The Weekly Wine

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!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

How has your week been? I feel I have been wearing waterproof jackets a bit more than I would like but at least we’ve not suffered from airborne alligators that we need to round up once the power comes back on.

Closer to home, we would have said that something the Conservative Party excels at is leadership contests. Until this week. Somehow, according to some commentators, they have managed to end up with the wrong two candidates as the final two candidates. Or as one wag put it “Only the Conservatives could lose an election that was only contested by the Conservatives.” Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are duelling it out to become leader of the Conservative party and Mr Jenrick is very keen that everybody knows he wasn’t an accident pick by MPs, despite what you may have read. The One Nation Conservative group has said they are unable to endorse either candidate. Will this be the time when right thinking Tories finally split from right leaning ones?

On the other side of the pond, their leadership race is still neck and neck with both candidates criss-crossing the country trying to magic up votes. New polling also seems to suggest that the Democrat majority in the Senate might be disappearing. Only a month to go!

On the sport front, it looks likely that the Tour de France Critérium in Singapore on 9^th and 10^th November will be the last for Sir Mark Cavendish. Also retiring in November is the ‘King of Clay’, Rafa Nadal, who will hang up his wristbands after the Davis Cup in Malaga on 19^th -24^th November.

On this day in 1956, Karachi hosted probably the slowest day in test cricket history with a match between Australia and Pakistan managing only 95 runs. Australia were all out for 80 and Pakistan finished the day at 15 for 2.

In more recent history, we think any team that has a first innings total of 556 in their first inning might reasonably expect to get at least a draw out of the match. Alas for Pakistan, they have just snatched Ireland’s record for the largest first innings score of a losing team. England now lead the series 1-0 having broken all sorts of records along the way. Chapeau to Joe Root and Harry Brook for their work with the bat, and Jack Leach for some fine bowling.

Meanwhile, England has had its second worst harvest on record. Wheat is down 21%, winter barley is down 26% and oilseed rape down about 32%. There was bad news too for grape growers. Their harvest is down anywhere between 25-70%, depending on location. All the rain we’ve had is not conducive to growing grapes, causing problems with flowering and mould and mildew.

Given how much of current affairs are, how shall we say, a little on the downside I thought I’d go and look for some good news. Starting with Uncle Google, I was cheered to find websites offering positive news, good news and uplifting news. Further investigation revealed that none of them seemed to have anything more recent than April which I will confess to finding a little disappointing.

In other news, a blue plaque was put up at a Tesco this week commemorating the iceberg lettuce that outlived Liz Truss’ stint as PM.

Whilst we were wondering what on earth we should put on tasting this week our chum Dave strolled in. Just the man we thought. “Dave, where should we choose this week’s open wines from?” “Italy!” he replied, and with that he gets yet another mention in our email!

Tasting This Weekend

We’ll start way down in Marsala, Sicily with Sensale Bio Orange Wine 2023 (£14.49). This is made from 100% organic Catarratto grapes fermented and aged on the skins in amphora.

On the other side of the coin we’ll be a bit further north for a sample of Tenute Marsiliana Birillo 2020 (£23.49). This is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from the Principe Corsini family’s vineyards on the coast of Tuscany. Polished and delicious!

So, thanks to Dave for the inspiration and do come in for a taste.

Cheers!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Sometimes, we find ourselves wondering about the way the world works. Yesterday, the Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, stated that if inflation behaves itself he will be more aggressive with interest rate cuts. This caused the pound to fall to its lowest level in 18 months, thus increasing the cost of imports which is surely inflationary?  In the same interview he voiced concerns about a worsening Middle East situation affecting the oil price.  I feel a strong urge to scratch my head.

In a gaffe worthy of the man himself, Laura Kuenssberg had to drop plans to interview Boris Johnson after she emailed him her briefing notes! Billed as his first major interview since leaving office, it was due to be broadcast yesterday evening at 7.30pm. I guess he’ll now just have to pay for any publicity for his new book himself!

Occasionally in these missives we like to talk about feats of human endeavour or tenacity. With that in mind, we’d like to commend Jimmy Carter for making it to a century! Neither of us remembers what he was like as a President, Alex was at junior school and Wayne doing his O-levels during his presidency but a hundred years is quite the innings. Happy Birthday.

Still on the subject of human endeavours, we’ll mention Lachlan Morton. Some of you may know him as a bicycle racer for EF Easypost. On September 5^th, whilst we were all sleeping, he set off from Port Macquarie in New South Wales for a spin around Australia. His plan is to break the record held by Dave Alley who took 37 days 20 hours and 45 minutes to complete the 14201 km lap in 2011. It looks like Lachlan is going to finish this weekend beating the previous record by about a week.

We found a bit of the wine news rather amusing this week. You may recall a while back we mentioned the alcohol free sparkling wine French Bloom. Co-founded by Constance Jablonski and Maggie Frerejean-Taittinger back in 2019, French Bloom this week sold part of itself to LVMH. You may recall they are the enormous luxury good conglomerate that own Moet & Chandon, Veuve Clicquot, Mercier, Ruinart and Krug but not Taittinger. What amused us is that the UK distributors are neither Taittinger nor LVMH but in fact Bollinger! It’s a funny old world.

We also noted in the latest report by the New Zealand Winegrowers that their wine exports have suffered a significant drop. Now, we’re slightly nervous of linking this 22% drop to our wives swapping the Sauvignon Blanc for Gin and Tonic or Vermouth as their aperitivo of choice but we all know that statistics don’t lie!

Last bit of wine news for this week is that wine is absolutely the colour for this season. We sent Alex scouring the fashion press for clues as to why it’s not called maroon, burgundy or plum this year but his searches drew a blank. Wine is definitely the thing for Autumn whether in your glass, colouring your frock or indeed that swish new suit your mate might have bought you.

In a show of solidarity for the New Zealand Winegrowers we’ll open Southern Dawn Sauvignon Blanc 2023 (£13.99) a classic Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc with grapefruit, melon and passionfruit character and a lovely zippy finish that’ll be just great with that Goan fish curry you have planned for the weekend.

To offer our leather-armchaired support to young Lachlan, we’ll open the De Bortoli Heathcote Shiraz 2018 – £18.49.  We like the approach at De Bortoli, who always look for freshness and balance in their wines.  Heathcote, in Victoria, is an up and coming region for Shiraz and the wines have an elegant, spicy quality, as opposed to the fruit soup you can sometimes end up with.  This has got spicy plum notes on the nose, whilst the palate is blackberry laden, with a touch of black pepper and spice and a nice dry finish.  Sausages might be a nice idea.

Finally, the De Toren offer we hinted at last week…

As we mentioned last week our chum Seb has selected his favourite vintages for some mature drinking. If you’d like to order some for your own glass drop us a line, the prices below are per bottle and you can order a single if you’d like. We’re not sure they’re available in the UK otherwise.

De Toren are from Stellenbosch and their Fusion V is the left bank styled Bordeaux Blend with Cabernet Sauvignon dominance in the blend.

De Toren Fusion V 2013 – £102

De Toren Fusion V 2015 – £79

De Toren Fusion V 2017 – £62

Edition Z is the right bank styled wine with a Merlot dominance in the blend.

Edition Z 2013 – £52

Edition Z 2015 – £46

That’s it from us for this week, do pop in for a taste and we’ll raise a glass to Lachlan.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

What do you have to lose?

Thus spake President Trump, whilst on his campaign trail this week, trying to win over the famously democrat voting New Yorkers.  I have to say, it lacks the punch of MAGA and or the pugnacious overconfidence that Donny usually epitomises, it’s almost pitiful.

Of course, twitter (still trying to be known as X) was quick to respond to his question and I imagine that its owner was just one space bar short of a wittily supportive message before he realised for the second, or perhaps tenth time this week “that jokes are WAY less funny if people don’t know the context and the delivery is plain text”.

What do you have to lose?

Thus spake Sue Gray, whilst renegotiating her salary under the new 2024/25 pay-band 4 for SPADS.  I mean, I don’t know for certain that she said that but you know, she could have done and if I say it enough it will begin to gain its own truth.  What I cannot fathom though is why, if she is so money focused, did she only ask for £170,000?  If she had re-purposed herself as a Senior Civil Servant then pay-band 3 could have offered her a ceiling of around £208,000

What do you have to lose?

Thus spake Lord Alli as he tapped his card in Primark, whilst out shopping with Lady Starmer before nipping off to Specsavers to collect Sir Keir’s prescription – again, I cannot say for sure that he said it but I cannot say for sure that he didn’t.  According to a bloke down the pub he also added ‘just don’t lose the election, it’s costing me a fortune’.

Suffice to say, both of our wives are wondering when that geezer who sells us Bollinger is going to open his wallet at the ME+EM counter…

What do you have to lose?

Not a question to ask a Spurs fan after last Sunday… thankfully Wayne and Keir both support Arsenal, so they’re both fine, although I don’t think Wayne gets free match tickets.

What do you have to lose?

A decently functioning liver it would seem.  A study by a behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge took place in 13 English pubs over the period of a month.  The study showed that reducing the size of a glass of beer to two-thirds of a pint led to beer and cider sales dropping by nearly 9.7%, whilst there was an increase of 7.2% in wine sales.

All good, so far.  However, the researchers then tried to suggest that this could be a way of reducing alcohol consumption…

Whoa there, cowboy, have another look at your study!  Whilst there is a clear 2.5% difference between the beer drop and the wine increase, which could certainly be seen as a positive, what is being ignored is the switch to stronger drinks (wine v beer) plus, have you considered that for some people, spirits might have been the replacement for beer?

Goodness, who doesn’t love their research half-baked?

Staying with booze news, one of our producers, Cramele Recas, has just announced that it is pumping 11 million euros into business expansion to increase production to 50 million bottles per year, with a target turnover of €100m within the next three to five years – very ambitious.  For those of you that don’t recognise the winery, it is in Romania and was established in the 1980’s by Englishman Philip Cox and his wife Elvira who invested in 650 hectares of slightly unloved vineyards and a rusty, once state-owned winery.  To help with their turnover, we thought that this weekend we would open the two wines we buy from them:

Solara Orange – £14.99 – We seem to be bookending the summer with this wine, having also had it open in early May.  A natural minimal intervention wine, it is made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the pressed juice, creating a deep orange-hued finish.  The wine ferments naturally without the addition of yeasts, sulphur or anything else.  The nose exhibits quince, Poire William and a hint of vanilla whilst the complex and structured palate is elegant with discreet fruit flavours of stone fruits, backed up with a complexity and long, balanced finish, incredibly fresh.

Solevari Reserve Fetească Neagră 2021 – £12.99 – Fetească Neagră is the grape variety and gives us a brilliant spicy nose of black pepper, black berry, black currant and red cherry not dissimilar to a Pinot Noir. Medium bodied with rich, balanced tannin and acidity with a hint of coffee on the finish, we love it when we have proper local wine that we are unable to pronounce!

That’s it from us for now, more next week, you lucky, lucky people!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

I’ll start with Admin this week: many apologies but we’ll be opening later on Monday 16 & Tuesday 17^th September as we have four supplier tastings, two on each day and we really need attend them – we should be back by 4pm though, in time for the post work rush!

…

This week, I’ve got nothing to report.  The streets have been quiet, often damp and, on occasion, bitterly cold.  Since the big boss went on holiday last week the shop has also been eerily quiet, however it has been exceptionally well swept, tidied, faced up and is looking amazing, should he ask.

On Tuesday, I journeyed up to Camden to taste an awful lot of wine, the majority of which I will not be buying, and caught up with acquaintances from around the country.  The mood was typically ‘shopkeeper’ – pragmatic with a heavy lean towards pessimism with the most oft used phrase being ‘it’s not great but we’ll be fine’. 

Fine.

Jamie from Cornwall related that the combination of a stupidly short summer, holiday home deliveries from supermarkets resulting in less shopping locally and general inflation meant that his season was not great but he’ll be fine.  Colleagues from the Midlands, hardened campaigners all of them, reckoned that European holidays had definitely replaced the staycation and that they were more likely to bump into their customers on a Balearic beach than in their shop.  Whilst it wasn’t necessarily the rosiest of news, at least it wasn’t just Wimbledon Park that filled with tumbleweed…

And then we read the news.  You possibly read the report too – it was on the BBC after all – which told us that, so far in 2024, 38 shops are closing each week.  PWC back this research and have a long history of retail analysis, so we pay attention.  Obviously the shops closing headline is what grabs you but the type of store is worth noting – an average of 18 chemists, 16 pubs and 9 banks each week, all of whom provide a very important service that I think is not necessarily replicated in the arrival of a new Costa or Greggs.

We’ve got two empty sites here on Arthur Road right now, both of whom have closed this year.  Meanwhile, in the village, the LK Bennett site is still empty (5 years now? More?) but otherwise, most sites are filled – mainly bars and restaurants but also a butcher (used to be 3) and 4 wine shops (used to be 1).  Not sure what point I’m trying to make here, suffice to say I’m very happy to be down here rather than up there, with my chemist next door.

And we’ll be fine.

In the wine world, it looks like my colleague might have been using the company credit card even more than usual.  Footage captured by @rudyschmudy shows a group of men (because it will always be men) making sangria using Petrus from the 2006 and 2011 vintages.  Now, 2006 was a good vintage in Bordeaux, whilst 2011 was a bit of a stinker – with the 2006 retailing at over £2000 per bottle and the 2011 north of £1500 – and both costing substantially more in a club in the South of France, I imagine.  The argument was that they had booked a premium table with a minimum spend of 100,000 euros and he was bored of buying Ace of Spades – it’s all on TikTok and it makes for quite enlightening viewing.

Outside the world of wine and indeed the actual world, billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman has become the first non-professional astronaut to walk in space – we’re not sure how much he paid but he could probably have paid for at least 2,000 of my business partner’s premium tables…

“Back home we have a lot of work to do, but from here Earth sure looks like a perfect world” were Jared’s first words and we’ll have to trust him on how it all looks from up there, perhaps it’s billionaire speak for it’s not great for you but I’ll be fine.

Back in wine, a quick warning about France.  The 2024 vintage is predicted to be the smallest since 1957, 18% smaller than 2023 and 11% lower than the 5 year average.  In simple terms, as you can probably guess, it’s to do with the ‘great’ weather we’ve all been having this year.  In a nutshell, using data from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food (Agreste):

Alsace – mildew and flowering disrupted by cool, wet weather – 13% decline

Aude & Pyrénées-Orientales – drought – 4% lower

Bordeaux – coulure, millerandage, mildew and hailstorms – 10% down

Burgundy & Beaujolais – mildew and hail – 25% lower

Champagne – spring frosts, coulure, hail, mildew and scalding – 16% lower

Charentes – low number of bunches and poor flowering due to wet conditions – 35% down

Jura – severe frost and mildew – production to fall by 71%

Languedoc-Roussillon, mildew, significant summer rainfall – reduced production

Loire Valley – mildew and coulure – 30% lower

Savoie – spring frost, summer mildew – 5% lower

South-East (Rhône etc), millerandage, late frost in the spring – down 12%

South-West France – coulure, millerandage, mildew, frost, hail – reduced production

*Coulure is a condition in grape bunches where many flowers fail to develop into grapes, whilst Millerandage results in a high proportion of seedless, often smaller/different size grapes of different ripeness in a bunch.

So, perhaps we might need to find our vinous fun elsewhere for a bit – how about we start with Germany and New Zealand on the tasting table this weekend:

Deep Roots Riesling Trocken 2023 – £14.99 – A group of young vine growers in Rheinhessen all got together with the idea of sharing their marketing costs but in the end decided to make just the one wine to showcase their talents.  Almost a mini co-operative, if you will.  Winemaking duties are spearheaded by the talented Stefan Winter, and this is a cracker – citrus and orchard fruit notes on the nose, minerals join them on the palate

Petit Clos Pinot Noir 2021 – £21.99 – Nestled under the southern foothills of Marlborough’s Wairau Valley, Clos Henri is the wine estate, organically run by the famous Sancerre wine growing family of Henri Bourgeois.  Petit Clos is made from the younger vines on the estate, giving aromas of red fruit dominated by cherry and plum notes.  Juicy red berries flood the palate supported by very fine and supple tannins while retaining freshness all the way to the long finish.

We’ll let you get on with your day now – if you’re taking Friday off to celebrate your birthday or an anniversary have a lovely day and try also to find time to celebrate that two years ago today we were at the end of the first week of Liz Truss as PM.

Raise a glass to the past!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

I’m back, you’re all back, the schools are back and Wayne is now about to sneak out the back on his hols, now that we’ve vacated the loungers

Did you have a good trip?  Certainly we did. 

Spain was hot, which is how we like it and expect it to be; Madrid was half empty, which is how we like it and certainly didn’t expect whilst the train from there to Malaga took just over two hours, which is how we would like our UK trains to be but have low expectations.  Devon was warm enough to need suncream, which is always a treat; the news that Jona Lewi had moored his £250 million super yacht in Dartmouth Harbour turned out to be an entertainingly misheard fallacy of misdirection as did the ridiculous proposition from across the Tamar that you should put jam on your scone first…

But now we’re back and the traditional September Indian Summer seems to have disappeared behind the thunder clouds.  I’m back wearing trousers and socks about a month earlier than usual, which feels weird and a tad disappointing particularly since I’m told Autumn doesn’t start until 22^nd September.

We’ve still got rosé in the fridge though, just in case.

It’s been a busy first week back though, balancing the viewing of the Tour of Britain with the Vuelta a España has been Wayne’s job, whilst I have been mainly staring into the computer screen’s dark eyes, looking at the EasyJet website crunching the numbers.  With the Paralympics also serving as a welcome distraction, it was heartening to see Tonbridge teenage swimming sensation Iona Winnifrith get silver in the Women’s 100m Breastroke SB7 yesterday whilst still only 13 years old – one of many great performances that have put GB second in the medal table.

Away from Arthur Road, generally sifting through the broadsheets we have little to comment upon – do we really think Liam’s voice can last for 17 concerts?  At the same time, do we think the truce between the heavily-browed brothers will last beyond Cardiff?  Or even get there?  Definitely maybe has to be the call.  The masterplan is that, at the moment, the boys are estimated to be in line for something like £400 million from the gigs and that’s before Netflix/Prime/Apple/Disney et al get into a bidding war for a fly-on-the-wall documentary.  Imagine if they then took the tour all around the world!

Previously, we have mentioned a certain English winery in this missive:

Fellow Wine Lovers 28/06/2024: What we might know is whether Chapel Down is for sale or not, as it seeks to raise even more funds for expansion.  Via Seedrs they raised almost £4 million in 2014, just short of £2 million in 2015 to build a brewery, raised £18.5 million by issuing new shares in 2017 and almost £7 million in 2021, once again through Seedrs.  In the meantime they opened Gin Works at Kings Cross, a bar and restaurant that opened in 2019 and closed in February 2020, before COVID could take the blame. 

What I don’t know is how much longer they can keep doing this.

Fellow Wine Lovers 26/07/2024: Further to our regular reports on the English wine scene, it seems that Chapel Down is not going to be sold to Treasury Wine Estates

thedrinksbusiness.com 05/09/2024: ‘Chapel Down blames off-trade ‘challenges’ for profit drop as CEO exits – according to its half-year results, the AIM-listed producer has seen its pre-tax profits reduce from £2.4m to just £40,000 in the six months to the end of June.  Its results saw EBITA fall by 58% to £1.3m from £3.2m in 2023 and net sales fall by 12%, mainly driven by a 36% drop in the off-trade, which it said was due to a lack of re-stocking and a difficult comparison base due to King Charles III coronation the previous year.’

Hmmm, still not convinced by their business model or future survival…

In other news, CEO Andrew Carter joined Chapel Down three years ago has now decided his future is better spent running famous Yorkshire brewer, Timothy Taylor.

Talking of beer, we also hear that footballer and pundit Chris Kamara has launched his own beer to raise money for Prostate Cancer and is unsurprisingly named Kammy’s Un-beer-lievable Lager.

No, we won’t be stocking it.

Things we do stock though include  Domaine Champalou Vouvray Sec 2022 – £24.99 – this Loire domaine was started by Catherine and Didier in 1983 and has gone on to become one of the most acclaimed producers in Vouvray.  This cuvée comes from 35 year old vines and is lovely and crisp, with apple fruit on the nose.  Somewhat rounder and richer on the palate leading to a lovely crisp dry finish.

We also stock Moulin des Chēnes 2021 – £19.99 – this is from Lirac, west of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and is a blend of 40% Cinsault, 40% Syrah, 11% Mourvèdre and 9% Grenache – quite a low proportion of Grenache for the southern Rhône we thought.  We always like the wines from here though, dark crimson in the glass with summer fruit and herb aromas on the nose that then continue onto the lovely juicy palate rounded out with velvety tannins.  Get your hands on this before Wayne does…

Both these wines will be on tasting this weekend, so come and have a crack at them yourselves!

One final note before I go – we’ll be opening later on Tuesday 10^th September as one of main suppliers is holding their Autumn tasting up in Camden and we really need to be there – should be back by 4pm though, in time for the post work rush!

Right, that’s me done, I’m off to find my lunch which I hope will not involve a tin of Heinz Spaghetti Carbonara – we’ll see what the Coop can do!