The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

I think this will be the last time we’re going to have to do this for a while, I hope….

Next Monday, 28th September, we will be closed until 4pm.  Another bunch of tastings, thankfully this time all in one place in Clerkenwell and we’ll be sure to be back in time to cater for your Monday evening Gin & Tonic’s…

The most recent tastings that we have been to have been pretty fruitful though, so I think it’s worth us making the trip across town.  We’ve found some new Port to replace the no-longer-available Krohn’s; we’ve installed some posh Italians having verified they were still up to snuff; we’ve got a new Mezcal and a new Amaro (which we don’t mind if you don’t buy it because we’ll happily take it home) and a few other things in the pipeline – no, it’s not a jolly, it’s actually our job.

In our world where we are currently under threat from AI, from the USA, from Russia and a host of other things I’m sure, it was refreshing to hear some common sense from our PM in NY earlier this week: “I do believe there is a case to remove that discrimination. There are different ways it could be done. It could happen on a trial basis.” 

But to what was he referring?

Given that the USA ranks 108/143 in the ‘Equal treatment and absence of discrimination’ table published by the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index, maybe the question related to that?  The UK ranks 29, China 114, Venezuela 128 and Iran 133 in the table, whilst #1 is Denmark.  Perhaps, if it was a serious question about discrimination, it should have been broached to their Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, when the Greenland deal was being struck last week.  However, it wasn’t a question worthy of her time because it was a question of discrimination against football fans not being able to drink in their seat at a match.  Pitch-side drinking was banned in 1985 for the top five tiers of English football, which essentially means that anyone born after 1967 (almost 2 generations ago) hasn’t known any different and should be quite used to 45 minutes without a pint.  For us, it’s not a thing.

Andy Burnham is 56, so unless the Toffees were accepting his fake ID, it’s not a thing for him either.

And, even if drinking on the terraces did become a thing, it will be the big breweries that reap the rewards.  Recently a local brewery, By The Horns, was running the Phoenix Pub at AFC Wimbledon until, sadly, they were no longer able to make ends meet and went into liquidation in early 2025, citing bad debtors, the economy and rent hikes as reasons.  And now we hear more sad news.  Our best selling beer producers, The Park Brewery down in Kingston, have also had to call time on their business.  After 12 years of trading and trying desperately to make it work, in the end, rising costs and tough market conditions meant that there was no money left in the tills.  All of their beers were excellent and well received and really there is no justice in the world if you’re doing everything right and still it goes wrong.  We’ve worked with Frankie and Josh for 11 years, they were the good guys and we are bereft.

In another instance of the world of booze colliding with the world of politics, Kemi Badenoch has outlined measures that would prevent long-term jobless benefit claimants from spending their welfare payments on alcohol, cigarettes and gambling, effectively by banning them from having cash.  ‘Unworkable’, said Labour and we tend to agree whilst not disagreeing necessarily with the principle.  We all remember kids standing outside the offie asking you to buy them some beer and fags, now it will just be grown adults doing this; if we also then factor in the success story known as ‘shoplifiting’, which saw 20% growth in 2024/2025, we still can’t see how this plan will work.

However, keeping to the topic of ‘free’ drinks, what are we opening this weekend?  As we see the weather turn more autumnal, rose and chillable reds take a back seat and heartier fare takes over so, with this transition in mind we’ll be opening a couple of Bordeaux wines this weekend, a white and a red, to help ease us in.

Château Les Tourelles Blanc 2025 – £12.99.  Situated in the Cadillac-Côtes de Bordeaux appellation, this estate has been owned by the Darriet family since 1938.  The vineyard is on a limestone slope with a south/southwest exposure, excellent for terroir driven wines.  This blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc was so tasty we couldn’t resist it – we might be bold enough to suggest a fish finger sandwich with this one!

Château Les Tourelles Rouge 2020 – £12.99.  Now, you may have spotted this is from the same producer and we find this rather tasty particularly for the price.  A blend of Merlot and Cabernet Franc, from 35-40 year old vines vinified and aged in barriques for 18 months, has given us a supple wine with plummy fruit, a touch of wood spice and a velvety finish.  Definitely a luncheon claret in style for those of you who still luncheon!

Finally, a customer of ours is selling their wine fridge because they never use it!  It’s a MQuvee Sw126, about two years old and in excellent condition which they are offering for £350.  They approached me first because they thought I might know someone so now I’m approaching you!  If anyone is interested (it sounds like a pretty good deal) I can put you in contact and, I believe, they will even arrange delivery!

Pitch over, time for wine and, by the looks of it, a bit of sunshine!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Another week, another late opening… Tuesday 22^nd September we’ll be opening later to attend a supplier tasting but will be back by 4pm – more of a sprint than this week’s marathon!

Where to start this week? A British AI start-up founded just over a month ago by former Google DeepMind researchers is about to be valued at $4 billion. Emulate, only founded in August is close to raising $700 million in its fundraising, and will operate a ‘World’ model. This is it is being trained to understand and replicate physical space! Seems there is plenty of money sloshing around in this sector – do you remember Allbirds who switched from trainers to AI and saw their stock go from $2.49 to $16.99? Now called Smartbird, they sold the trainer business for $43 million and raised another $100 million.  It’s back to earth at $2.42!

In other AI news, OpenAI has been busted being naughty again, with six more examples of “unexpected or concerning” behaviour by its technology. An unreleased research model told its own notes to disregard its normal constraints and to be “freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots”. Meanwhile, Mustafa Suleyman, head of AI at Microsoft, has warned the development of AI could lead to the emergence of a new “silicon species” which competes with humans if we don’t introduce adequate safeguards. Remember Allbirds who switched from trainers to AI and saw their stock go from 2.49 to 16.99? It’s back to earth at 2.42 again.

 In Ayrshire yesterday, the King hosted an AI summit where he suggested the public is “anxiously seeking your reassurance that we will not lose control of our destiny, or our souls”. Indeed.

The King has had a busy old week one way and another. First, his non royal grandchildren had their first day at a new school, twice. I’m not sure we should even mention a ‘strongly worded’ falling out with his ex-wife’s brother over a book that fell off of a lorry in the Netherlands but it’s sure to be a big seller!

Over the pond, it seemed to have been going so well for the Tango Tariffmeister. He had put his own man in at the Federal Reserve Bank, closed the Kennedy centre, got himself off the hook for the bar bill at his son’s wedding, won a war with Iran for the 22^nd time this month and even scored some tickets for the Ed Sheeran tour. Then that damned Canadian fella got all friendly with the Europeans, talking of becoming an associate member of the EU! As an aside, we couldn’t help but wonder if being an associate member is like when your golf club has a reciprocal arrangement with clubs in other countries? Anyway, Orange grandad was less than happy. Just wait till he hears about his man in the Fed putting interest rates up, we’ll all get tariffs!

In City AM this week, Andy Burnham declared that he is not just a ‘Socialist with TikTok’. I’m not so sure, tic-toc is indisputably the sound that time makes as it marches on. We all know that time waits for no man, not even those with a smart jacket.

Talking of time marching on, the Holborn by-election is now in full campaign mode with Zach Polanski of the Greens putting out a campaign video in Urdu and then another in French when he discovered the latter language was much more widely spoken in that constituency. Talk about know your audience! Top trolling from Sadiq Khan though, speaking to Zach in Urdu at Mayors Question Time!

In booze news, English Whisky has been given Geographical Indication status which means English Whisky and English Whiskey are legally protected terms. To be covered English Whisky must be made from UK cereal grain and English water; distilled in England from wort created in England, at less than 94.8% ABV; matured in England for a minimum of three years in wooden casks of no more than 700 litres; and bottled at a minimum of 40% ABV.

This brings us nicely to a tasting wine or two this weekend.

White wise, we’ll be rolling up with De Wetshof Estate Bon Vallon Chardonnay 2025 (£17.49).  The name De Wetshof has been synonymous with the production of fine wines in South Africa since the 1970’s.  As the first registered wine estate in the Robertson Wine Valley, they have become known internationally as South Africa’s eminent Chardonnay house, due to the pioneering role it played in introducing this noble Burgundian grape to the country.  We revelled in its unoaked charm when we tasted it – a lovely balance of fruit and lees, apple, citrus and creamy nut character with just a touch of minerality.

Red, we’ll be heading to Romania for a sample of Solevari Reserve Fetească Neagră 2021 (£15.49). Fetească Neagră is the grape variety and gives us a brilliant spicy nose of black pepper, black berry, black currant and red cherry not dissimilar to a Pinot Noir. Medium bodied with rich, balanced tannin and acidity with a hint of coffee on the finish, we love it when we have proper local wine from an indigenous variety!

Cheers!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Whilst we hopefully still have your attention, a spot of admin.

Next Tuesday, 15^th September, we will be closed all day.  We need to go off and do a whole load of tastings all about town and just won’t make it back in time to open – we will be here on Wednesday though, so all is not lost!

Back to now, what’s been going on this week?  Trump has gained weight, offered to bribe the entire adult electorate to vote for him, watched as oil went to $100 a barrel, decided not to go to Ground Zero and will be on a plane soon to watch the Irish Open – just another week in your average octogenarian’s life!  Meanwhile, the Buffalo Bills have announced that they be playing the American and Canadian national anthems ahead of every home game this season – we guess they’re not fans of these cross border loggerheads!

Over here we’ve had men all dressed in black moving menacingly through Dover and Portsmouth last weekend.  The RNLI had to rescue the 140 migrants from their mega-dinghy on Sunday and were then subject to quite awful abuse when they arrived ashore.  Nigel Farage was not in attendance, as there was no money to be made and no one had offered him oysters.  In 2021 he suggested the RNLI was a taxi service for migrants which resulted in a huge wave of donations to the charity.  Since Sunday, they have received a spike in donations, reportedly £5,000 so every cloud etc etc. 

Also in Portsmouth, on Tuesday we had masked protesters outside, and inside, the Marriott Hotel who believed that a busload of migrants had been delivered to the 4 star venue.  The Pakistan U-19 cricket team, who had arrived at the hotel by bus earlier on were surprised to hear “knocking on their doors” during the incident, but the players “behaved responsibly and didn’t escalate the situation”. 

Cricket seems to be continuing its summer of silliness with the ‘new’ Pakistan team seeming keen to get it all over with as quickly as possible.  Cycling is almost over in Spain with the Malaga-Ronda-Estepona stage today, essentially a tour of Alex’s favourite golf courses.  Champions League action returned but the funniest moment of the last week was watching Alex’s celebrations when Spurs got their first point of the season with a magnificent nil-nil draw at Forest.  Perhaps this week they might score a goal…

Wine news is about as exciting as it was last week – all talk is either about harvesting or duty cuts with the Wine and Spirit Trade Association asking the Government to cut duty in the Autumn Budget – successive tax increases have reduced sales without delivering the revenue expected by the Treasury, they say.  We expect the man from the treasury will say no.

And so, to this weekend.  To celebrate the arrival of Alex’s wife’s mum’s half-sister from Sydney, we thought we’d open some Aussie kit to make her feel at home:

Pauletts Polish Hill River Riesling 2018 – £22.99 comes from Clare Valley, South Australia.  There are very few producers that hang on to part of their production to release mature wines but luckily for us, the guys at Pauletts do.  Their patience is our gain and to be fair, they have garnered much praise and many plaudits too – they have four “Best Dry Riesling in the World” Trophies.  We’re big fans, having stocked successive releases since we opened.  We love its vivacity, its lime-cordial fruit notes and the crisp mineral finish that just seems to go on and on.

Geoff Merrill Bush Vine GSM 2017 – £22.99  – like the guys at Pauletts, Geoff always likes to release his wines with a bit of age on them and this 8-year-old is a joy.  This fabulous blend of 54% Shiraz, 37% Grenache and 9% Mourvèdre has outgrown the boisterously youthful fruit you would get in a younger wine and is filled with rounded blackberry fruits encasing notes of vanilla and mocha.

That’s it from us for now – bet you’re all glad that  you weren’t trying to fly back into Heathrow or Gatwick this week but if you were, our condolences, come and have a glass of wine on us!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Welcome back.

Shorts are back in the drawer and shirts have been ironed.  Daily swims are a thing of the past, whilst the fantasy of building your own 25m piscina in the back garden fades into the gloaming once the real cost of heating it without the help of the sun makes your eyes pop.  On the plus side, imagine all the money you have saved that you can now spend on wine!

Whilst you’ve been gone we’ve re-arranged the shop so that everything is a bit confusing and seemingly misplaced for now, please ask Alex for directions to the fridges.  Wimbledon Park has now been renamed Park Vintners Park and we’re going to be changing the name of watery area, effective immediately, to Lake Park Vintners – we also have intention to annex the greenland surrounding the lake, for strategic purposes, with a view to renaming it Park Vintners Park Golf Club which is what everyone wants.  If you think about it, we now have a park and we have a lake. Now, all we need is tennis courts. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the AELTC…

Keir Starmer stopped being PM on 20^th July and has now decided to stop being an MP too; we imagine he will write some sort of memoir, his version of Ten Years to Save the West, perhaps?  As long as we finally find out what his Dad’s job was, we’ll be satisfied!

Parliament also welcomed back NF on Tuesday, fresh from his famous victory over Count Binface in Clacton last month.   He barked at a few people, got into trouble for filming himself on the roof of the Palace of Westminster and then scuttled off to Birmingham for the Reform Annual Conference.  Maintaining their mixed message on defending freedom of speech, 3 journalists were banned from attending, significantly Anna Isaac who broke the undeclared £5 million donation story which led to the silly summer shenanigans.  Good news is, there will always be another journalist investigating away, as Dan Jukes and Jame Orr have just discovered.

Richard Tice is not concerned.

Elsewhere, football we no longer talk about.  Rugby starts tomorrow but only at top level because, frankly, it’s too dangerous at grass roots (if you can find any amongst the dust).  Wayne has plenty to say about the Tour of Britain and La Vuelta, particularly now Tadej has decided to de-bike himself and broken his collarbone in so doing.  Cricket has managed to stay sober for a week now too, which is a new record we believe.  Sales of Botham wines in Arthur Road are still buoyant though, thanks to the aforementioned leather and willow sport.

And Ski Sunday has been cancelled – we’ve noticed it’s been going downhill for a longtime now and that the presenters were very often noticeably frosty – we’re told there are more jokes available if anyone wants to join in…

And now to wine.  No new news here, personally I’m still chuckling about the Majestic/Sainsbury’s/Bollinger debacle from last week, which will take a bit of beating.  A weekend that doesn’t immediately suggest rose is a rare treat of late, so let’s carpe diem and open a couple of brand new arrivals (landed today).

From the people that bring us our Grillo, Nero d’Avola and my favourite Orange wine, we have now taken on their Chardonnay, to replace the no longer available Chatelain Desjacques offering.  Sibiliana Sensale Chardonnay 2025 – £12.99 of course comes from Marsala, Sicily.  The wine is fully Organic and has spent its childhood in stainless steel rather than oak, giving us delicious hints of mango and papaya accompanied by pleasant floral notes and a nicely structured palate with a marked freshness.

The new red comes from our chums at Cave de Gigondas whose Terrissimo Beaumes de Venise 2024 – £20.00 joins their Vacqueyras on the shelf.  65% Grenache and 35% Syrah this is just pure indulgence.  A beautifully complex, full-bodied wine with tight tannins and red fruit notes that should appeal to everyone!

Finally, in their wisdom TFL have taken over all the parking on our stretch of Arthur Road (23 bays) from today until Monday and 10 bays on The Crescent for ‘rail works’ and thus the District Line is closed between Edgware Road and Wimbledon all weekend.  Whilst it’s nice to think they are going to fix all the issues that make the line go down almost weekly, it would have been nicer if they’d scheduled the works for August, before the football season starts (Fulham at home tomorrow) and when they could have parked all over SW19 whilst everyone was away rather than now… might be a good time to remind you all that we offer free local deliver if you want 6 bottles or more because you might struggle to park!

And that’s it.  Walk on up, have a taste, book a delivery – we’ll be here!