Fellow Wine Lovers,
We have witnessed, over a good number of weeks, a lot of running happening. People passing the shop with a backpack on, clearly having run back from the office whilst others are settling in for a long run with a CamelBak on, the tube dripping down their arm as they pass. All this rather points to Sunday and the 2024 London Marathon. First run in 1981, the London Marathon has had over a million people run past the Cutty Sark, over Tower Bridge and raise their arms on The Mall!
This year chasing the spoils, we have the Women’s World Record holder, Tigist Assefa, the Olympic champion, Peres Jepchirchir, and Ruth Chepngetich the fourth fastest woman of all time. I’ve not seen the start list for Elite men but I’m sure we’ll be seeing a stellar line up as usual although probably without He Jie….
I have just read that the average man takes 55,374 paces and the average women 62,926. We’re not sure that tells the full story though, before you run a marathon you have to do a fair amount of training, with a long run each week that seems to get ever longer. That’s a lot of extra steps we’re adding there. Some of our longer standing readers may recall that we both ran the 2014 edition of the London Marathon we didn’t run much together in training but did one time run from here up to and around Hyde Park and back, and another time three laps of Richmond Park.
Lots of steps.
In the end, Wayne completed it in 4.27 and Alex in 4.40 having queued for 7 minutes for a comfort break at Tower Bridge. We raised over £3,000 for The Children’s Trust and each expended over 5000 calories. We enjoyed our pizza that evening, the stairs to the cellar on Monday morning? Not so much.
So, where am I going with all of this? Reader, I wish I knew. If you’re running the marathon this week enjoy it, all the hard work is done. Enjoy all the northern soul blasting out of the pubs you pass, the drummers, the cheers, the tears and the amazing sense of achievement that follows. You got this.
In other news, certainly for the older folk amongst us, it’s been known as a Snickers since 1990.
As unlikely as misinformation from us might be, I find I have to apologise for being a little bit early with my discussions on Record Store Day last week. Actually, it is happening this week, no, honestly, it really is. I am staying with my choices though. To remind you, I went for X-Ray Spex album ‘Germ Free Adolescents’ and Horace Andy with Sly and Robbie ‘Livin it Up’.
In UEFA news, Manchester City and Arsenal are both popping their passports back in the drawer for this season whilst West Ham and Liverpool get their Thursday evenings back. In the cricket, Essex top the Counties table but it is really rather early in the season.
Meanwhile, in proper sports, we say ‘chapeau’ to Stephen Williams who became the first British winner of La Fleche Wallonne. It was a really tough race with awful weather and even snow for much of it. ‘Chapeau’ also to Kasia Niewiadoma, who won the women’s edition.
This weekend sees the last of the Ardennes Classics with Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday where it’s difficult to see past Tadej Pogačar in the men’s race, the parcours suits him better than high flying Matthieu van der Poel, though Tom Pidcock seems to be in fine fettle too.
In the women’s race will Demi Vollering defend her title from last year? She certainly has the form but I’m hoping for a win for Pfeiffer Georgi who’s been so close in the last few. As always, watch out for seasoned campaigner Marianne Vos, she’s not known as the GOAT without reason.
To paraphrase a Fast Show character, this week we shall be mostly tasting Italy.
We’ll start off with Cà dei Frati ‘I Frati’ Lugana 2022 (£26.49). A random conversation with a customer about a fabulous wine he’d had at a client dinner reminded us of this wine. We re-tasted it, remembered why we loved it and puzzled over why we had forgotten about it. Why not come and see for yourself?
We’ll move onto Cantine Povero ‘Dianae’ Barbera d’Asti 2022 (£15.99) a rather fabulous red from the Piemonte. It’s a natural wine without the weird bits, being made without the addition of extra sulphites. Bang on with a spot of duck.
Lastly, having mentioned it last week, we couldn’t leave without sharing a bit of Lettuce’s book with you.
“I had become increasingly concerned that Britain’s judiciary had become a self-perpetuating oligarchy, Here was a group of similarly minded people from similar backgrounds who had a particular worldview and were resolute in protecting their own interests.”
How’s that for self-awareness?
Cheers!