The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

What can we talk about this week? You all sent out of office replies to last week’s mail and are now hiding out in museums or have snuck off to the countryside for a few days. It’s a slow news week in the wine world as next week sees the London Wine Trade Fair so everyone saves up the press releases and gossip for that. How about a bit of sport?

The Giro d’Italia draws to a close this week with three mental climbing days including a climb up Zoncolan which at points is a leg wrecking 25% climb. A cable car for me please!

In the cricket England and Sri Lanka seem to have engaged in an “I can score less than you” competition, let’s see what happens in the test. Freddie Flintoff is un-retiring after four years of gardening, playing in the T20 Blast for Lancashire.

Scotland and Nigeria draw 2-2 after allegations of potential match fixing, I wonder if it’s that nice man whose dad stashed $20 million in a Swiss bank account for me? I really must send him that number.

We also noticed that for the years 2012 & 2013 close to 50,000 bottles House of Commons Sauvignon Blanc and 26,000 bottles of House of Commons Merlot were drunk by our esteemed leaders and their guests, not to mention 10,989 pints of Guinness. Thirsty work this politics business!

Tasting this Weekend
I’ve a suspicion that it’s high time we introduced you to our chum Bernie. He has a tower in his back garden you know! He also makes our delicious Chateau Carré Muscadet Sèvre et Maine (£10.49) which looks like a good place to start. It is crisp dry and summery (listen to me ever the optimist!) with a decent finish.
On the red front I’m going with a cracking red that’ll work a treat should the barbecue get a visit this weekend. Chakana Malbec (£11.99) is just the ticket, lush and juicy, a bit spicy and long in the finish with just enough tannin to keep it honest.

Final word this week goes to Maya Angelou: “Life loves the liver of it.”

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Students invent first hangover free alcohol The Drinks Business 21/05/14

‘Didn’t think students got up early enough to get hangovers’ harrumphed Wayne as we sat and sipped our coffees at 11am yesterday, having just opened the shop…

He might have a point regarding the reveille of our future leaders, but it seems that whether or not they suffer on the morning after, they do understand that there is a danger that they might in the future.

A synopsis: Rage on Saturday. Up for Church on Sunday.  The three students from California have devised a formula that they claim will quell the effects of a hangover if added to every fourth alcoholic drink consumed of an evening.  Not quite sure about the flavours or quantities of powder involved, but on their crowd-funding page they promote the idea of Prime (that’s what it’s called) mixed with vodka and lemonade.   It looks like blue WKD, which doesn’t strike me as the best brand alignment, but anyway.

I appreciate it’s an idea in development, that it is focusing on the loss of electrolytes and vitamins one suffers on a ‘night out’ and that it is potentially aimed at the youth market but it still doesn’t quite work for me.

I can’t imagine being out at an important dinner, supping on fine Bordeaux and the like before requesting a break in proceedings to hustle up a vodka and lemonade from the sommelier, add some blue powder to it, drain glass and then continue with the fine wine.

Even more, I cannot imagine adding aforementioned blue powder directly to my 2001 Fourcas Dupré or Moutard Brut Grand Cuvée and certainly not to my Ardbeg Uigeadail.  I’ll take the hangover, ta.

Or perhaps I’ll work on hangover alleviation through the age old, tried and tested systems.  Drink plenty of water and have blind faith it will be alright on the morrow.

For development of this wonder formula they hope to raise, through crowd funding, $20,000 by 15^th June.

By yesterday afternoon they had raised $520.

Elsewhere…

In a sort of ‘seven-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon’ scenario

·         we’ve got the golf on at Wentworth this weekend with a newly single Rory McIlroy trying to put his split from Caroline Wozniacki behind him;

·         Wozniacki, a Liverpool fan then tweets something along the lines that she knows she’ll never walk alone;

·         Craig Bellamy, ex-Liverpool player, announces his retirement;

·         Craig Bellamy is Welsh; 

·         so is Gareth Bale;

·         Bale will be playing for Real Madrid against Atletico Madrid in the Champions league final on Saturday night, in Lisbon;

·         Lisbon is in Portugal, as is Val de Lobo;

·         Val de Lobo is where Craig Bellamy, whilst a player with Liverpool, famously attacked John Arne Riise with a golf club;

·         and so we’re back to golf, and to Wentworth….

This Weekend

It’s another one of those bank holiday thingies this weekend and if you couple this with the start of half term then there are plenty of reasons to be filling your glass either to celebrate the break or to numb the pain.

We’ve decided to go to California this week since this is allegedly where the future cure for hangovers will be coming from(!) so we might as well look at what might produce them….

Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay 2012, Livermore Valley, California, USA (£13.99) – Wente’s vineyards were founded in 1883 and are still owned and managed by the ame family 4 generations later. They were also one of the first to plant Chardonnay and one taste of this suggests they are doing a fine job. Crisp with fine elegant apple notes and a supporting touch of oak, bang on with fish and chips!

Jewel Old Vine Zinfandel 2012, California, USA (£12.99) – An outstanding Zinfandel from Lodi, inland from San Francisco, with rich spiced fruit aromas and a touch of vanilla.  The palate is satisfyingly rich with layers of berry fruit, a touch of blackcurrant and some spiciness leading onto some fine tannins.  We found it to be an excellent partner to some Spenwood cheese recently.

We’re closed Bank Holiday Monday as usual

Have a great weekend folks – we’re cheering for Ernie Els as he designed the course and has his own wine.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Sometimes, this world we inhabit is fantastic. It is a world full of wine and bonhomie, thirsty friends, dusty roads to vineyards, sunshine, smiles, the odd hailstorm and the occasional hangover.

Sometimes this world we inhabit is bonkers…

This week we learned of a Bodega in Murcia, Southern Spain that has been playing music to their wine once it has been bottled. The theory is loosely based on the idea that playing music to pregnant mums influences the character of baby.

The playlist, chosen by the head of Spain’s Radio 3, was designed to soften the tannins and make the wine all silky and velvety, and seems to include a chunk of Sigur Ros and other relatively chilled tunes that wouldn’t be out of place at the Café del Mar.

We can’t help but wonder if playing Led Zeppelin’s “Trampled Under Foot” would have made a difference to the outcome.

As I say, bonkers…

Elsewhere in the news football managers have been sacked, county cricket is under an uncomfortable match-fixing spotlight and Bradley Wiggins leads the Tour of California!

More Beer – just in time for the sunshine.

Our chums at Sambrook’s have come up with a couple of delicious new beers.

Battersea Rye (£2.79) is made with Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt, Malted Rye, Crystal 400 and Chocolate Malt. Battersea Rye contains Northdown Hops for bittering and Bramling X and WGV Hops for aroma. Culminating in a bold and spicy rye ale with a well-rounded fruity flavour.

Battersea IPA (£2.79) contains the finest Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt and Caramalt, Chinook Hops for bittering and Chinook and Citra Hops for aroma. The result is a deliciously crisp, hoppy, citrusy India Pale Ale.

Cheese and Wine

The next cheese and wine tasting will be Thursday 26^th June at 8pm. Here as usual, £20 gets your place at the table. Give us a call or drop in if you fancy it.

Tasting This Weekend

There is a fair chunk of you a little disappointed to have missed our sherry tasting but, fear not, salvation is at hand! We shall open the Fernando de Castilla Fino En Rama (£9.99) that was such a hit on the night. This is very much Fino in the raw, only lightly filtered and much fresher than any of Wayne’s jokes. Who knows we might even be able to rustle up an olive or two alongside!

If you’re all sitting comfortably we’ll then zip across Spain diagonally landing in the hills behind Tarragona just south of Barcelona. In these hills lays the region of Montsant, which is home to our red choice, Sola Fred £10.99, a really winning combination of Mazuelo and Garnacha.

We’re off to change the playlist in the cellar!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

‘Just going to sit down for a minute and write the email’ I said to Wayne last Friday.  Or was it yesterday.  Or five minutes ago.  Not sure about everybody else but this constant bombardment of bank holidays is playing havoc with my sense of time and I’m fairly sure that whilst physically I am here on 9^th May, mentally I am still somewhere in late April.  Not that I’m complaining too much but it does feel like a blink of an eye since I last sat here writing the email.

Bank Holiday was spent celebrating birthdays, swimming through pools of wine, occasionally eating and playing beach cricket, English style, in our winter coats and shorts (although the wind did provide some interesting reverse swing potential).  Returning to London I discovered that Wayne had been so busy on Friday and Saturday that he had raided his bonus and gone on a sunny cycling holiday for a week!

So, on Tuesday I stood alone in the middle of a shop that resembled some sort of post-apocalyptic  supermarket sweep and said to myself ‘If he’s going to cycle up and down mountains for a week then I’m going to build some mountains of my own!’

Fighting talk that resulted in me receiving just over a tonne of wine yesterday, leading to a fabulously character building work out and repeated revision of the correct procedure for picking up boxes – straight legs and a bent back, right?

Now I’ve done my bit, it’s really over to you to start drinking the stuff.  If you’re wondering why the weather is going to be so awful this weekend it’s entirely down to the fact that I have good stocks of my three Rose wines with a fourth to arrive on Monday.  Fear not though, I have plenty of reds to keep out the chills and about 90 different whites relaxing in the fridge ready for those sunny spells we are often told to expect.  Oh, and there’s my dedicated sparkling wine fridge for those of you who believe that Friday is Fizz day.

As you can tell I haven’t seen much news this week – Sunderland surprisingly survive, Fulham frustratingly fall and the Premiership title stays up North.   Katie Price is getting a divorce (number 3) whilst expecting her 27^th child – I do wonder why she can’t find Mr Right….

We have Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris in court again sullying many childhood memories. 

And a warning to all those thinking about leaving the big smoke and seeking bucolic bliss elsewhere – according to UK census data, the top ten local authorities with highest proportion of over-65s are the following:

1. Christchurch, Dorset
2. West Somerset
3. North Norfolk
4. Rother, East Sussex
5. East Dorset
6. East Devon
7. Tendring, Essex
8. Arun, West Sussex
9. East Lindsey, Lincolnshire
10. New Forest

The future’s bleak, the future’s grey.

Anyway, enough rambling.  I’ll be out doing a delivery between 2pm and 4pm today (Friday) and after all that exertion I’ll probably need a glass of wine.  For white I’ll be trying Mezzogiorno Fiano 2012, Puglia, Italy – £8.69 a really tasty drop, indigenous to the south and frankly a bit of a well-kept secret.  On the red side I’m opening CentoPassi Rosso 2012, Sicily, Italy – £12.99.  My tasting notes say it’s organic with spiced black fruits, hints of cloves and decently full bodied.  Apparently the wine is part of a project involved in rebuilding communities and honouring Mafia victims using land seized from Mafiosi.  Nice story, nice wine.

So come and see me tonight or tomorrow and help me diminish this wine mountain I have built before his lordship tries to cycle up it!

Oh and I just received a text from the man stating he was just about to have some Paella for lunch, did I have any wine recommendations!  Not sure what to say really…

Wayne & Alex

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Some headlines that caught or attention this week

·         Ban on Indian mango imports to EU comes into force (BBC)

Where does this leave Mango chutney?

·         Chelsea 1 Atletico Madrid 3 match report: John Terry and Jose Mourinho suffer Champions League semi-final heartbreak (The Independent)

No comment

·         Men fear ridicule over ordering wine (The Drinks Business)

British men enjoy drinking wine at home but avoid ordering it in a pub in case their friends make fun of them, a recent survey has claimed.  Man up.

·         Beer giant Lion buys NZ wine estate (The Drinks Business)

Lion New Zealand has purchased the Morton Estate wine brand, including its Stone Creek vineyard, strengthening its expanding wine portfolio.  Bugger – there goes another independent winery down the supermarket route.

And on a happier note:

·         Protester hits Nigel Farage with egg (BBC)

Anyway, back on track.  After the wonderful warm weather that helped us clamber through the last few days of April we welcome May with galoshes and an umbrella.  However we didn’t allow this climate change to dampen our spirits last night.  12 of us donned our sombreros, put Gipsy Kings on repeat, flipped the doorsign over to say ‘Siesta’ and settled in to some serious Sherry tasting. 

We were guided on our journey by the very talented Bea, a native of Cadiz who now lives over here and who was on hand primarily to pronounce all the names in a convincingly appropriate accent and also to give us the lowdown on all things Jerez.  Last year Bea received her Diploma as a certified Sherry Educator from the Consejo Regulador de la D.O. Jerez-Xeres-Sherry – and as she also managed full marks in both parts of the exam, she was presented with a Venencia for coming top of the class!  Aha, an expert in our midst, not before time.

It was pointed out to us early on that it was a nice change for people to not be  forced to listen to us massacring our Spanish pronunciation but to actually learn from a professional at the top of her game.  So we sat at the back and tucked into tortilla español, habas fritas, almendras, aceitunas, chorizo ibérico de bellota, jamón ibérico de Extremadura curada 24 meses,  pan y chocolate de verde y negros.  Oh, and some sherries from Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla too.

Whilst skulking at the back we took the opportunity to make some notes which we have taken the liberty of repeating here:

Classic Manzanilla 15% – £7.99

Not to be confused with camomile tea (same name be warned!) this has spent 3 years under flor. Fresh and tangy with fresh apple and floral notes and a touch briny into the finish, Wayne’s having this with tonight’s fish and chips.

Fino En Rama 15% – £9.99

This is raw fino, no clarification just a very gentle filtering, it has spent 6 years ageing under the flor. Richer and fresher than the Manzanilla with an almost honeyed note to it, Alex suggests “gambas al pil pil” but then he would wouldn’t he?

Antique Amontillado 19% – £30.99

Oh my! This little number has been ageing in a barrel for 20 years, having started life under flor before additional alcohol added to kill the flor allowing oxidative ageing. Nutty, caramel notes in the nose but the palate is bone dry and deliciously complex. Jamón Jamón!

Classic Oloroso 18% – £14.99

No flor involved here, just oxidation over the course of 12 years. More viscous in the mouth, yet still dry it presents spicy, rich dark fruit notes and a long pleasantly warming finish. We like the idea of mature cheeses with this, but if more serious sustenance is what you’re after game and braised oxtail are good ideas.

Antique Palo Cortado 20% – £34.99

A real treat. This rarity starts life as a fino until the flor goes wrong. Luckily for us when the flor went wrong here it didn’t turn into sherry vinegar but into this rare beast that has hung out in a barrel for 30 years just becoming awesome. It has a lovely umami character that’d be mighty fine with some foie gras. If that’s not your bag then why not give wild boar a go!

Antique Pedro Ximenez 15% – £30.99

When the grapes we on the vine for this Alex hadn’t started shaving! Thirty years in barrels has made this soft, rounded and properly sweet with more sugar than is mentionable in polite company. This is unctuous and delicious and most of us enjoyed it with some 70% Green & Blacks. Chocolate dodger Alex loved it with salted almonds, and there was talking of marinating raisins in it, for a naughty apple strudel!

Solera Gran Reserva Brandy 38% – £50

One of the smoothest brandies that we’ve had the pleasure of. Drier than most Spaniards, a bit richer than cognacs and with such a long finish we’ve forgotten where we started!

Brilliant. 

It was a fabulous evening, the flamenco singers arrived at 1am, Wayne re-introduced us to Gin y Tonica (50/50), we danced until dawn and then went for a swim in the sea… yo no soy marinero, soy capitan, baile la Bamba…..

We’ve still got the Brandy here to taste and joining it this weekend will be…

Bank holiday on Monday so we’ll be shut, business as usual Tuesday onwards.  We have a delivery into town on Tuesday though, so we’ll be here from about 4pm onwards.

Avoid the tube strike and drink wine in Wimbledon Park I say…

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Whew! What can we say?  The whispering Scot has been given the old heave-ho just before the end of the season and the gobby one from the class of ’92 steps up to the plate for the last few games.  Will he be any good or are all his skills in sniping.  We watch and wait!

Elsewhere the BBC has been fielding complaints about the mumbling in their recent Jamaica Inn, I have to say we gave up after 20 minutes on episode 1.

Whilst we’re shooting the breeze about Cornwall we notice the Cornish are over the moon at being granted “minority status for their culture, language, and identity” which puts them on a par with Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.  Ideal.  It’s only a question of time before Mr Clarkson upsets them I’m sure!

In wine news, an app has been developed that will help root out the growing problems of wine counterfeiting that is happening in China.  Talking of which, some of you may remember us reporting the sale of a 1787 bottle of Chateau d’Yquem as the world’s most expensive white wine some time back.  Well it seems the chap who paid the $100,000 is now suing the seller alleging the wine to be counterfeit.  We’ll keep you informed!  As Jancis Robinson wrote today in her Purple Pages email: ‘if I have one piece of advice from this unsavoury episode, and indeed in general, it is this: do not on any account pay a four-figure sum (much less the five-figure one asked for the Yquem) for a bottle of wine.  Why would you, when there are so many absolutely delicious bottles available for two-digit sums?’

Case closed.

Cheese and Wine

Thanks to all who attended our Cheese and Wine tasting last night, great fun was had by all. The next one is Thursday 22^nd May at 8pm.

£20 per person as usual, give us a bell if you’d like to join the fun: 020 8944 5224.

A Certain Age?

If you’re having a 40^th birthday (or know someone who is) we have just the thing for you.

Kopke 1974 Colheita Port – £90 

Colheita is an aged tawny style of port from a single year.  By law they must be aged for a minimum of 7 years but in practice often for much longer.  This beauty we tasted in February just a couple of weeks after it was bottled.  Talk about liquid loveliness…it had it all going on with subtle cherry fruits, caramel, a touch of almond and honey maybe even a gentle roast coffee bean thing… wowsers, a glass that really commanded our attention.

Anyway, we think it’d be a lovely way to celebrate being 40, it’s had a great life, hanging around in a barrel (known here as a pipe!) for 40 years, getting more complex and softer with age before bottling in January.

If you’d like a bottle let us know, otherwise we’re quite happy to keep it for ourselves!

Time to Exercise Democracy – Time & Leisure Food and Drink Awards

For the last two years you’ve all been kind enough to vote for us in the “Best Wine Retailer” Category which resulted in us winning.  We’d love to win for the 3^rd year running so please vote for us on the link below and tell all your friends too.

http://www.timeandleisure.co.uk/food-and-drink-awards/2279-best-wine-retailer.html

There’s also the European elections coming up but we’re not running in those…

Tasting this Weekend

We’ll taste Domaine Treloar’s One Block Grenache 2011 (£11.99) as our red wine which, as the name suggests, is 70% Grenache with a large splash of Lledoner Pelut (30%) which we are told is related to Grenache and apparently has hairy leaves.  Pronunciation competition to follow.  Meanwhile, white wine wise, Alex is pulling corks on our Côtes du Rhône Blanc ‘La Fleur Solitaire’ 2012 (£10.79) which is a blend of Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne.  We think they’re both delicious, they think we’re fab, come and see what you think!

Yeghes da!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Whilst we wait for Wayne to finish his Reverse Warrior Pose and I calmly rise from my Salutation Seal, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the support and sponsorship you showered on us for the London Marathon.  We are truly grateful and can happily report that we both made it round, we both got a medal which must mean we won something, and we both waddled into work on Monday afternoon at 3pm, having ‘worked from home’ in the morning, without the aid of sticks or zimmers.  Wayne was back on his bike yesterday, I went for a swim last night, both of our wineglasses were filled to the brim on Sunday night, so life has now returned to as close to normal as it ever gets.

For the stat minded amongst you, Wayne completed it in 4.27, I did it in 4.40, we raised over £3,000 for The Children’s Trust and each expended over 5000 calories.  According to my watch I ran 28 miles which would imply I was weaving around a bit and I stood in a queue for the loo just before Tower Bridge for 7 minutes.  There you go, you wanted stats.

When I say life has returned to normal, I lie a little.  Shop life in Arthur Road is never normal in school holidays, even less so in the week before the 4 day weekend, so I fully expect to see a mountain of ‘I am out of the office until Tuesday 22^nd April’ messages in response to this email.

For those of you who are still around, here is everything you need to know for the coming weekend.

OPENING HOURS

We are open today (Thursday) until 8pm as usual. 

Tomorrow being Good Friday, we are only open from 11am until 3pm to cover the lunchtime quaffing. 

Saturday we’ll be here beaming with bonhomie from 10am until 6pm.

Sunday and Monday we will be closed whilst we embark on a Marathon (or should it be Snickers) of chocolate consumption followed up by a spot of DIY with perhaps a splash of car-washing.  Living the dream my friends, living the dream.

WINE SCHOOL – Wednesday 23^rd April – Wednesday 4^th June

So, don’t tell all the folks who are out of office, but we still have a few seats at the table for our next wine course which starts next Wednesday.  It will change your life, your confidence when confronted with winelists will be boosted and, as recent participants have testified, it will change your Wednesday evenings and perhaps your Thursday mornings too!

TIME & LEISURE

It’s that time again when we beg for your votes.  We are still awaiting the complete details and once we know we’ll let you know and hopefully you will vote for us again!

TASTING THIS WEEKEND

Just because they’re all on hols that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t enjoy ourselves.  I lied earlier when I said I would be filling up with chocolate on Sunday because in fact I hate the stuff.  What I love however is The Chocolate Block 2012 made by Boekenhoutskloof (£22.99).  70% Syrah, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Grenache, 6% Cinsault, 1% Viognier.  I repeat: 70% Syrah, 13% Cabernet Sauvignon, 10% Grenache, 6% Cinsault, 1% Viognier.  That’s one hell of a wine – it will be rubbish with chocolate but do come and help us decide what it would be great with.  Oh, and if you opt to buy six, we can definitely make it worth your while!

We’ll also taste a white and since we seem to be in a South Africa mood, let’s try the Reyneke Organic White 2012 (£13.89).  A blend of 40% Chenin Blanc, 35% Sauvignon Blanc and 25% Chardonnay (don’t worry, I won’t repeat them this time) we were really quite taken with it when we tried it a month or so back.  We were looking for something red from Austria and ended up buying this as well – a win double, as Wayne would say.

GOOD LUCK, BABY

A couple of our very good, if recently lapsed, customers are due to give birth over the weekend – hope everything goes well, you know who you are.  The prospect of labour probably makes my 7 minute loo queue on Sunday seem like a stroll in the park!

So, your to do list: swing by tomorrow or Saturday, taste some fine wines and sign up for Wine School.

Done.

Happy Easter y’all,

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Reading the headlines this week you could be forgiven for thinking we’ve entered some dastardly 80’s/90’s time warp. We’ve had coal mines closing, ministers expense scandals, The Masters without Tiger Woods, even Norman Tebbitt demanding resignations. Clearly there are positives (We’d rather Betty Boo than One Direction and Twin Peaks on the TV wasn’t so bad) and negatives (not sure we need the Austin Montego & Jive Bunny again?).  

A quick check at the sports pages brings us back to reality though, Mourinho is difficult to miss, the cricket seasons is about to start (Test Cricket for Ireland and Scotland, who’d have thunk it?) and Arsenal get a chance to underwhelm in their last hope of silverware for another season. Paris – Roubaix bike race this weekend too with over 5 million cobbles to ride over, I think they’ll need padded shorts and gloves!

In wine news GreenBottle, Merseyside producers of paper wine bottles, have gone into administration just 5 months after launching, after their major investor shredded plans to continue. Top Spanish producers Vega Sicilia have written off 500,000 bottles due to excessive sediment problems in their 2009 Pintia and 2010 Alion bottlings. You’d have thought at those prices they could afford a filter!

Meanwhile back in Wimbledon Park

The kids are off, the sun is shining and it’s nearly time for Wine School. 

That’s right Wednesday 23^rd April we’ll kick off at 8pm. We already have a selection of willing students keen to try the selection of wines and discover new wines, words and flavours.

We do, however, have a few places left. So throw caution to the wind, come and join them, some of you have been threatening to join in for months (you know who you are!).

Join up for our six week wine school, starting on Wednesday 23^rd April.  It costs £150 per person, takes place on consecutive Wednesday evenings (skipping one for half term) and you will taste somewhere in the region of 60 wines over the course.

Places are limited to 10 people, 5 have already been filled so drop us a line and book your place today. Don’t you want to strike fear into a sommeliers heart by demanding to know ‘which Riesling is drier the Marlborough or the Alsace?’

Full details attached, don’t delay.

This Weekend

We thought we’d give a bit of air time to a pair of tasty charmers from the French countryside. Cuvée Jean Paul Sec (£7.49) is a deliciously crisp dry white from Gascony, whilst its partner, the imaginatively named Cuvée Jean Paul Rouge (£7. 49) is a brambly glass of loveliness from the Vaucluse.

Also This Weekend

The day has finally arrived. Sunday is London Marathon day and we’ll be chasing an enormously impressive field of World record holders, Olympic medallists, and celebrities, but are hoping to beat the rhinoceros. If you’re running – good luck, have fun, and give us a wave if you see us.

We’re raising money for The Children’s Trust. Some of you have been kind enough to make a donation and some asked us to send the link again…

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/team/WayneAlexRunLondon

Thanks for all your support and advice throughout the training.

After our exertions we will open later on Monday 14^th April at 3pm.

Best wishes,

Wayne & Alex.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Normally at this time of year we’d have a chat with you about the impending ‘En Primeur’ campaign in Bordeaux.

This year I don’t know where to start, we all know what a harsh summer 2013 was across western France, we read the hail reports, saw pictures of the damaged cars and roofs, even a pile of hailstones the size of golf balls.

We’ve spoken to various chums who spend a good couple of weeks in Bordeaux every April dashing from tasting to tasting in convoys of minibuses. This year many of them aren’t going, citing a mixture of reasons – disappointment at the last couple of year’s campaigns, the feeling that the public are fairly ambivalent to the campaign.

Robert Parker, one of the world’s most followed wine critics, announced he wouldn’t be tasting the wines till later and then Chateau Pontet-Canet really put the cat amongst the pigeons by being the first leading estate to have ever released its ‘En Primeur’ price before anybody had tasted the wine.

So for an ‘En Primeur’ campaign that was looking like a damp squib it seems to have become very interesting. For the right reasons though, I’m not so sure.

The wines, the wines tell us about the wines. Well we haven’t tasted any of them yet, we have read a lot of reports and would have to say “mixed bag” is probably a good case scenario. The first growths and top performers will always make a decent wine because they can afford to use really only the very best parts of the harvest. In the words of the director of Cos d’Estournel “Normally you make wine to make money but in 2013 you needed money to make wine.”

I don’t think we’ll be dipping our toes into the Bordeaux 2013, especially after reading “variable, sometimes quite pleasant” as a description of the reds by Professor Denis Dubourdieu of Bordeaux University.

Our money might sneak into California (Napa Valley was described as having “An ideal season—dry conditions and a long, sunny summer” and Santa Barbara as having its “Second year of near-ideal growing conditions”). Or perhaps Hawkes Bay in New Zealand where winemakers are talking of “the stuff of legends” or “a vintage to remember”.

Anyway that’s enough guff from me, normal service will resume next week, but in the meantime we’ll be opening some bottles as usual on Saturday.

In the white corner… one of our new finds from Hungary is Tournai’s Zenit (£10.59) a little different and very tasty.

In the red corner we’ll try something a bit more mainstream in Marktree Cabernet/Merlot (£8.29) a crunchy easy drinker from South Eastern Australia.

Nice weekend one and all!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Two very important events to remember this weekend.

·         First up we have Mothering Sunday on well, Sunday.  Historically this has been celebrated by breakfast in bed (usually from a grumbling husband querying how this became his job when this mother clearly isn’t his mother – kids, get up!!) followed up by a big Sunday lunch out somewhere nice, bunches of flowers, hugs and kisses, an apocalyptic family row mid-afternoon, a cup of tea and then home.

According to Wayne’s close associates at Wiki there are other names for this day, names that seem strangely appropriate – Refreshment Sunday, Pudding Pie Sunday (apparently popular in Surrey), Mid-Lent Sunday (makes sense, but not a terribly imaginative naming), Simnel Sunday and Rose Sunday.  For me Refreshment Sunday has the most appeal, my son calling it Bothering Sunday made me laugh and hopefully my wife will like the perfume we’ve bought her… oh dammit, that’s that cat out of the bag!

·         The secret to a successful Mothering Sunday this year is in the timing.  No-one is going to thank you for turning up at the restaurant an hour late so do remember to put your clock forward an hour at 0100 hours on Sunday morning – you may lose an hour in bed but you can be re-juvenated by the knowledge that it is now summertime – get your shorts on, last one in the sea is a rotten egg!

Should you decide that perfume/chocolates/flowers are not enough for the other lady in your life and that a large glass of something is what she really deserves then we can heartily recommend any of our pink fizzes:

·         Billecart Salmon  Brut Rosé NV – £62.49

·         Ruinart Brut Rosé NV – £57.00

·         Moutard Prestige Brut Rosé NV – £29.99

·         Mayerling Crémant d’Alsace Brut Rosé NV – £14.99

·         Mimi Pink NV – £10.99

All fizz benefits from a ‘6 for 5’ discount – depends how many mothers you’re buying for I suppose!

Other things worth considering, going forward

I’m a Spurs fan, but in spite of that, for a long while I thought (and wagered) that Arsenal had a good chance of sneaking the Premiership title.  I was woefully wrong.

As summer approaches and we consider cooking outdoors, it appears that according to the Universidade do Porto and its findings published in the ACS’s Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry,  marinating your steaks in beer for a few hours can reduce levels of harmful carcinogens apparently found in meat cooked over the coals.  All beer is good, dark beer seems the most effective.  All this we read in the Drinks Business earlier this week, not the Daily Mail where, allegedly, it also appeared.

We beat Sri Lanka in the T20 with some fantastic power batting – just don’t get too used to it.

Wine School creaks back to life on Wednesday 23^rd April at 8pm.  It’s an absolute blast, come along.  We’re just short of half full as I write, so do put your name down soon if you’re hoping to join in.  Further details attached, and if you want a better sales pitch than ‘it’s a blast’, talk to Wayne, he’s got all the patter.

Dates are from Wednesday 23^rd April through to Wednesday 4^th June – with a week off on Wednesday 28^th May for half term.  £150 gets you a seat at the table, wine and crackers and more besides.

And now some wine

I think, since we’ve mentioned it more than once recently, we should open the Mimi Pink (£10.99) from New Zealand as a starter and then as we mentioned barbecue, move on to Hacienda del Plata ‘Zagal’ Malbec (£14.49) which is a fabulous drop we listed almost a year ago now.  It really reminds me of some of the wines I used to sell in the mid to late 90’s when Malbec was more about cherries, a dry well, structured palate with no artificial sweetness that sometimes winemakers use nowadays to disguise other shortcomings…  We like it, so are very happy to have it open all day!