Fellow Wine Lovers,
So here it is, Winter Solstice, everybody’s having fun… which means we are knee deep in the debauchery of Saturnalia and bang in the middle of the shortest day – Wayne, our own Lord of Misrule, has this year eschewed his ‘must wear shorts on the shortest day’ tradition, on the grounds of Health & Safety or was it perhaps common sense, you choose.
By all accounts the sunrise this morning in London was at 8.03 and it will set at 15.53 this afternoon, which gives us less than 8 hours of daylight today. In truth, it feels like the sun has been well over the yardarm for a lot of us for much of the last week as I’m sure you can confirm – the prospect of the days now getting longer is but a blessing!
So, aside from the deep midwinter and longest night celebrations, what else have we got to look forward to over the next week or so? Obviously a full calendar of football fixtures this weekend and all through next, sadly without that other Abbot of Unreason, Mr Mourinho, who has yet again trousered a fortune for failing – he’s laughing at all of us, you do know that? Hopefully we will see the back of drone disruption and hope that this will not now become a ‘thing’ – air travel is potentially risky enough without added perils. Hopefully the government will take a well-earned (?) break, have a word with their constituents, their families and their friends and finally get it through their heads that the time for name calling and petty point scoring is over, and that when they get back it will be 2019 and we will be out of Europe well before the next solstice – those are my wishes…
And of course, we have Christmas. We’ve mentioned it before, counted out the hours for you last week and now we’re a whole lot closer. Our last courier deliveries for arrival before the 25th have gone, it’s all down to bodies in the shop now – only 4 more sleeps I’m told. So, with time of the essence and a shopful of people right now, I’m going to have to bulletpoint the rest of this epistle, I’m afraid…
• We’re open until 8pm this evening, 10am until 8pm on Saturday, 11am until 3pm on Sunday and then Christmas Eve we open at 10am with the shutters coming down at 5pm
• We will then re-open on Saturday 29th December from 10am until 8pm, Sunday 30th December from 11am until 3pm and then New Year’s Eve we will open at 11am and close for the last time in 2018, at 6pm
• We are then closed until Saturday 5th January when we will have a short foray into retail from 12pm until 6pm before life returns to normal on Monday 7th January…
• We will have wines open all weekend and they will be:
• FIZZ: Domaine de Landrau Crémant de Loire Rosé – £15.99
• WHITE: Alma Larga Godello 2017 – £16.99
• RED: Casa Silva ‘Cool Coast’ Pinot Noir 2016 – £17.99
• SWEET: Osborne Pedro Ximenez 1827 – £15.99
• PORT: Krohn Colheita 1996 – £33.99
• NAUGHTY: Foxdenton Christmas Liqueur – £20
• SPIRITS: our usual selection of gins and other treats
And so, that’s probably it from us. As we will be closed at the end of next week, this will be our last missive of 2018 and so it just remains for us to wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year and to thank you all for your custom throughout the year. Hopefully, Drinkember will not be leading into Dry January but if it does, see you in Feb!
We’ll leave with the three wise questions from Mr Neville John Holder:
Does he ride a red nosed reindeer? Does he turn up on his sleigh? Do the fairies keep him sober for a day?
Cheers!