The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

How’s life this week? We received an exciting email offering us a chance to join a scheme to help increase our biscuits sales. They promised a selection of Point of Sale items, advice on shelf placement, feedback from their thousands of members and even a free case of biscuits just to welcome us to the team. The only drawback, as far as we could see, was that we don’t sell biscuits. But if this kind of promotion is your thing, we don’t sell Porsches either but might be willing to entertain the idea of a free 911 or two in order to help improve our sales!

None of the main childhood vaccines reached their uptake targets in England this last year, with uptake of the four-in-one pre-school booster vaccine (for polio, whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria) at just 81.4% among five-year-olds in England in 2024/25. As somebody whose grandmother wore a calliper on her leg for most of her life after contracting polio as a child, I would call this a victory for stupidity.

In Nottingham, Reform leader of the council has banned councillors from speaking to the Nottingham Post, which doesn’t sound to me as great for democracy. That’s Reform demonstrating their well-advertised unwavering commitment to free speech – imagine how it’d be if they actually got into government!

International relations are all rocking and rolling too. Denmark called in the top US diplomat over covert influence operations with respect to Greenland. Whilst it seems that talks of peace between Ukraine and Russia seem to often lead to escalation?

When the employers National Insurance Contributions changed in the budget, The Office for Budget Responsibility forecast that 50 000 jobs would be lost. So far, of the 164 641 jobs lost since then, 53% of them have been in hospitality. This correspondent went to a free musical event at a local pub this week and it was almost empty – use them or lose them!

In Vuelta news, it seems Juan Ayuso may have already gone pop so we’ll see Wayne’s predictions as being as useless as ever, though Jay Vine has won a stage and Jonas Vingegaard is looking comfortable so far. In the men’s football, it looks like it’s going to be a tough season for Manchester United and West Ham United supporters.  In the Women’s Rugby World Cup England captain Zoe Aldcroft has been ruled out for the rest of the pool stages with a knee injury. It’s a much changed team that face Samoa on Saturday.

As we welcome you all back from your summer sojourn we thought we might mention a Cheese and Wine Tasting evening on 2^nd October at 7.30pm. We have a maximum of 12 people per tasting and a seat at the table costs £30, first come, first served.  You can reserve your place by giving us a call on 020 8944 5224 or just pop in and see us on Arthur Road.

Tasting This Weekend

We’ll start off in the Loire Valley with Chatelain Desjacques Chardonnay 2023 (£12.49) A light, crisp and appley Chardonnay given a bit of depth by some time spent on its lees but, with no time spent in oak, this fits into that comfortable space where you’d like a glass of Chablis but don’t have the posh Burgundy budget!

Then we’ll head down to Jumilla in Spain. Sierra de Enmedio Monastrell 2023 (£11.49) Alceño is a family owned winery that has been making wines in Jumilla since 1870 and specialise in Monastrell. We’re both fans of this medium bodied red that is a fine match for a burger!

Nice to have some rain last night but wouldn’t it be nice to have some sunshine for the last weekend of summer – fingers crossed!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

As many of you might be aware, it’s the Reading Festival this weekend so I’m sure many of the A-level grades received last week will be toasted once again. However, this time with Strongbow Dark Fruit and the tunes of Hozier and Chappell Roan on Friday, Lambrini Girls and Limp Bizkit on Saturday. With Amyl and the Sniffers, Travis Scott and The Dare bringing the tunes on Sunday, will the Strongbow still be cold?

The line-up in 1975 was a little different. On Friday we had up and coming rock bands Judas Priest and UFO alongside a more established Hawkwind and a show stealing Dr Feelgood. Saturday brought us Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, Supertramp, Yes and a new Irish band, Thin Lizzy. Sunday’s showstopper was apparently Wishbone Ash with other performers on the day including Caravan, Climax Blues Band and Joan Armatrading. Fabulously, Strongbow was the most popular cider! It seems whilst the bands may change, the festivals, drinks, memories and fun live on regardless!

Elsewhere, The Rocky Horror Picture Show had its 50^th Birthday last week. I bet Frank’N’Furter’s hips aren’t what they were; fifty years of jumps to the left will take their toll!

Things could have been going better for the government, with the high court ruling that the hotel in Epping housing asylum seekers may have breached planning rules in relation to its licence. The Met Police’s plan to use facial recognition technology at the Notting Hill carnival is unlawful because it is incompatible with European laws according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

La Vuelta starts on Saturday, in Turin! Stage one winds its way from Turin to Novara, Stage two manages to ride the flat parts of Piemonte with Barolo in the bidons and an uphill finish. We finally get to Spain for stage five and a Team Time Trial around Figueres which is where Salvador Dalí lived. I hope there’s somebody in the crowd dressed as a giraffe or a telephone! Jonas Vingegaard is favourite to win the red jersey and I think I’ll put Juan Ayuso and Jay Vine alongside him for the podium.

Rugby World Cup action starts on this evening with Red Roses hosting USA at the Stadium of Light and with more than 40 000 tickets sold it should be quite the night.

In Sweden, engineers have moved a 113 year old church. Kiruna is a city 90km north of the Arctic circle and has had iron ore mining for over a century. This mining activity has left the old part of city at risk of fissures hence the decision to move the 35m tall church, once voted the most beautiful pre 1950 building.

Whilst we’re in the Arctic, scientists have been surprised to discover that the melting of sea ice in the Arctic has slowed dramatically in the last 20 years, with no statistically noteworthy decline since 2005. That sounds like good news to me.

What’s in the glass?

Given the Rugby World Cup we thought we might use that as a theme, and as luck would have it New Zealand’s Women will be playing Spain’s Women so we even have a Vuelta tie in too!

Representing the Black Ferns we have Southern Dawn Sauvignon Blanc 2024 (£13.99) from Marlborough. This has all the trademark passionfruit, citrus, nettles, cut grass and hints of capsicum that you would hope for.  These aromas light the path to a soft, well rounded palate with a luscious mouth feel and pronounced fruit characters whilst the finish is limey and assertive and more-ish!

To represent Las Leonas we’ve gone with Borgia Borsao Garnacha 2023 (£9.49). This hails from the foothills of the Moncoyo massif near Zaragoza. 100% Garnacha giving us plum and berry fruit with fine tannins and just the weight that might suit some slow cooked pork shoulder.

As usual we’ll be closed on Bank Holiday Monday, see you Tuesday!

Cheers!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

August 15^th today and all’s well in Wimbledon Park.  Well, 2025’s version of “all’s well” at least.  The weather has been keeping everyone thirsty, with the thunderstorm on Wednesday only serving to amp up the humidity and thus this thirst; whilst we aren’t suffering a hosepipe ban currently, most of us seem prepared to drink beer, gin and rosé to preserve precious water reserves – great effort, team!

August 2025’s version of “all’s well” has also provided us with the somewhat surreal Vance-Lammy bromance.  The photo of them fishing in the Chevening pond earlier this week just made me feel a bit, I don’t know, weird.  When we find out that David was potentially poaching (only potentially because he couldn’t actually hook anything) since he doesn’t have a rod licence, it all starts to feel a bit like he was coerced into an awkward photo shoot with the soon-to-be POTUS.  We imagine that JD doesn’t have a rod licence either but we fully expect him to declare ‘doplomotic immunity’ à la Joss Ackland.

As of this time last year, the US Embassy owed over £14.5 million in congestion charge fines so £15 for an 8 day rod licence feels like a drop in the ocean, particularly as JD will need it when he casts some lines with Clarkson and the Cotswolds crew…

Meanwhile, his boss is still hard at work on ending the war in Ukraine war on DAY ONE.  It’s worth mentioning that, if each ‘Trump Day’ lasts the same length as this one (207 human days and counting), then his whole term could last for about 302,220 human days or 828 human years, which, I think we all agree, would be pretty cool.

Moving away from dystopia for now, the people who will hopefully craft a safer and friendly world got their A level results yesterday and, by all accounts, did very well.  Go on, get an education and save the world, please.

Prem football is back this weekend, Palace already have some silverware, Liverpool have lost and Spurs have immediately lived up to their ‘Spursy’ moniker on Wednesday.  We might not hear about Liverpool losing many more times this season, nor Palace winning cups but we can promise you that Spurs will stay Spursy.  Just for clarification, Wayne is an Arsenal fan.

We also read that a new ChatGPT-powered mixologist is offering consumers bespoke cocktail recommendations via text or online chat, combining professional bartender expertise and AI technology.  Now, last time we looked, there was no suitable space within our Samsung for a mixologist, and despite a comprehensive search both online and in the cupboard with all the wires and boxes, absolutely no sign of either a cocktail shaker or place to put a straw.  We did wonder why though – comprehensive cocktail recipes are so easily available, to what benefit all that computing power?

Then the penny dropped – advertising, maybe even a product placed in your automatic shopping list.  A bit like those onions that always arrive in the veggy box despite nobody ordering them.  To date the advert profiling is a bit pants, isn’t it?  This week we’ve been offered orthopaedic sandals, vitamins and a dressing gown.  We’d actually searched for a new laptop!

On the other hand, potential new antibiotics that could wipe out MRSA and gonorrhoea like those on the horizon from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are infinitely more useful than a pretend mixologist!

What’s in the glass?

This week we thought we’d weigh in with some fizz to celebrate the A-level results.  Leveret IQ Brut NV (£16.99) is a classic Pinot Noir/Pinot Meunier/Chardonnay blend made in the traditional method with grapes grown in New Zealand.

On the red, we’ll be going with Bodegas Staphyle Iris Malbec 2023 (£11.99).  This is from Lujan de Cuyo, which is pretty high altitude wise and home to most of the smart names in quality from Mendoza.  The winery was originally built in 1930 but was fully updated in 2002 by boutique winery, Bodegas Staphyle.  The wine is brilliant, youthful and bright with light tannins, cherry and berry fruit characteristics and a lovely easy going finish.  Brisket you say, low and slow in the green egg?  This would be perfect!

That just leaves us to again congratulate all the students who got the grades they needed – we’ve heard talk of Bristol, Edinburgh and Exeter so far.

If you didn’t, don’t sweat it.  You can always retake an exam, you can’t retake a party!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Coincidentally, this time last year we were talking about Runaway Robinson and his chums agitating outside the temporary accommodation of asylum seekers.  For this week’s anniversary he was arrested on arrival at Luton Airport after running away the week before having ‘allegedly’ punched somebody at St Pancras.

Meanwhile, protests have been happening outside the temporary accommodation of asylum seekers. One woman, who claimed to be a concerned mother living with her kids just round the corner in Epping, also appeared to be a concerned mother at another protest, living just around the corner. Normally she is concerned with admin as Ginger Toni, Runaway Robinson’s sidekick. Summer brings out the same old faces trying to inflame things so that they can go on the TV and say “I told you so”.

The football season starts very soon and Premiership clubs have been playing friendlies at various spots around the globe. Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United entertained the residents of Seoul to a 1-1 draw on Sunday. Surprisingly, Newcastle’s Matt Targett learnt what it is to be well and truly benched when the team left him behind at Seoul Airport! Whoops.

In the USA, the Tango Tariffmeister is still imposing random percentages of tariffs to countries. The latest is to India for buying Russian oil; it is 25% with a chance for double or quits if they’re lucky. I find it incredible that his supporters’ just keep cheering him on, whose pockets do they think all these tariffs come from? Difficult to believe it’s the same country that had a revolution against a 3p tax on a pound of tea in 1773.

Here we have the unedifying spectacle of the homelessness minister, Rushanara Ali, evicting tenants renting her East London townhouse only to then relist it for rental a few weeks later at £700 a month more. It doesn’t appear to be playing with a straight bat; she has spoken out on more than one occasion against this sort of thing. She has resigned overnight.

A rare copy of The Hobbit sold for £43,000 this week. It was one of the 1,500 first edition printed in 1937. Precious indeed!

In drinks news, the bourbon industry seems to have got itself into a spot of bother. In the last 20 years they have increased production by around 470% but demand has increased by around 300%. That immediately seems a bit of an issue but couple that with the backlash against US products because of Tango’s Tariffs with a less thirsty younger generation and it appears boom times have become bust.

I cast my beady eye over some new vintage reports this week. It looks like Australia enjoyed a rather good 2025. Margaret River had good quality where the birds hadn’t stolen the grapes, Yarra’s Chardonnays appear to have a bit more weight to them than the previous couple of vintages but the one to look out for will be Mornington Peninsula which has enjoyed it’s best one in a decade according to Lindsay McCall owner at Paringa Estate.

What’s in the glass?

We’ll start way down in Marsala, Sicily with Sensale Bio Orange Wine 2024 (£16.99). This is made from 100% organic Catarratto grapes fermented and aged on the skins in amphora.

How about a trip to Piemonte for the red? Cantine Povero Cabanè Langhe Nebbiolo 2020 (£15.99) – this is from grapes just outside of the designated zone for Barolo, the wrong side of the tracks if you like.  Usually the wines are 100% Nebbiolo but in this instance I am led to believe that there may be a smidge of Barbera in there plus a dash of Cabernet Sauvignon!  The nose is sweetly aromatic with an intense bouquet containing hints of roses, tobacco and spice.  On the palate we have more roses and red fruits and fresh tobacco leaf on the simply delicious finish.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

A very good day to you all. I guess you’re away somewhere as there are parking spots galore around these parts. Even the Lime bikes were fitting in their spot when I arrived.

We’ve heard check-ins from people painting near Aberystwyth, mountain biking and hiking near Chamonix, chilling in Ireland and ‘just hot’ in Greece. Southern Spain’s mid-high 20’s temperatures alongside a pool and inexpensive wine proved too big a draw for Alex who has left the building. Manuel next door has headed off for the month, returning on the 26^th August.

Mr and Mrs Starmer have had a trip to Scotland to not play golf, Donald Trump was there too, lobbying for the Open to be held at Turnberry, but mostly playing golf to his own rules.

The Lionesses won the European Championship for the second time running, with Lucy Bronze having played the entire tournament with a fractured tibia. No messing, that is Double Hard! With that kind of toughness she could have been a cyclist!

Talking of which, attention has now switched from the men to the women for the Tour de France. Kasia Niewiadoma is hoping to defend her title, Marianne Vos, Puck Pieterse and Demi Vollering among those trying to ensure she doesn’t.

The news that made me smile was the Bishop of Fulham appearing in his dressing gown. The City Academy Voices Choir had hired St Andrew’s in Holborn for an evening concert and was just coming to the end of their repertoire when the lights went out. He then stood at a microphone, barefoot in his dressing gown and said: “You are in my house. It’s gone past 10pm and this is a terrible racket,” “Goodnight. You are in my house – can you leave it now please. Thank you, it’s over.” Now, call me old fashioned, but I’d expect a Bishop to be a little less rude to the Choir that has rented his church and 10 o’clock doesn’t seem to be so late to be finishing a concert. Perhaps he’d hoped to become Archbishop of Wales? Cherry Vann, formerly Bishop of Monmouth, has become Britain’s first woman Archbishop. Chapeau!

Tasting Evenings

The Sparkling Wine evening sold out quicker than you can say ‘Pop’.

We do still have some spaces for the following Cheese and Wine dates.

•           THURSDAY 2nd OCTOBER – 7.30PM

•           THURSDAY 6TH NOVEMBER – 7.30PM

•           THURSDAY 27TH NOVEMBER – 7.30PM

We have a maximum of 12 people per tasting and a seat at the table costs £30, first come, first served.  You can reserve your place by giving us a call on 020 8944 5224 or just pop in and see us on Arthur Road.

As we mentioned last week, today is ‘Celebrate Albariño Day’.  The Rías Baixas region specialises in Albariño, and is thus considered to be its true heartland, nestled up in the far north-western corner of Spain beside the wind-swept Atlantic coast. We opened some last week that went down so well we had to have a re-stock!

It’s also ‘Yorkshire Day’. We have no wines from there, but do have a great day all those that celebrate!

Tasting This Weekend

We thought we’d head down under this week to the land of the long cloud. Our correspondents on the spot confirm that is indeed rather cloudy and chilly. We thought we’d give a couple of Pinot’s a go.

From Marlborough we’ll crack open the Wairau River Pinot Gris 2022(£18.99) – Wairau River have some of the earliest plantings of Pinot Gris in Marlborough and this wine really captures the essence of the regions clean and pure climate.  This has succulent ripe pear character on the nose, with melon, apple and apricot flavours, nice mouth weight and an exotic lingering finish.

Then we’ll hop off to Nelson for Heaphy Pinot Noir 2023 (£18.99) – Heaphy Vineyard is a small winery in the north-west corner of New Zealand’s South Island, a region named Nelson Tasman.  First planted in 1973, the vines are amongst the very oldest productive vineyards in New Zealand.  This Pinot Noir is from 3 vineyards in Tasman, Upper Moutere and Ruby Bay.  When we tasted it we thought it was a bit of a revelation.  Nice, easy going, open fruit character with a lovely soft juicy finish.

Amazing what chaos 20 minutes of downtime on a radar system can cause, eh?

Have a great weekend.