco and fermented and aged in Caucasian oak barriques. Soft and complex, this is delish!

Red wise, we’re taking an excursion to Bordeaux. We’ll pull a cork on Chateau Saransot-Dupré 2016, Listrac Médoc (£23). The estate has been owned by the Raymond family since 1756 and was declared the Best Cru Bourgeois Estate in 2017, the first Listrac estate to be awarded the honour.  It’s a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Carménère and is drinking really rather nicely just now.

That brings us to the end of this week’s missive. Play the long game, don’t give up and be nice to someone. It might not be great in elections but we all know that real life is so different!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

How are you all feeling today, a little bit over Haribo’d?  Judging by our sales yesterday, many of you were anticipating that, from about 4.30pm, you’d be wearing a warty nose and a pointy hat with a glass of wine in one hand and a bowl of Starmix in the other – the Halloween speedball if you will – ready to face the marauding, ravening hordes of over-stimulated ‘trick or treat’ monsters…

So what got finished first, the tasty Tuscan or the Tangfastics and was it a good wine/food pairing?  Perhaps more importantly, who else had always thought they were called Tangtastics… my kids are going to have to re-write their whole childhood!

We’re also in the midst of Diwali festival, the festival of light, a celebration of the victory of light over darkness and good over evil.  It’s a gloriously positive festival, full of hope and goodwill, plus a lot of lovely sweets – what’s not to like?!

And we need some positivity and hope right now, placed as we are, smack bang between the UK budget and the US election.  On Wednesday, the MP for Leeds West and Pudsey (no, not the bear), delivered her first Autumn Budget and, as we all know, there weren’t too many surprises in there.  There also wasn’t much good news for any of us, unless you happen to be one of the climate activists known as Esso, Shell or BP. 

Duty on fuel remains frozen, as it has been since 2011.  Actually, I lie.  In 2011 it was 57.95p per litre whilst the current duty is actually 52.95p per litre, thanks to the 5p duty cut implemented in 2022, when we were all paying £2 for a litre of diesel.

So, we got out our fag-packet, which nowadays is a very expensive notepad, and crunched some numbers.  According to a variety of sources, in the financial year 2023/24, UK consumption of petrol and diesel was more than 46 billion litres.  Imagine if somebody were to decide to remove the 5p duty cut on these fuels and return it to the levels we had in 2022 (and the previous 11 years), how much would we raise?  The cigarette packet calculator says £2.3 billion, which seems like a decent bit of revenue to us but then we didn’t do PPE at Oxford…

As a guide, current duty on wine is £3.56 per litre, before it all changes again in February 2025.

Meanwhile, across the pond, by this time next week we should have a good idea whether ‘garbage-gate’ was the October Surprise no-one expected.  Effectively, does America think it’s more offensive to call Puerto Rico a ‘floating island of garbage’ or to say of Trump that ‘the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters’.

‘Joe Biden became mentally impaired.  Kamala, was born that way… She was born that way.  And if you think about it, only a mentally disabled person could’ve allowed this to happen to our country. Anybody would know this.’  Donald Trump – 29/09/24

We’ll see.

Wayne has been very excited this week by the announcement of the route for the 2025 Tour de France – his poor wife must be sick to death of him discussing the first Ventoux finish since 2016 (stage 16) or the weirdly short 11km individual time trial (stage 13) that surely must be a typo or quite hilly!  Elsewhere, in rugby, the Autumn Internationals start tomorrow with England versus New Zealand at 15:10 (tickets from £99 to £229) and then Scotland versus Fiji at 17:40 (tickets from £25 to £55) – who knows, we might have it on in the shop (tickets from £0 to £0).  Cricket – back to being a work in progress it would seem.

Anyway, enough silliness, time for some wine!

This weekend we’ll be opening a bin-end parcel we’ve picked up – we’ve only got 24 bottles but thought we’d share them out!   Domaine Charles Baur Pinot Gris 2020 – £18.99 – from Alsace, all their vineyards are organically cultivated and hand harvested, with several parcels located in the Grand Cru vineyards of Eichberg, Pfersigberg and Brand.  This is a delicious drop, well worth wrapping around your Vietnamese takeaway!

Given the topics we’ve discussed earlier on today, we thought a wine called Showdown Man with the Ax Cabernet Sauvignon 2022 – £12.99 might be appropriate.  Hailing from California, this rather stopped us in our tracks (we liked the label…. I know, even we fall for it!).  The grapes are mostly from Lodi and give us a wine with ripe cherry and cassis fruit, with a soft, juicy, yet long finish; this would be fab with almost any red meat but is equally comfortable on its own in front of the telly-box.

Finally, the Champagne & Sparkling Wine Tasting – £35 – taking place on Thursday 28^th November at 7.30pm sold out by the end of last Friday.  However, one of the bookings later discovered they had jumped the gun and had to cancel their booking so we have 3 spaces available, first come, first served.

That’s it from us, pinch/punch First of the Month and all that – we’re off for a couple of pints of draught now that it’s a whole penny cheaper – buy cheap, buy twice as they say!

Cheers!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

The King and the Prime Minister are off in Samoa attending the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. His Maj was down with the kids, sporting a rather retro but fetching white safari suit with matching sleeve decals’ and belt whilst he downed local peppery narcotic kava drinks. Meanwhile, Kier stood out in sea of colourful shirts wearing his trademark grey jacket and white shirt. Apparently saying sorry for slavery may or may not be on the agenda, depending on who you speak to.

Over in the US, the election date is getting closer, Bruce Springsteen is supporting Kamala, Trump is saying ever sillier things and the world watches on in some kind of rapt horror. It’ll all be over soon, then we’ll see the real crazy happen!

Closer to home, our own contest of crazy is entering its final week with all the same sensible ideas and self-examination that has made the choice so difficult. We’ll know whether it’ll be Bobby J or Kemi Bad who get to entertain us at the dispatch box for a year or two on November 2^nd. The budget is next week and ahead of that, Rachel Reeves, holder of the government purse strings, has announced replacing them with elastic to allow more wriggle room in the finances.

On a more cheerful note, today is International Champagne Day, it happens on the 4^th Friday of every October. We thought that gives us an ideal opportunity to talk to you about our range of champagne.  We’ve always tried to have a mix of grower champagnes where we find the quality price ratio is outstanding alongside our favourite of the better known producers.

Lete Vautrain Cote 204 37.5 cl HALVES (Vg)        £17.99            

Lete-Vautrain Brut 204 NV (Vg)                            £33.00 (3 bottles for £75)

Lete-Vautrain 204 Brut NV MAGNUM (Vg)           £66.00           

Lete Vautrain Grand Millesime 2015 (Vg)             £38.00           

Delavenne Grand Cru Brut Rose NV (Vg)             £45.00           

Joseph Perrier Cuvee Royale Brut NV (Vg)              £46.00           

Andre Robert Les Jardins du Mesnil NV Grand Cru £52.00           

Louis Roederer Collection 244 Brut NV (Vg)            £54.00           

Collet 1er Cru Brut Vintage 2014 (Vg)                    £58.00           

Bollinger Special Cuvee Brut NV                            £60.00 (3 bottles for £150)

Tarlant Brut Nature NV (Vg)                                     £60.00           

Jean Gimmonet Millesime 1er Cru 2004               £83.00           

Charles Heidsieck Brut Millesime 2012(Vg)*            £115.00          

De Saint Gall Orpale Blanc de Blancs 2012 *           £125.00          

Bollinger La Grande Annee 2014 *                         £130.00          

Bollinger RD 2007 *                                                 £200.00         

Louis Roederer Cristal 2013*                                   £290.00         

We can offer a buy six bottles pay for five bottles on all of those except for items marked with an asterisk. You can, of course, mix them too!

Which lead me nicely on to…

Champagne & Sparkling Wine Tasting – £35 – Thursday 28^th November at 7.30pm

As usual, we will have limited numbers for this event. You’ll certainly get to taste some of the above! That’s something to think about, it is fizz Friday after all!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Finally, some news this week that made us smile, as the bar we never knew we needed gets ready to open its doors…

• Sausage Roll with hot honey sauce
• Vegan Sausage Roll with harissa coconut yoghurt
• Cheese & Onion Bake with romesco sauce and almonds
• Steak Bake with peppercorn aioli
• Chicken Bake with katsu curry sauce and pickled cucumber
• Sausage, Bean & Cheese Melt with Bloody Mary ketchup

This is the menu, as of next Thursday until the end of the year, being offered to the good people of Newcastle who visit the famous Fenwick department store.  Yep, in a collab none of us would ever have imagined, Greggs, the health food specialists, have met with Fenwick Executive Head Chef Mark Reid to create these masterpieces to be served at their pop up champagne bar.

Yep, Greggs Champagne Bar.

In their words: “Inspired by 1920s Paris wine bars and paired with champagne from France and Italy (?) – now’s your chance to sip and snack your way through a boujee twist on our iconic menu…  After all, it’s widely known that a Sausage Roll is infinitely better with a glass of Perrier-Jouët.”

Whatever next, a Twiglets and Prosecco booth at Harvey Nicks?!

Elsewhere the news is less jolly.  In two weeks, we’ll have had the budget.  We will know whether the ‘pro-business’ government is going to make us put up our prices before Christmas with an interim duty increase, before we get the next duty increase at the end of February 2025…. And in three weeks we’ll be getting an idea as to whether the USA will be welcoming its first female president or its first convicted felon.

It’s enough to make you turn to drink.

Sticking with duty for a moment, I mentioned this to a couple of customers last week and they suggested it needed broadcasting further afield.  In Europe, large wine producers like Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain have no tax levy on wine, whilst in France it is only 3 cents a bottle.  This would seem quite supportive of their local producers and, in the absence of tariffs within the EU, of producers in neighbouring countries too.

In the UK (not EU), we currently charge duty of £2.67 per bottle, £3.21 after VAT.

Now, in the shop, one of the stumbling blocks we regularly face when selling English wine is the perception that it can be seen to be comparatively quite expensive, particularly the sparkling wines that are getting all the press.  Often we find customers will see that the English Sparkler is the same price as the Real Champagne and opt for the french offering, the ‘real thing’ if you will.

Imagine if they removed duty from all wine made over here?  Suddenly the English Sparkler would be significantly cheaper than the French one and sales could soar – sounds pretty pro-business to me!

Elsewhere, I think we can finally call time on the cycling season, so Wayne can now go back to talking about music again.  Oh no, hang about, I’m wrong.  Apparently the wheels are still turning, they’ve just gone inside.  Fab.  In the cricket, following last week’s romp for the men in Multan, it seems that the Men’s Test team have forgotten how to play spin and the Women’s T20 team has lost the ability to catch, achieving some sort of record by managing to drop the same person 5 times!

And then we come to football.  I have to say I find it astonishing that we have hired a German coach for the national men’s team.  I mean, what have Germany ever achieved in international football?  Nothing.  Unless you include 4 World Cups and 3 European championships.  Plus, what on earth did Thomas achieve in his 18 months at Chelsea?  Nothing.  Unless you include the Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. 

Of course, what clinched the job for Mr Tuchel was the fact that whilst at Chelsea he also got them to two FA Cup Finals and one League Cup final.  They managed to lose all three, two of them on penalties, which made him an absolute shoo-in!

Anyway, time for that drink that I suggested earlier.  Sadly I don’t have any sausage rolls so we won’t be opening any Champagne and clearly English fizz is to pricey so instead I’m going to venture across the pond, before they close the borders and open a couple of tasty Californians for a change.

De Loach Russian River Valley Chardonnay – £30.99 – De Loach was purchased by Jean-Claude Boisset in 2003, recognising similarities between the Russian River Valley and his native Burgundy.  The head winemaker, Brian Maloney has been involved with the winery since 2003 and has focused throughout on high quality, small-lot winemaking.  The wine has a nose of nectarine and ripe pear leading onto a citrus and baked apple palate with integrated hints of vanilla cream, spice and crème brûlée.  You definitely won’t like it.

The Crusher Pinot Noir – £18.99 – A perennially popular wine, this one, from Clarksburg just south of Sacramento and about 100 miles northeast of San Francisco.  The morning fogs and cool coastal winds from the bay help to keep the Pinot Noir in balance and as a result we get lovely open aromatics of cherry, rhubarb and wood spice that lead onto a soft easy going palate with those same fruit characters and a touch of vanilla cream from its 8 months in barrels.  I think a youngster like Wayne might call this ‘smashable’, I’m too old to know if that is true or not but I’ll certainly have a second glass if you’re offering!

That’s it from us, we’re off to have a Gin & Ginsters lunch – spicy chicken slice for me please!