Fellow Wine Lovers,
We’ll start by raising our hats to the Rugby World Champions, England’s Red Roses. They really took the game to Canada who appeared, on this occasion, to have little answer. In the interests of balance, congratulations to Magdeleine Vallieres who became Canada’s first women’s World Road Race Champion, just before the rugby final started. A bonus for this viewer was that the timing was perfect for changing channels – chapeau!
On the Ryder Cup front, the Europeans successfully defended their position, despite the best efforts of a rather raucous crowd that seems to get worse every visit. I guess if that bad behaviour starts at the top, then it’s difficult to get anybody to behave. Clearly, the perfect place to host next year’s FIFA World Cup… perhaps we should send some Millwall fans over?
Talking of the World Cup, the ticket prices fell into our lap this week. The Mexico opener is $370 a seat at the cheapest level, the Canadian opener is $355 and the US opener $560. To us it looks like the Canadian one is the value but let’s not forget the US price includes bed and breakfast at an ICE facility and possibly a flight to South America.
The US government is shut down, with neither side seeming to want to negotiate for the moment. That’ll leave nearly a million government employers locked out of work and going unpaid. It’s amazing that a mechanism designed to protect the taxpayer from the excesses of government has become so debased.
Here, the government has been shut because it’s conference season. The Lib Dems were swanning around in Bournemouth, with Ed Davey joining a marching band to kick it off. The Labour Party was living it up in Liverpool, mostly talking about Nigel Farage, whilst we look forward to The Conservative Party coming at you from Manchester next week. Rumours they have booked the room upstairs at the Circus Tavern are wide of the mark. Kemi Badenoch’s statement that Robert Kenrick’s ideas are just “my thoughts repackaged” sets it all up nicely. The Greens start theirs today in Bournemouth, luckily the disruptions in the train service to Bournemouth have been rescheduled.
There’s been a bit of a furore this week about the AI actor Tilly Norwood. Many pages have been written, powerful unions have made comment and many actors have suggested that agencies don’t add Tilly to their books. Perhaps we can just point out that Tilly is not actually an actor but just a computer program similar to the special effects in The Matrix or Lord of the Rings, there might be a little calm – it’s Hal 9000 you need to worry about!
To make difficult choices easier, we will visit USA and Georgia this week to open the following…
Vina Robles Viognier 2021 – £23.49 – this hails from Paso Robles in California, where the Pacific coastline unfolds into rugged ranch-lands and cowboy ambience (and who doesn’t love a story with cowboy ambience?). This Viognier is planted in the highest part of the Huerhuero Vineyard, benefitting from the cooling afternoon pacific breeze. Crisp and medium-bodied with peach and mandarin fruit with a long lively finish – really rather fabulous.
Bedoba Saperavi 2022 – £20.99 – Made from the indigenous grape variety, Saperavi, and partially vinified in traditional qvevri vessels, Bedoba means `Day of Luck’. A small fraction of the fruit is fermented in whole bunches whilst a selection of the grapes are left to dry naturally on the vines until November, ensuring a fine balance between the savoury and spicy elements of the grape.
Lastly, in a break from recent protocol, we will be here all day on Tuesday, as we should be!