Fellow Wine Lovers,
As you can imagine, we’d already penned most of this week’s missive when the news came in last night. We don’t have any pre-prepared statement for such an event; there are no precedents to go by; we don’t have any protocols in place to mark the passing of a much-loved monarch and as such, are significantly under-prepared – hence we will stick with the potent simplicity of Rest in Peace.
As mentioned, we’d already written most of the email yesterday and, having re-read it, we think it can still be sent out unchanged, however please don’t read on if today you’re not in the mood for our view of the world….
Here’s what we wrote yesterday afternoon:
The week in a nutshell:
Monday – Liz won the leadership race, although perhaps not by the huge margin we had been led to expect, whilst Rishi skedaddled to the backbenches to plot his return to the mainstage.
Tuesday – Boris, ever the narcissist, made up a farewell speech that none of us needed, before he skedaddled to the backbenches to plot his return. Oh, and Liz became PM.
Wednesday – first proper day in the job for the second Mrs T. PMQ’s came and went without any long words and the new cabinet was announced – you thought Boris’s last selections were the Dream Team; Liz has just gone further to the right. Skedaddling to the backbenches and hopefully not plotting a return are Priti, Dominic, Nadine and Grant. Oh, and Suella becomes Home Secretary – how on earth?
Thursday – fresh from receiving congratulations yesterday from Theresa May on becoming the third female PM, today Liz makes her out to be a liar. ‘There’s no magic money tree’ is what Theresa famously said in 2017 but, apparently, there is because, despite all the billions spent during the pandemic, the tree still has more than £100 billion left to be scrumped to cover her new energy policy. Oh, and fracking is back….
Friday – well, one can only assume she will broker peace in Ukraine, sit on inflation, stop the recession and the cost of living crisis by lunchtime, thus giving her enough time to read this email over her egg and cress before settling in for an afternoon watching La Vuelta a España with Wayne.
Meanwhile, moving north from Westminster and up to the Beavertown ‘craft’ brewery in Tottenham, we learn that founder, Logan Plant, has sensibly sold his remaining share of the company to Heineken, just before the costs of brewing go stratospheric. In 2018 he sold them 49% of the business for £40 million so we can only guess at what he’s been given this time – a lot we imagine and not a bad turn around for a business that was only set up in 2011.
Park Vintners was founded in 2010 and will happily consider offers in excess of £50 million.
However, until someone makes us an offer, it’s business as usual. Encouraged by the Heineken move, we decided to do some beer buying ourselves but rather than buy a brewery we just bought some cans. Two new lines appeared this week, guests if you like, we’ll see how you enjoy them:
The Park Brewery Birthday Pale Ale 4.3% – £4.00
What they say: For our eighth birthday celebration we decided to make the style of beer we love, a hazy, session strength pale, tropical and juicy, packed full of some of our favourite hops – Huell Melon, Citra BBC, Simcoe and Cryo Sabro.
The Park Brewery 1637 Pils 4.9% – £3.50
What they say: A deep golden Bohemian-style Pilsner beer. Munich, Pils and Carahell malts provide a smooth and sweet base for the noble spiciness of the Polish Magnum and Lubelski hops. Lagered for six weeks for a smooth and clean finish. And the name? Well, King Charles I enclosed the park in 1637 with an 8 mile perimeter wall forming his own deer park. This wall has helped to preserve the park until the present day.
At this point Wayne usually likes to put in a few pithy one liners about sport, particularly ‘real’ sport AKA cycling. So, I’ve been revising and have to say that with the sad departure of Roglic on Tuesday the race now looks to be done. That is unless something remarkable happens on Saturday according to Alberto Contador, who knows a thing or two about remarkable feats having cycled 20 km with a broken shin in the 2014 Tour de France. In football, I spent all day looking for Arsenal’s Championship League results but couldn’t find them anywhere…. Cricket is wet, as is the Wentworth PGA and the tennis is on Amazon Prime so no one really knows what’s going on there!
I think, poignantly, that this weekend is definitely a ‘raise a glass to absent friends’ weekend – we don’t sell Dubonnet or Krug which were, by all accounts, favoured tipples so let’s focus on the raising of the glass rather than its contents.
Here, we’ll be raising glasses of Wente Morning Fog Chardonnay 2020 – £17.99 and also Chateau La Tour de By 2014 – £27.99
Based in the Livermore Valley in California, Wente’s vineyards were founded in 1883 and are still owned and managed by the same family, 4 generations later. They were also one of the first to plant Chardonnay and one taste of this suggests they are doing a fine job. Crisp with fine elegant apple notes and a supporting touch of oak, bang on some grilled lobster! Meanwhile, in Bordeaux the 2014 La Tour de By is a gem. As Wine Enthusiast wrote:
“The Pagès family, which has a group of estates in the Médoc, has produced a rich, concentrated wine at this château. While packed with black currant fruit from the 60% Cabernet Sauvignon in the blend, it also has a firm layer of tannins that will allow it to age. Drink from 2021.” – 92/100
Sounds good to me.
I’ll leave you now with a quote attributed to the first Mrs T that for some reason feels appropriate: ‘Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t’.
Farewell to a class act.