Fellow Wine Lovers,
Congratulations to all of you who ignored Wayne’s sporting tips last weekend – you must have made a fortune – how about treating yourself to a bottle of wine. For us, money on Oxford in the boat race yielded little return, likewise Lewis Hamilton’s victory in China; Soll and Druid’s Nephew lost you your stake, and if you went with Lee Westwood or Bubba Watson in the Masters, well they finished tied 46 and tied 38 respectively.
Helpful suggestions from the West Country just helped to remind us that punditry is a skilled job. The recommendation was that we put good Park Vintners money on a horse named Al Co (not sure why that name struck a chord) at 25-1 last Saturday in the National. Now falling at the first hurdle is one thing, however, unseating the rider so that he goes over the first hurdle first is downright rude!
The silver lining here is that we can lose money on him again tomorrow as he is fit enough to be running (if he decides that’s what he fancies doing) in the Scottish Grand National at Ayr!
So we’re broke. Our side bet of Kevin Pietersen being the next England Test Captain still looks outrageous, but not that outrageous, whilst we try and work out whether they should risk sacrificing Joe Root’s form by burdening him with captaincy or give Stuart Broad the poisoned chalice for the summer with a view to appointing new blood post the Ashes thrashings.
There, that’s our blog for Racing Post done; time to get the wine email written.
What’s news in the world of wine?
The spraying of Mumm Champagne after the Grand Prix has filled more column inches this week than perhaps warranted; Bordeaux en-primeur continues to provide plenty of scope for fence sitting as the consensus seems to be that it’s not a poor vintage but not a great one. Its greatness will be decided by sensibly the Chateaux price the best vintage since 2010, which is damning it with faint praise considering how ordinary ‘11, ‘12 and ‘13 were.
Oh, and in the beer world, the founder of pioneering US craft brewer, Elysian, has quit 3 months after it was taken over by Anheuser-Busch which unsurprisingly removed some of its craft credentials, you thought he might have realised sooner! To recap, a quick look at the Anheuser-Busch website shows them to own: Budweiser, Bud Light, Michelob ULTRA, Bass and Boddingtons, Beck’s, Bud Ice, Bud Light Lime Ritas, Busch, Chelada, Goose Island, Johnny Appleseed Hard Apple Cider, Kirin, Landshark Lager, Malt Liquors, Michelob, Natural, O’Doul’s, Regional Beers, Rolling Rock, Select Family, Stella Artois, Hoegaarden and Leffe, Shock Top, Specialty Beers – artisan producers, man and boy…
So, it came to pass.
After centuries of selling Morton Estate Brut NV, it was re-branded late last year and became Leveret IQ, as I’m sure you all know. What you may not know is that we haven’t changed the price for Morton/Leveret, or indeed Mimi, since we first opened in 2010.
And so, it has come to pass.
Leveret IQ is now £14.99 per bottle and the two Mimi’s have become £12.99. In order to soften this blow a little, we have decided to offer all three of these wines at a better than normal price of 20% off 6 bottles until the end of May. Far better than the normal 6 for 5 deal, so we suggest you fill your boots asap (we can get 30 cases in the back of the Volvo as a guide!)
However, if your tastes are more Francophile, we are also doing a 6 bottles for £200 offer on Bollinger Special Cuvée, so if you’ve drunk all your Christmas stock, now would be the time to replenish!
This Weekend
As it’s now easing into Friday afternoon, the sun is shining into the back garden and lunch is beckoning, I fear it is time to consider opening some wine for the weekend. One of our suppliers kindly gave us a bottle of Sancerre La Clochette 2013 (£15.99) to open up, so we shall. Staying in France, we thought we would execute the classic Loire/Rhone pairing and open up Les Vignes de Prince Cotes du Rhone 2013 (£9.99) which in this vintage, unusually for them, is a blend of 80% Syrah and 20% Mourvedre due to the paucity of the Grenache crop.
Hopefully we’ll see you sometime over the weekend – we’ll be glued to the telly at 3.45 to watch Al Co go off at 14-1 but will be with you by 3.46, given current form.
Here’s Mumm in your eye!!