Fellow Wine Lovers,
It’s been a long week already and, according to Alex, it’s still only Friday morning.
It began slowly on Monday as we cleared away all the tickertape, bunting and crushed flags left by the ecstatic England Rugby and Football fans after Saturdays International Double Header. Fans young and old had thronged the streets until the early hours, singing and dancing good naturedly whilst celebrating our nations sporting prowess – not a bad thing was said about either team, not a single word of advice or criticism and certainly no one had an opinion on the innovative use of the up-and-under that goes backwards….
Tuesday saw Alex turning his teeth into tannin strainers as he put his palate on the line helping to judge at the International Wine Challenge. If you buy a wine at Christmas that has a Gold Medal on it and you don’t like it, he’s the one to blame! Apparently he tasted and wrote notes on 106 wines over the day and still managed to hop on the bus home without losing his footing, so perhaps he is the one deserving a medal.
Wednesday saw us split up, unable to confer but both able to use quality material from Wayne’s Joke Book as we ran tastings on opposite sides of Wimbledon. Hopefully the good people at Wimbledon High School were as happy with their evening as the fine folk from Wimbledon Park Primary School. Were they laughing with us or at us?
Thursday, perhaps as a result of Wednesday, saw sore heads in a number of school playgrounds and the first proper cold day in the shop. Brilliant. It did help to ensure that the Christmas Cheese and Wine tasting we held here last night was suitably festive and that everybody left with a nose like Rudolph’s! Can thoroughly recommend the Krohn’s Colheita 1995 – keeps the cold out and matched all the cheeses beautifully.
And now we bump into Friday and recognise him for what he is – the end of the week. Write an email, sell some wine, look forward to another barnstorming performance at Twickenham on Saturday and perhaps more excitingly, anticipate the Women’s football at Wembley on Sunday, England v Germany , should be a stonker! Shame there’s no public transport working…
Oh and we’re off to the Sloaney Pony tonight to taste the launch of a new Sambrook’s beer – how cool are we?!
So tell me, what did you get up to??
Tastings
As mentioned before, these are all sold out until Christmas. In the New Year we take a few weeks off before we jump back in at the end of January with our six week wine course. If you have someone in your household who keeps on saying
‘you know what, I wish I knew more about wine because every time I go out to dinner I find myself ordering the same thing and I’m getting REALLY BORED of it!!!!!’
Then stick our flier under their nose and riposte:
‘look, here’s your chance to swim with the big fish, to explore your potential, expand your horizons and also learn the difference between Shiraz and Syrah! Plus you get the chance to go out on a Wednesday night, have a couple of glasses of wine and mark it down as education – who ever thought you could do lessons in drinking like an expert! If you don’t do it, I will and you can look after the kids….’
So toss a coin, have an arm wrestle, run a race – do whatever it is you do in your household to win arguments and then sign up for the course. Alternatively hire a babysitter and both come.
Flier is attached with more substance and detail; suffice to say it is quite a popular Christmas gift…
Introducing Wasmund’s
Whilst we are talking of Christmas presents, these are awesome:
Wasmund’s Barrel Kit™ provides a uniquely creative opportunity for the casual or professional mixologist, the creative aspiring chef, or the true whisky connoisseur. Read more…
The kits include: Two-liter charred American White Oak mini-barrel and two 700ml bottles of Wasmund’s Single Malt Spirit.
These lines are lifted from their website but to put it in our words, how do you fancy making your own Whisky? You get a little wooden barrel to age it in and the raw spirit to make it and the rest is up to you. You probably might want to season the barrel first, I know Wayne is muttering about buying some Pedro Ximenez sherry to give it some character and then you stick the spirit in and age away.
£120 buys you the kit and sets you well on the way to becoming the next Glen Morangie!
Other Spirits
If life is too short for DIY then we do of course have pre-made Whisky too, nestled between the Amaretto, Gin and Vodka, just above the Kummel.
Black Ship 5 year Old £22.49 – distilled, blended and bottled in Scotland this is delicious. A blend of sweeter grain whisky and heavier pungent malts gives it some proper gravitas. The Malts hail from the Highlands and the Islands and are all a bit older than stated, giving it a really satisfying rounded character.
Actually we’re sure it’s the booty from a sunken ghost ship that washed ashore in Ullapool but surprisingly have no supporting evidence.
Old Reserve Finlaggan Islay Single Malt £29.99 – the best sales tool we have for this is the quote from Jim Murray’s Whisky Bible 2007:
‘BRILLIANT,…. this is simply awesome. If you don’t get a bottle of this, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!’
Ardbeg ‘Uigeadail’ £60 – Smoky, brooding and unique. Silky and complex with smoked winter spices, coffee, warm cake and a touch of Montecristo Cigar. Christmas afternoon, bottled. The name is specifically formulated combination of letters designed to make English people feel stupid when they try to pronounce it and is in fact the local term for bampot.
Or perhaps it’s named after the Loch that provides the peaty water that brings the classic Ardbeg character but that sounds completely outlandish to me.
The Coopers Choice Glenrothes 1997 £69.69– bottled in 2014, 16 years old, from Speyside and from a batch of just 300 bottles, this is all a bit special. Lovely dollops of cream on the nose, an appealing smooth sweetness and some delicious dark fruits on the palate. When things got quiet for the Eagles and Van Halen in the 90’s, Glenn Frey and Dave Lee Roth decided that whisky could perhaps provide the financial security they were seeking and this beauty was born.
The Coopers Choice Port Charlotte 2002 £62.49 – bottled in 2014, 9 years old, from Islay and from a batch of just 330 bottles. A heavy peated Bruichladdich with tones of butterscotch, cream and violets in the background, some medicinal TCP, a really nice mouthfeel with some sweetness in there that makes it really, really attractive – clean, rounded edges and a lingering finish. You can thank the warbling, Welsh wonder-woman, Charlotte Church, for this one!
So, that’s about it from us this week except to mention that this evening Alex will be opening the Reyneke Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2013 £13.89 a tasty organic blend from South Africa chased up by Moulin des Chenes 2012 £13.99 from Lirac which is just to the west of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a classic Rhone blend which in essence means it’s delicious.
A number of people are starting their Thanksgiving celebrations this weekend so stock up on Californian Pinot Noir I say, and give thanks that Prohibition is over!
Slàinte mhor a h-uile là a chi ‘s nach fhaic!