Fellow Wine Lovers,
Welcome back! I see you’ve bought the traffic and am certainly hoping that the sunshine is just lagging behind a little?
As Alex returns from enjoying the hospitality of the Greeks, and with Wayne about to head off and enjoy the hospitality of the Italians, we thought we could have a chat about the Corfu incident. This happened at this time of year, exactly 100 years ago and was a diplomatic and military crisis between Greece and Italy.
An Italian General, Enrico Tellini, was heading a commission to settle a border dispute between Greece and Albania but was sadly murdered, along with two of his staff officers, whilst on Greek territory.
Benito Mussolini issued an ultimatum to Greece, which they declined to totally fulfil. In the kind of rational reaction and proportional response that you might expect of a great statesman, Mussolini sent 3 battleships, 4 cruisers, 6 destroyers, 2 torpedo boats, 4 torpedo armed motor boats, 2 submarines, 1 airship, numerous aircraft and between 5-10,000 soldiers to bombard and occupy Corfu, which was defended by a Greek garrison of 150. As a result of the bombardment 16 civilians were killed and 30 injured, whilst Mussolini made a speech decrying the Greeks for not understanding that Corfu had been Venetian for four hundred years before becoming a part of Greece in 1864. Personally, I think Benito might have cherry picked his historical data.
Talking of rational reactions and proportional responses, Charles Mullins OBE this week was suspended from Twitter for saying that “someone should kill” Sadiq Kahn, following the expansion of the Ultra-Low Emissions Zone. Perhaps everyone should take a deep breath of that less polluted air and calm down a little?
In other news, we’ve had a bit of a Cabinet reshuffle after Ben Wallace resigned as Defence Secretary. He has been replaced by Grant Shapps, a man so talented he has been a minister at almost every department.
He started at Housing in 2010, then in 2012 moved to Without a Portfolio before becoming Under Secretary of State in 2015, followed almost instantly by International Development from May till November 2015. Over to Transport in 2019 until the wheels came off in September 2022. It took a mere 6 days for him to have mastered the Home Office brief and then the former photocopier salesman became Minister for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Before you could say ‘glacial melt’ he was Minister for State Energy Security and Net Zero where he’s been since February. Now he’s mixing with the big guns at Defence.
Claire Coutinho has become Energy Security and Net Zero having learnt all about it whilst Under Secretary at Education. She is the sixth person in the job since 2019, so please rest assured that Energy and Net Zero are being taken really seriously.
On the subject of Education, over 100 schools may end up relocating children and closing buildings if they have been built with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. This follows a report in June assessing the risk of injury or death from a school building collapse as “very likely and critical”. Scary stuff!
In Africa, Gabon suffered a coup this week as Ali Bongo was placed under house arrest by his own Presidential guard. He and his father have ruled Gabon for the best part of 50 years. That’s eight successful Coup d’états in Africa in the last three years, let’s hope Grant Shapps isn’t getting any ideas!
If you’ve not been following La Vuelta, let’s just say it’s been a little on the crazy side. Standing water and slippery roads as Barcelona’s first rain in weeks covered the Team Time Trial; Kaden Groves becomes the first person ever to win back to back stages and then Jay Vine, my tip for King of the Mountains, crashing and leaving the race on the first proper mountain stage. Will Mr Groves get another sprint win today? It’s still the first week!
Tasting This Weekend
We’ll kick off the red corner with Monte Tondo Corvina 2022 (£15.49) Monte Tondo is a family estate located in the beautiful hillside vineyards of Soave. This is a new wine to us, a lovely red with a bright and lively nose showing fresh cherry, black berry and black pepper hints. It is medium-bodied with a lovely freshness and supple, well-integrated tannins.
Whilst wandering around looking rather suave in the white t-shirt will be Domaine Belleville Rully 1er Cru Chapitre 2020 (£38) – Winemaker Charles thinks that moving to organic farming over the last few years has really improved the freshness in the wines. We certainly loved this with its nose of smoky, creamy citrus notes. The palate is crisp and dry, with a white flower note on the aroma front, whilst the palate is rich with ripe orchard fruit and a creamy, nutty character into an impressive finish.
And with that, I’m gone – happy holiday to me!