Fellow Wine Lovers,
Well how’s your week been going? I spent an hour and half yesterday trying to persuade a small bird to leave the building. It entered by the window behind me, hovered by the whisky for a bit and settled on the shelf by Italy. It didn’t want to leave by the open front door, didn’t want to sit on the handle of the feather duster to be led out. Then visited France for a bit, before flying a few lengths of the shop and finally leaving by the window it arrived through (I hope, certainly not seen it since!). Not that we generally discourage visitors you understand, but I’m not sure our wine and food matching is up to be speed with greenfly, blackfly or birdseed. For the ornithologists amongst you it was a little brown one a bit smaller than a sparrow, not as small as a wren.
We’ve heard from the government and they’ve clearly decided that they’re fed up with us pointing out the confusion and contradictions in their guidance. Over 100 scientists have written a letter to suggest the government is now conducting “a dangerous and unethical experiment” but what- Ho; July 19th looks like it’ll be “freedom day” with remaining restrictions likely to be largely lifted. Those returning from “amber” countries will no longer have to isolate, you’ll be able to go to the bar and order a drink and finally we’ll all be able to go nightclubbing again. Please don’t fly in the back window though, it’s rather distracting.
In other news the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill was passed, considerably hindering the right to peaceful protest, particularly if you’re a bit noisy. Pritti Patel’s Nationality and Borders bill has been published. It seems to put us in opposition to the Law of the Sea that ships have a duty to assist those in distress by making it illegal for anyone to help asylum seekers by removing the clause “and for gain”. The RNLI has already been moved to defend itself. Of course, it was easy to miss this as all the press was talking about “freedom day”. An absolute coincidence I’m sure.
Well it could be coming home, we’ll find out for sure on Sunday, but in the meantime it has certainly set the postcode into the satnav in preparation. I’m talking, of course, about the England football team’s fine performance in getting to face Italy in the finals of the 2020 Euro at Wembley on Sunday. I might avoid Piccadilly Circus on Sunday evening if you’re in a hurry to get anywhere; it seemed slightly chaotic on Wednesday!
Meanwhile a state of emergency has been declared for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, meaning stadia will be empty of fans. That’s got to make quite a difference to the 15000 athletes expected to attend, we’ll all have to cheer encouragement through our TV sets, it seemed to work for the footie.
In proper sports the Tour de France has been playing an absolute blinder! We’ve had crashes, grown men crying, sprinters doing well in climbing stuff and unexpected people being sent home for wearing the slow legs on the wrong day. We have a man on the ground who tells us that the rosé is rather tasty on a hot day, and there are worse places to stay than the southern Rhône. We’ve shuddered on seeing that Vincenzo Nibali hit a speed of 107kmh descending from Ventoux! A lovely, wide, smooth road closed to traffic but 107 kmh! We have a mostly flat day today, 220km travelling through the glorious countryside from Nimes to Carcassonne, I wonder if that Cavendish fella might fancy it.
In wine news it has all kicked off in Russia. Champagne have fallen out with Russia in a labelling row, the term Champagne is heavily protected and legally defended as we all know. But last week Vladimir Putin signed a law saying that only sparkling wines produced in Russia can use the word “shampanskoye” on the front label. Comment was quick to emerge from Champagne that it was protected in 120 countries and this law change would result in a temporary suspension in shipments. I suspect as we speak new back labels are being printed, we’re all in sales after all!
In other wine news, Angeline Jolie has filed papers requesting an injunction be lifted so that she can sell her share of Nouvel LLC, the company that owns Chateau Miravel, the Provencal wine estate the couple bought in 2011. Seems she has a buyer lined up so no point putting a bid in!
We actually went to a wine tasting this week, almost a year since we last went to one, boy were we out of practice! I forgot how tiring it can be (cue the violins!) and having a personal spittoon means you’re always one hand short of the right amount, spittoon, glass and pen for tasting notes, yet just two hands! On the plus side we are now up to speed with several new vintages, have tasted a few new things that may well appear in a few months’ time and also caught up with chums from around the country.
I think that’s enough from us for this week.
Dare to believe!