Fellow Wine Lovers,
I’m sure we’ve all read how reasonably priced the game tickets for the World Cup are, perhaps some of us have actually topped up the mortgage and applied for some. This week the news reached us that the normally $12.90 New Jersey Transit to Metlife Stadium will cost $100 for journeys during the FIFA Fan Fleecing Festival whilst in Boston, the Massachusetts transit authority has raised the bus price to Foxborough’s Gillette Stadium from $20 to $90. Given that on normal match days these transit systems already carry stadium filling crowds, we couldn’t help but wonder what extra services are being offered for the extra fee. Would there be full trolley service, a full selection of fine wines, maybe a meatball sub? Answers on a postcard…
We’ve been listening to a few political podcasts lately, in a vain bid to try and understand what’s afoot in the world. I don’t know about you but we couldn’t help but notice that Overton Windows are getting a lot of bang for their buck in the mentions! Other than that, we don’t feel we’ve learnt a lot other than that our world is mostly run by slightly crazy people!
Amazon MGM were talking this week at trade show CinemaCon. For a company that four years ago spent the best part of £7 billion to buy the rights to the world’s most famous movie franchise, they seemed quite reluctant to address the elephant in the room. Five years ago, Agent 007 was dying from poisoning on a small island hit by a missile strike and we’re desperate to find out how he wriggled out of that one but given they are asking for more time, clearly they don’t know how he wriggled out of it either! In short, we still have no idea who the new Bond is. We’re willing to wager it is neither of us, though we did wonder if Peter Mandelson might get the job as the baddie.
We’ve read a few articles this week that felt almost like April Fool stories. It started off with the Cancer Researcher trialling beer made with vaccinated yeast that triggers antibodies that may protect against bladder cancer. Then we moved swiftly on to footwear, as we discovered that footwear brand Allbirds plans to pivot from making sustainable comfortable footwear to ‘AI compute infrastructure’ and will also change its name to NewBird AI. This news sent the share price up 580%, which to us sounded a bit like a mania. We are changing our names to NewAlex AI and NewWayne AI in a bandwagon jumping hope to improve our fortunes quicker than a lottery ticket. For the avoidance of doubt and in the interests of transparency NewWayne AI is in no way connected with any company that manufactures petrol pumps.
In wine news, both Symington and Kopke have announced 2024 to be a declared vintage for port this week whilst in Bordeaux we start the ‘En Primeur’ campaign of one of the smallest vintages since the early 1990’s. The quality is apparently rather good but we would suggest caution and a ‘buyer beware’ approach as prices over the last five vintages have fallen from their release price by an average of around 15%. You may well get a cheaper opportunity once the wine is bottled.
We’ve got some new white wines in this week. Bischöfliche Weinguter Dom Riesling 2022 (£18.99) is a rather tasty off-dry style from Trier on the Mosel; De Jardins Gascogne 2024 (£12.99) is a medium-bodied, crisp, dry white from the talented Plaimont Co-operative in the south west of France.
We also welcomed onto our shelves Rippa Dorii Verdejo 2024 – £15.99 whichis a splendid example from Rueda an is organic to boot! In fact, why don’t we open it this weekend so that you can all have a taste. Its stablemate, Rippa Dorii Crianza 2022 – £17.99 is made 100% Tinta del Pais (Tempranillo) grapes from a number of different plots near Fuentecén, at 900m altitude in Ribera del Duero. On the nose we have aromas of bramble fruit, vanilla, nutmeg and sweet spice whilst the palate is rich and complex with blueberry and blackberry fruit, ripe tannins and good length – lip-smackingly good.