Fellow Wine Lovers,
Happy bank holiday weekend everybody, grab your brollies. Wayne has been scouring the web for good news and can confirm a reasonable amount of consistency in the forecasting:
AccuWeather
- Saturday – increasing cloudiness, 21°
- Sunday – a shower in the area in the morning; otherwise, clouds giving way to some sun, 20°
- Monday – partly sunny, 18°
BBC
- Saturday – sunny intervals and light winds, 21°
- Sunday – light rain showers and a gentle breeze, 20°
- Monday – drizzle and a gentle breeze, 17°
Met Office
- Saturday – sunny, changing to cloudy in the afternoon, 21°
- Sunday – cloudy, changing to light showers by late morning, 20°
- Monday – sunny changing to cloudy by lunchtime, 18°
Weather.com
- Saturday – generally sunny despite a few afternoon clouds, 21°
- Sunday – cloudy with occasional showers, 19°
- Monday – partly to mostly cloudy, 17°
If we all keep in mind that our resident Michael Fish is having a barbecue on Monday then I would suggest that you mow the lawn on Saturday and book cinema tickets for the rest of the break.
Speaking of brollies, there seems to be a shortage in Downing Street. The forlorn footage of a drenched and solitary Prime Minister announcing the General Election on Wednesday was made more pitiful when we considered that he couldn’t find anyone prepared to hold an umbrella over him, not even Akshata? I would imagine that someone threw in a towel as he went back inside though.
Elsewhere, we read on Wednesday that Cazoo, the online car retailer, had called in the administrators. Never quite sure why you’d buy a car sight unseen but by all accounts this was a popular way of doing things during the covid years. Anyway, they were valued at £5 billion in 2021 but apparently never made a profit. Never made a profit? In 2020 they made £99 million in losses; in 2021 they made £542 million in losses; in 2022 they made over £700 million in, you’ve guessed it, losses; in 2023 they sold a large chunk of debt for equity and in 2024 they fold.
Alex Chesterman, the founder, sold £100 million of shares in 2021, so he’s alright.
Thames Water has debts of over £15 billion, largely thanks to the previous owners taking too much money out of the business before selling it. South West Water also has persistent pre-tax losses on one hand, whilst offering a a £127 million dividend to shareholders with the other, and poisoning the residents of Brixham with another.
Susan Davy, CEO of South West Water’s parent company, has yet to confirm whether she will be taking her bonus this year but she does know that she won’t have to explain the parasite outbreak to MP’s thanks to parliament being dissolved before she’s due to meet with them, so she’s alright.
Everyone’s favourite priest, Paula Vennells, earnt over £5 million in her time running things, very badly, at the Post Office, so she’s alright too.
It sometimes feels that being a debt averse independent wine retailer doesn’t reward success as much as other industries reward failure but then, neither of us went to business school so we don’t know what we don’t know!
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium takes delivery of its first (and probably last) pieces of silverware this weekend but obviously not for anything football related. The Champions Cup and Challenge Cup finals, for rugby union, are both taking place in north London and Tottenham are hosting. With Gloucester being the only English team involved in this, we’ll all be donning Jonny May facemasks for one last time and hoping the cherry and whites have put behind them the 90-0 drubbing by Northampton 2 weeks ago! Not even Spurs have lost that badly on this ground…
Wayne, throwing caution to the wind, has intimated that he feels there is a possibility that Tadej Pogacar might just have enough to win the Giro d’Italia. Unless he falls off. In which case, he will probably still go on and win it. You heard it here first. For other tips, he’s offering the prospect of the FA cup ending up in Manchester this weekend and the Champions League being decided on goals scored….
Not much booze news this week – we’ve got a few new wines in the pipeline but we can tell you more about those next time but in the meantime, what shall we taste this weekend?
We’ve decided to go a little esoteric today, so we will open a wine from Romania and a wine from Crete.
Cramele Recas Solara Orange – £14.99
This Romanian estate is owned by Englishman Philip Cox and his wife Elvira. Their immaculate vineyards, in mountainous terrain, are a combination of evolved plantings from 1447 and much more recent plantings too. A natural minimal intervention wine, it is made by leaving the grape skins and seeds in contact with the pressed juice, creating a deep orange-hued finish. The wine ferments naturally without the addition of yeasts, sulphur or any other additions. The nose exhibits quince, Poire William and a hint of vanilla. A complex and structured palate, it is elegant with discreet fruit flavours of stone fruits, backed up with a complexity and long, balanced finish, incredibly fresh.
Domaine Lyrarakis Kotsifali 2021 – £16.99
Yep, it’s this super winery in Crete again – they make ideal wines for summer drinking we reckon, so let’s ignore the weather reports above and pretend it’s blazing sunshine out there! One of the Queens of Cretan grape varieties, Kotsifali is indisputably a classic of the island, offering spicy red fruits, an elegant mouthfeel and a piquant aftertaste which makes it a deliciously fresh drop, not too weighty and seriously good with lamb kleftiko or a bit of fried saganaki.
That’s probably enough from me for now – as I write, 76 Tory MP’s have said they aren’t going to stand for re-election in July, 7 since Wednesday afternoon – really not sure Rishi has enough umbrellas for this deluge!