Fellow Wine Lovers,
“Wow!” said Alex, “I’m glad I don’t have to write the email this week” before tucking into a bag of kindly donated Haribo’s with his morning coffee.
We’ll start on this side of the pond. Kemi Badenoch turned out to be the most popular/least unpopular* candidate to lead the Conservative party. One wag wondered if this was one of those gifts that Labour should be declaring. Maybe/Maybe Not*. (*delete as appropriate)
We think we’ll be in for a bumpy ride as she fires one-liners across the despatch box at Kier Starmer. This week has been all action, so she’s had her first go. In our opinion she’ll need to get a bit better. Suggesting, as the fourth leader of her party in five years, that Kier Starmer will be a one term leader seems a little high on the hubris scale. Kier Starmer’s comment: “If she’s going to complain about scripted answers, it’s probably best not to read that from a script.” Nailed it for us!
Next on the agenda is Trumpolina becoming the 47th President. Now, in 2016 we could forgive the result as the Americans didn’t know what their vote was getting them. Not this time, they know fully what they’re getting and still chose it! Oh how we love the wonders of democracy, eh? For the benefit of doubt the USA has a population of 330 million to choose from and electing the lying Orange Man Baby is still, apparently, the best option.
Look out folks, those tariffs won’t cut inflation. The economy grew more quickly under Biden’s administration than Trump’s and Elon Musk has plenty to do without being in charge of the White House sinks. We’re looking forward to enormous, lovely crowds at the inauguration. Beautiful crowds, the best anyone has seen.
Germany, not wanting to feel left out, has decided this is the perfect time to collapse its Government. This is all going so well, I’m starting to wonder if Miranda is pulling all the strings. Such fun!
All jokes aside, according to FT research, globally every governing party that has faced an election this year has lost vote share, the first time that has ever happened.
In other news, we found ourselves stroking our chins at a rather tongue-in-cheek remark that maybe Boris Johnson should be made Ambassador to Washington. If only he could be trusted to work in our, rather than his interests, that might not be quite so mad as it sounds…
Sports wise, it’s been better to be a European club supporter than a British one this week, with only Celtic, Liverpool and Manchester United managing wins.
In Saudi Arabia’s Al-Jawf region they experienced a new weather phenomenon, snow. No, you didn’t misread that. Saudi Arabia, on Saturday had snow in the desert for the first time in history. This year of perfectly normal weather just keeps on giving, doesn’t it?
Time for a glass of wine me thinks.
We’ll visit Spain to start off and pull the cork on a bottle of Valenciso Blanco 2023 (£24.99). One of our favourite Rioja producers, this is a blend of Viura and Garnacha Blanco and fermented and aged in Caucasian oak barriques. Soft and complex, this is delish!
Red wise, we’re taking an excursion to Bordeaux. We’ll pull a cork on Chateau Saransot-Dupré 2016, Listrac Médoc (£23). The estate has been owned by the Raymond family since 1756 and was declared the Best Cru Bourgeois Estate in 2017, the first Listrac estate to be awarded the honour. It’s a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Carménère and is drinking really rather nicely just now.
That brings us to the end of this week’s missive. Play the long game, don’t give up and be nice to someone. It might not be great in elections but we all know that real life is so different!