The Weekly Wine

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.