Fellow Wine Lovers,
We find ourselves arriving at Friday with slightly drier clothes and shoes than last week and a sunnier outlook.
The UN has published the 6th report by the International Panel on Climate Change and it makes for some grim reading. The words “unprecedented” and “irreversible” are not necessarily what you want to see connected with the human influence on global warming. Our TV screens have been filled with pictures of flash flooding around the UK as we have days where a week or month’s rainfall has dropped out of the sky in minutes, repeatedly. We’ve even had customers pop in the shop looking like they’ve just got out of a bath with their clothes on when all they did was walk 100 yards from the Co-Op.
Meanwhile, Greece, Turkey, Siberia, Canada and California are all struggling with wild fires. The Stockholm Climate Conference of 1972 identified many of the problems; we had the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 1992 and the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 saw representatives of 150 nations attend and adopt the first international treaty to control and reduce greenhouse gases. In 2015, in Paris, attendees from 196 countries negotiated the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. In Glasgow, in November, the UK will be hosting COP26 Climate Conference. Nearly 50 years after the first conference, delegates from all over the world will be flying into Glasgow to have a chinwag about how awful everything is getting.
There will be some tough decisions made, developing countries will be exempted, a piece of paper will be signed and many column inches and hours of news will be devoted to the impending success of the chat. I can’t help but think that perhaps Zoom, Teams, or an equivalent might be a little less taxing on the environment? We’ve been talking for nearly 50 years; perhaps some action might be just the ticket?
Whilst we’re talking about flying, Lionel Messi flew into Paris this week. We saw him announcing, through floods of tears, how heartbroken he was to have been unable to compromise on his near £600k a week salary demands whilst the club he has been at for 18 years suffers a little financial difficulty. I guess that first £300 million didn’t go as far as expected!
Whilst we’re shooting the breeze about cash, a chap working at the British Embassy in Berlin named as David Smith has been arrested by the German police for selling secrets to the Russians for cash. It is unclear at the moment if he was wearing a beige Macintosh or if the cash was hidden in a folded newspaper.
Staying on the subject of David’s, “River Dave” a chap who has lived off the grid in New Hampshire for thirty years was rueing the fact that he’ll be unable to return to life as a hermit after his cabin was burned down last week. Having been jailed last month for contempt on a civil case (a timely word of caution there surely!), he was freed by a judge after the fire and has received over 20 offers of places to stay since.
It seems “ Call me Dave” Cameron who earned £7 million from his help at Greensill Capital may be in another spot of bother after a genetics company he worked for, Illumina, was awarded an £123 million government contract after he intervened on their behalf with Matt Hancock. In unrelated news, it seems that Nadhim Zahawi has learnt enough as vaccine minister to be tipped as a replacement to Gavin Williamson at Education.
In wine news, not a lot seems to be going on; grapes are getting riper in Europe, whilst the vines are enjoying the last month or so of their winter sleep in New Zealand and Australia. We had a chat with Rachel and Jonathan at Domaine Treloar this week who are based down in Trouillas, south of Perpignan. The sun is shining and tourist season has just started so they are receiving visitors, so should you find yourself down in that part of the world, do look them up!
Talking of wine, we received our allocation of the rather wonderful 100% Pinot Noir Cuvée from Bollinger this week. It is based on the 2016 vintage (50%), with reserve wines back as far as 2006. Made entirely from Pinot Noir with the grapes predominantly from the village of Verzenay, Bollinger PNVZ16 (£85) is the second interpretation of what will become a regular series highlighting the wonderful Pinot Noir plots that Bollinger own.
We’ll open Cantine Povero Roero Arneis (£14.99), a cracking white wine from Piemonte with some stonefruit and apple character a touch of that classic almond note in the finish. Cantine Povero has around 35 hectares and the entire estate is farmed organically.
Charging the red glass will be Herdade do Portocarro Autocarro 27 Red (£12.99) a cracking red from Setubal, that is a blend of Aragonez, Touriga Nacional, Cabernet Sauvignon and has lovely plum fruits on the nose and easy going palate with smooth tannins and a nice freshness that is versatile with all suits of food.
That’s enough from us for this week, do come and have a taste!
Cheers!