The Weekly Wine

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.