Fellow Wine Lovers,
We thought we should start off this week by correcting some of the mistakes we’ve made in recent news letters. But let’s face it – nobody has that much time on a Friday. So, I’ll just ‘fess up to the fake news that that Lewis Hamilton is leaving Mercedes not McLaren as some of you read last week. Mercedes, McLaren, mistake and momentary madness all start with an ‘m’, as does muppetry.
This week Dishy Rishi has made impressive efforts to demonstrate the excellent judgement and political nous that makes him the perfect person to lead the country. This week’s achievements include blocking a pay deal with Junior Doctors whilst simultaneously blaming them for increased waiting lists at the NHS, having a tone deaf £1000 bet with Piers Morgan over the Rwanda policy and then capping it off with a cruel jibe at the expense of transgender people whilst Brianna Ghey’s mother was in parliament. Despite cries of ‘shame’ from all sides of the house he refused to apologise and is, a day later, refusing to apologise and blaming Kier Starmer for his problems.
Talking of Kier Starmer, after weeks of ‘will he, won’t he?’ the Labour leader has announced the party will be scaling back its £28 billion green prosperity plan by almost half. The main victim appears to be the home insulation plan, deemed expensive, despite everyone agreeing it to be a very effective and simple solution. I’m sure all the storms and flooding have created no extra cost and we’ll have to set nothing aside for future problems. Would it be nice if there were some politicians out here who’d engage in a grown up conversation with the electorate?
Over in Paris, the farmers are yet to starve the population that this correspondent thought lived mostly on coffee and cigarettes. We also learn that medals for this summer’s Olympics will contain iron from the Eiffel Tower. Before we all get over excited about the structural integrity of the iconic landmark let me reassure you that the metal was removed at its last refurbishment and stored in a secret warehouse for exactly this sort of thing. A nice touch we thought.
Kamila Vilieva, the Russian figure skater banned for four years in January blamed her positive doping test on her grandfather’s strawberry dessert. Apparently he had crushed his trimetazidine on the same chopping board he used to slice the strawberries. The Court for Arbitration in sport found this explanation was “not corroborated by any concrete evidence”. Strawberries marching up that superfood list!
Our man on the ground in Rome last week tells me the atmosphere was absolutely electric and the entire place was on their feet for the last Italian try. A word of caution though, the van outside the stadium that tempts you to get a beer for the walk back into town might be as expensive as the Ritz! For this week’s fixtures England host the Welsh at Twickers for Saturday’s late game. France will have visited Scotland in the earlier game and Italy will be in Dublin for some after show Guinness on Sunday.
As we move onto proper sports, the cycle road racing is edging closer, Tour of Columbia is underway, Mark Cavendish was third on stage one with Ferdinand Gaviria taking the stage and Davide Persico second. Oscar Sevilla, who raced in the Giro d’Italia that Marco Pantani won in 1998, is racing his 26th season at the age of 47 and was third on stage two! Omloop het Nieuwsblaad is traditionally the first World Tour race on European soil and is just 15 days away.
Tasting this Weekend
We thought we’d pay a visit to the Chablis region of France and our chums at Domaine Fournillon. This is a 23 hectare family run domaine situated in the small village of Bernouil, close to Chablis. They currently only bottle 10% of the production but are expanding to meet demand. The soil in the vineyard has a high sand content alongside the Kimmeridgian limestone and has managed to resist phylloxera and avoid the need for grafted rootstocks.
White wise we’ll naturally plump for the Chablis 2019 (£19.99) an absolute classic style with green apple and mineral notes, a lovely finish too.
Red we will open their Bourgogne Epineuil 2020 (£18.50). Epineuil is the name of a hill just opposite the Premier Cru vineyards of Tonnerre. It shares the same soil mixtures and where it was once well known for Pinot Noir rosé, the climate changes have meant that it has become a decent source of Pinot Noir more suitable for red wines as you can see with this example.
So, half term starts today, Lent starts next week and Valentine’s Day rolls in on Wednesday – you have been warned….
Bye for now!