Wine & Cheese Tasting next Thursday – Some call it educational, some call it social, Wayne calls it dinner

Fellow Wine Lovers,

And the answer to Tommy & Alice’s maths puzzler from last week? Well, a number of you made good stabs at it but in the end, and with a big dollop of hindsight, it seems the best answer was to forget about watching sport completely and read the paper – far less frustrating and fundamentally more educational!

But we move on, we’re in a new month, we’re just days away from summertime (clocks leap forward in 22 days) and I’ve taken to wearing just one sweater in the shop. And the sun has been seen on consecutive days – get in!

Somewhere in the depths of winter – Guy Fawkes night perhaps or when Christmas shopping in New York or up a hill on New Year’s Eve – anyway, sometime over winter a few of you turned to your other half as you gazed into the embers/blizzard over Central Park/horizontal drizzle and said:

You know what, I could do this forever, but only if I could do it forever with you by my side – will you marry me?

Your other half dissolved into tears/giggles and before you knew it you had been introduced to far flung members of both families, you had developed a keen interest in marquees and for the first time you have had to grade your friends into some sort of league system relating to their worthiness and thus their likelihood of getting invited to your wedding.

There are chores and bores to organising a wedding and sometimes you wonder why on earth you are doing it this way – wouldn’t it be easier to slope off to the Seychelles and get married on a beach with a crab for best man. However once you have chosen venue, dress, transport, first dance and guestlist the fun really begins – you now have to choose your menu and more importantly you now have to choose your drinks.

If you are at a venue that has its own wine list and won’t allow you to BYO then you are restricted by their choices. However if the venue does allow you to provide your own drinks then this is the time you need to come and speak to us.

Here’s how it works. You come to us and tell us what you’re having to eat, how many people there are and what sort of drinks you’re after – usually it’s bubbles, white and red with perhaps some beers too. Hopefully you have an idea of budget, more often you know how much it would cost to do the drinks through the venue and are looking to get better wine for less money. Once we have all the details we make a selection of wines and drag you into the shop for a tasting – see I told you it was the fun bit. We talk to you about the wines, you taste them, we talk some more, you take a couple of them home with you to taste with your friends and we then proceed to quantities and delivery arrangements. How easy was that, all in one paragraph.
So, if you’re getting married this summer and are underwhelmed by the products on offer at your chosen location, come and have a word with us – we’ve done loads of these events over the years of differing size and budget – we’ll definitely be able to help you out.

Pitch complete.

    Other news

We have a few seats still available at the table for our Wine & Cheese Tasting next Thursday 12th March at 8pm. If you haven’t been before and were wondering what goes on, here is the plan in a nutshell. We consult with our local cheese wholesaler – Norbiton Cheese – to source four seasonal, ripe cheeses around about 2 kilos in total. Once we know what the cheeses are we select a range of wine, always including a white and a sweetie, that we consider to be good matches. Now, we know a lot about the wines but are very much the keen amateurs when it comes to the cheese – so together we all taste the various wines with the various cheeses and consider their relative merits. Some call it educational, some call it social, Wayne calls it dinner – it doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a Thursday night!

It costs £20 per person – to book one of the spaces you can either reply to this email, phone us on 020 8944 5224 or pop in and see us in the shop.

    This Week’s Wines

We’ve got a few new wines in stock, a couple of old favourites have finally landed to (Crusher Pinot Noir, for example) and with this in mind, coupled with the fact that it’s threatening to be a lovely weekend, we thought we’d open a couple of lighter wines tonight.

Quinta das Maias Branco 2013 – £11.39 this organic white comes from 600m up in the foothills of Serra da Estrela, Portugal’s largest mountain range. The wine is fleshy, with almost Golden Delicious apple fruit and a long balanced finish. Unoaked and made from Malvasia Fina and Encruzado, we think this is one of the Dao’s finest whites.

Calusari Pinot Noir 2013 – £8.69 those of you with memories akin to Nellie will recall that we used to sell this wine. In 2011. It then disappeared from our radars for a few years until we rediscovered it at a tasting in early February. Made in Romania, this is the best value Pinot Noir we have ever come across – beautifully balanced red fruits, integrated tannins and a decent length finish, frankly, what’s not to like?
Both these wines will be open today and tomorrow, as will the shop, so swing by and have a try, if you can get through the scrum of recently engaged couples!

Bon Weekend one and all.

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