Fellow Wine Lovers,
When Rishi Sunak made his first address as Britain’s Prime Minister, he vowed to lead a government of “integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.” He now joins Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, former Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Henry Smith MP, Scott Benton MP, David Mundell MP, Christopher Pincher MP and Steve Brine MP on the investigations list of the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. *
The Oxford Dictionary suggests integrity (noun) – the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles
*In an update to this, Dominic Raab has resigned today. If you read his resignation letter, it’s a real “sorry, not sorry” example and I’m not convinced he feels any contrition or even much acceptance of the findings of the enquiry.
With no comment from us, the latest blog post on Ofwat’s website starts… “Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.” This old proverb was quoted recently in a discussion about trust in the water sector in England and Wales.
It’s the London Marathon on Sunday. Since its inception in 1981, it has become an event that has inspired so many people to take up running, give up running, take up charity or volunteer work or become fancy dress experts. Alex has run it twice, Wayne joined in for one of them in 2014 though we didn’t manage to meet till the end, but definitely felt we’d earned a beer and pizza that evening. We know many of you have run it and that several of you will be running it this year. A friend of Wayne’s is running her 10th , and final, London Marathon this year for Haven’s Hospices, so if you’ve some spare cash down the back of the sofa you can donate here… Havens Hospices – JustGiving. Or perhaps the Lifeboats, because you never know when you might need saving and you’ll have the added bonus that it so upsets Suella and Nigel RNLI – Royal National Lifeboat Institution – JustGiving . Best wishes and good luck to all runners, the hard work is behind you and the cheers, smiles and jelly babies will power you round like a magic carpet. But don’t use a magic carpet obviously, that’d be like getting in a car on an ultramarathon!
As we move into Record Store Day, we have exciting news on the music front: Everything But The Girl have a new album out today. ‘Fuse’ is their first album since 1999’s ‘Temperamental’ and has gained a 5 star Album of the Week review from The Guardian. Wayne ordered a copy on hearing the first track and reckons it’s definitely worth a listen on this weekend’s new tunes rotation.
Truth be told we’re probably pretty poor at our jobs, you’ve all signed up to hear about wine and in return we give you poor takes on sport, tin-pot political views and mostly rubbish horseracing tips. That all changes today as we’ve got some new wines coming in or just arrived.
Funkstille Grüner Veltliner 2022, Niederösterreich, Austria (£13.99) is a cracking new member in our Austrian corner and is a classy, crisp dry white with pear fruit, citrus and melon notes and a great dry finish.
Chateau de l’Aumerade Marie Christine 2022, Côtes de Provence Cru Classé (£17.99 or 6 for £90). Everybody’s favourite rose arrived yesterday, crisp, dry and as elegant as always.
Solevari Reserve Feteasca Neagra 2017, Recas, Romania (£12.99) from the same stable as the ever popular Orange wine, this was a bit of a find. We tasted it a couple of weeks back and were rather taken with it. Spicy black pepper framing black berry fruit character, a hint of cherry, maybe even a bit Pinot Noiry, medium bodied and great value was what we wrote down.
Las Tres Filas Mencia 2020, Bierzo, Spain (£15.99). We’ve been looking for one of these since our last one went missing in action, unable to survive the combined problems of Brexit and Covid. As you’d expect from this north western part of Spain, silky in the mouth, medium bodied with dark fruits and just the ticket with some lamb chops, grilled tuna or some aged hard sheep cheese!
Another one that snuck onto the shelves a few weeks ago and that we’ll be opening this weekend. Dom Cabernet Sauvignon 2015, Valle del Maipo, Chile (£31) is an absolute stunner from the smart folks at Tabalí. Apart from being a smashing resignation gift for all your friends called Dominic, it is from one of Chile’s finest sites for Cabernet Sauvignon. Lovely cassis fruit, soft tannins with cedar and star anise notes providing a framework to that cassis character is what we reckon, have a taste yourself and tell us what you think.
On the white front, we’ll give that Funkstille Grüner Veltliner mentioned above a go shall we?
That’ll be us for another week, do come and taste the new wines and have a fabulous weekend!