Fellow Wine Lovers,
Welcome to Independence Day Eve. It’s now 91,309 days since 56 men sat down and altered the course of history. Famously, when they finally put pen to paper in August 1876, John Hancock was the first signatory. A bit like when you’re the first person to sign a leaving card, he wrote in large flamboyant letters thus leaving less space for those who followed, particularly the last signer, Charles Carroll, who seemingly had far better things to do than founding a new nation and only got around to scribbling his autograph in November! For those of you who like a bit of dinner party trivia, two of the signatories, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both of whom became President, both died on the 50th Anniversary of Independence, July 4th 1826.
Is it coming home? More likely il rentre pour de bon but for now we can all dream a little longer. There are already calls for Harry Kane to become Sir Harry, which frankly is ridiculous, whilst rumours that there is a fortress in Mexico City named Azteca, nestling a mere 2200 metres above sea level are found to be terrifyingly true. We’ve all read the 2 losses in 88 games statistics but these were often against teams that they should be beating, anywhere. What is more concerning is their goal difference – in the last 25 matches there, Mexico have scored 43 goals and conceded just 6. Add to this that they have only once conceded more than 1 goal in a match here since May 2014 and consider they average 1.72 goals per match, we would need to score twice to beat them, which doesn’t seem likely. What does seem likely is penalties.
Our football loving, soon-to-be-no-longer PM has relaxed the licensing laws for the Monday morning match, which is a nice idea in many respects…
- Alright, it’s almost midnight, I’m off to the pub
- You what? It’s almost midnight and you’re off to the pub?
- Yep, going to watch the football
- It’s Monday tomorrow, aren’t you going to work?
- Of course I’m working from home but I should be back by, well, 3am-ish, unless we have extra time and penalties, in which case it’ll likely be after 4… although the pub will be open until 5 so let’s make that 6…
- Stinking of beer
- No, I’ll be sensible
- Why don’t you watch it here
- No, that’s too sensible and I don’t want to disturb you
- Of course, I’ll easily sleep right through you coming home in the daylight with all that disappointment and a dirty doner…
On the positive side, there’ll be lots of seats on the tube come the Monday morning rush-hour!
Away from football, Wayne is very excited for the return of the Lycra Lads who saddle up in Barcelona for a few days mucking about in Catalonia before heading into France for the bulk of the event. Tadej Pogacar is 1-4 to win, Jonas Vingegard is at 3-1 whilst an each way on Tom Pidcock at 125-1 seems a bit more fun. Wimbledon, cycling, football all on the telly – thankfully the Test Matches are over for now so we should swing our focus to the Women’s T20 World Cup on Sunday. Oh, and the Nations Championship Rugby does start on Saturday, to less fanfare than we expected…
In the world of wine and associated drinks, Rosé is flying out of the fridges, plenty of you are enjoying the new Greek one we introduced last week but apart from that, nothing else is really newsworthy.
I think we mentioned before but I’ll risk repeating myself. For reasons of which we are unsure, our sales of wines from the USA have taken a significant nosedive in the last year or so. There are of course theories as to why this has happened and to be honest with you, this seems to be an industry-wide issue, judging from some of the offers we have been receiving from suppliers recently.
However, it’s not every year that July 4th falls on a Saturday, so it would be churlish to ignore this opportunity – plus, let’s face it, I don’t think any downturn in sales is due to the winemakers themselves or the quality of the wines, perhaps more to do with the world at large.
De Loach Russian River Chardonnay (£33.49) hails from the cool climate of Russian River and is an absolute cracker of a Californian white wine. Tropical and citrus character on the nose with some baked apple, a lovely touch of vanilla cream spice and a lingering finish.
Valley View Winery Domaine Rogue Quartz Vein Pinot Noir (£33.00) is from one of the pioneer wineries in Oregon, having been panted in 1972. The cool mountain vineyards of Applegate Valley give us an excellent Pinot Noir with dark raspberry fruit with a hint of loose-leaf tea on the nose, followed by darker fruits on the medium bodied palate leading into a long silky finish.
And now it’s time for us to go but remember, Mexico have lost twice at home, so it’s about time they added a third!