Fellow Wine Lovers,
Welcome back.
Shorts are back in the drawer and shirts have been ironed. Daily swims are a thing of the past, whilst the fantasy of building your own 25m piscina in the back garden fades into the gloaming once the real cost of heating it without the help of the sun makes your eyes pop. On the plus side, imagine all the money you have saved that you can now spend on wine!
Whilst you’ve been gone we’ve re-arranged the shop so that everything is a bit confusing and seemingly misplaced for now, please ask Alex for directions to the fridges. Wimbledon Park has now been renamed Park Vintners Park and we’re going to be changing the name of watery area, effective immediately, to Lake Park Vintners – we also have intention to annex the greenland surrounding the lake, for strategic purposes, with a view to renaming it Park Vintners Park Golf Club which is what everyone wants. If you think about it, we now have a park and we have a lake. Now, all we need is tennis courts. So, maybe we’ll have to change the name of the AELTC…
Keir Starmer stopped being PM on 20th July and has now decided to stop being an MP too; we imagine he will write some sort of memoir, his version of Ten Years to Save the West, perhaps? As long as we finally find out what his Dad’s job was, we’ll be satisfied!
Parliament also welcomed back NF on Tuesday, fresh from his famous victory over Count Binface in Clacton last month. He barked at a few people, got into trouble for filming himself on the roof of the Palace of Westminster and then scuttled off to Birmingham for the Reform Annual Conference. Maintaining their mixed message on defending freedom of speech, 3 journalists were banned from attending, significantly Anna Isaac who broke the undeclared £5 million donation story which led to the silly summer shenanigans. Good news is, there will always be another journalist investigating away, as Dan Jukes and Jame Orr have just discovered.
Richard Tice is not concerned.
Elsewhere, football we no longer talk about. Rugby starts tomorrow but only at top level because, frankly, it’s too dangerous at grass roots (if you can find any amongst the dust). Wayne has plenty to say about the Tour of Britain and La Vuelta, particularly now Tadej has decided to de-bike himself and broken his collarbone in so doing. Cricket has managed to stay sober for a week now too, which is a new record we believe. Sales of Botham wines in Arthur Road are still buoyant though, thanks to the aforementioned leather and willow sport.
And Ski Sunday has been cancelled – we’ve noticed it’s been going downhill for a longtime now and that the presenters were very often noticeably frosty – we’re told there are more jokes available if anyone wants to join in…
And now to wine. No new news here, personally I’m still chuckling about the Majestic/Sainsbury’s/Bollinger debacle from last week, which will take a bit of beating. A weekend that doesn’t immediately suggest rose is a rare treat of late, so let’s carpe diem and open a couple of brand new arrivals (landed today).
From the people that bring us our Grillo, Nero d’Avola and my favourite Orange wine, we have now taken on their Chardonnay, to replace the no longer available Chatelain Desjacques offering. Sibiliana Sensale Chardonnay 2025 – £12.99 of course comes from Marsala, Sicily. The wine is fully Organic and has spent its childhood in stainless steel rather than oak, giving us delicious hints of mango and papaya accompanied by pleasant floral notes and a nicely structured palate with a marked freshness.
The new red comes from our chums at Cave de Gigondas whose Terrissimo Beaumes de Venise 2024 – £20.00 joins their Vacqueyras on the shelf. 65% Grenache and 35% Syrah this is just pure indulgence. A beautifully complex, full-bodied wine with tight tannins and red fruit notes that should appeal to everyone!
Finally, in their wisdom TFL have taken over all the parking on our stretch of Arthur Road (23 bays) from today until Monday and 10 bays on The Crescent for ‘rail works’ and thus the District Line is closed between Edgware Road and Wimbledon all weekend. Whilst it’s nice to think they are going to fix all the issues that make the line go down almost weekly, it would have been nicer if they’d scheduled the works for August, before the football season starts (Fulham at home tomorrow) and when they could have parked all over SW19 whilst everyone was away rather than now… might be a good time to remind you all that we offer free local deliver if you want 6 bottles or more because you might struggle to park!
And that’s it. Walk on up, have a taste, book a delivery – we’ll be here!