Fellow Wine Lovers,
Before we go any further, a bit of admin to follow up the brief email we scrambled out mid-week.
Today, Friday 28th February, we will be shutting at the earlier time of 5pm.
As some of you may be aware, in fact some of you may even benefit from this, every year we help with the Kings College Quiz Night. By helping out, what we really mean is that we run the bars and sell wine to the local masterminds whilst providing a steady, overly confident stream of wrong answers to anyone who will listen…
Suffice to say, we apologise for any inconvenience this causes and we hope to remedy our absence by being here from noon on Saturday.
Admin done.
We’ll start with some quotes:
After more than 25 years in Wimbledon, we have made the heart wrenching decision to close… We have loved serving you, creating many wonderful memories… Thank you for being part of our amazing journey.
This was from the email sent out by The Lighthouse restaurant, on the Ridgeway, that closed its doors just over a week ago.
From our first shop on Northcote Road in 1991 to our Marylebone location and beyond, it has been an absolute joy to serve London’s wine lovers—whether in-store, online, or through our private client and En Primeur services… Sadly, increasingly challenging trading conditions and the additional complexities of Brexit have made it impossible for us to continue… It has truly been an unforgettable journey.
Another journey almost over, as one of the ‘original’ independents, Philglas & Swiggot, announced that it would close its doors in two weeks’ time.
Meanwhile, reports from the hospitality industry show that year on year sales in January were down 1.3% compared to January 2024. The comment from the consumer intelligence company providing these figures went:
…it shows many consumers remain hesitant about their spending, and while inflation has eased in some areas, business costs remain very high across the sector… energy price rises and the government’s planned changes to National Insurance thresholds and rates could hardly be coming at a worse time. Hospitality’s outlook is positive in the long run, but it deserves much better support than it is currently getting
Is there a point I’m trying to make here? Probably. I last went to The Lighthouse in July and had a wonderful evening remarking, as often one does, that we should go there more often and why hadn’t we been there for so long. And now we can’t. As the gym rats might say, if you don’t use it, you lose it.
Regarding Philglas & Swiggot, if you lived in Southwest London in the 1990’s it was the destination for any interesting wine. There was Vingt across the road for a few years, with the jeroboam of d’Yquem in the window (fake?) run by Attila, who eventually decided to deal solely with private clients and then there was Mike and Karen, on a one shop mission to gentrify Northcote Road. The road in the late 90’s and early 00’s didn’t resemble the Nappy Valley it has now become but P & S could definitely lay claim to being the first movers to see it’s potential. And now they’re closing, a sad end of an era….
So, go and give your local wine merchant a hug, even if he does decide to close at 5pm on a random Friday!
Elsewhere, I’m still serving the self-imposed ban on rattling on about the state of world politics and am even trying not to mention cycling too much. In other sports, we have rediscovered our ability to lose to everyone in the cricket and, whilst we did manage a win against Scotland in the rugby, the real question is did we win or did Finn Russell lose? Meanwhile, the our friends across the Severn Bridge have two things to celebrate tomorrow – the Feast of Saint David and a weekend without a 6 Nations defeat!
Back in our world of wine, it seems we’ve hit a bit of a low alcohol glitch. We rang our alcohol free sparkling supplier to discover they have delisted Belle & Co Brut but have kept the sweeter, less appealing, Rosé whilst our alcohol free beer, Loah, when we contacted them told us that they hadn’t brewed any beer so far this year and were:
currently perfecting our recipes and aim to brew in early spring, we don’t have a set date yet but happy to keep you updated on when our new range will go live
Looks like we’ll all have to drink full-fat then for a bit then, sorry. We do have an alcohol free red and white though, Contraseña, from Spain which ticks all the boxes…
However, this weekend (well Saturday mainly, sorry), we’ll be going full-fat, with a couple of old favourites from the USA, which is not a phrase that trips off the lips very often these days:
Vina Robles Viognier 2021 – £23.49 – this hails from Paso Robles in California, where the Pacific coastline unfolds into rugged ranch-lands and cowboy ambiance (and who doesn’t love a story with cowboy ambience?). This Viognier is planted in the highest part of the Huerhuero Vineyard benefitting from the cooling afternoon pacific breeze. Crisp and medium-bodied with peach and mandarin fruit with a long lively finish – really rather fabulous.
Vina Robles Cabernet Sauvignon 2020 – £26.99 – ‘Black cherry, mocha and vanilla cream aromas make for a satisfyingly lush nose on this estate bottling. A firm structure frames a very pure palate of roasted red fruit, vanilla cookie and toasty oak flavors, as generous spices push into the finish’ – Matt Kettmann – Wine Enthusiast
So, I think that’s it from us, it’s March tomorrow, the sun is out today, I think we’re going to make it!