Fellow Wine Lovers,
Snow’s gone, March marches on, what have you bought for Mum?
That’s all from us, have a great week, see you soon!
Wayne & Alex
…..
And that’s how the weekly email gets written. We formulate a rough essay plan over an espresso or two at our morning sales meeting and then draw straws as to who then has to put the flesh on the bones. The straw ‘winner’ of the day then settles himself in front of the laptop and fires up the search engine.
First search: snow’s gone – first hit: Josh Ritter Lyrics – Snow Is Gone – AZLyrics
Second search: march marches on – first hit: march | Definition of march in English by Oxford Dictionaries
Third search: what have you bought for Mum? – first hit: what have you bought for your mum’s 60th Birthday present…
Unmoved by the Americana of Josh Ritter, uninspired by the varied definitions of march and unamused that Mother’s Day wasn’t the first hit when Mum was mentioned, we embark on a final search:
Snow’s gone, March marches on, what have you bought for Mum?
Bizarrely, the first hit here is: Now more than ever, the youth are relying on the bank of mum and… therein lies a story for another day, I reckon.
But we still haven’t really got any flesh for the bones yet.
We spent a whole page of this email this time last year discoursing on Mothering Sunday originally relating to the church of your baptism (mother church) and not your actual mother mother, before it got reinvented by the gift card business post WWII and became the Mother’s Day of Milk Tray and daffodils.
So we can’t use that again this year.
We also can’t give any tips for Cheltenham next week because neither of us have done any ante post business as, frankly, we are struggling to find value – and to be fair, we’re pretty useless tipsters anyway, so we are saving everyone a few quid here.
So we can’t use that here either.
We can’t even go on a diatribe about St Patrick and seek out some appropriately named drinks for 17th March because that is next weekend, so sensible to keep our tinder dry until then.
Not even any Rugby to talk about… oh hang on, there is some, but after the mauling at Murrayfield we are keeping a very low profile and again, avoiding predictions.
Spurs got knocked out in the football, Liverpool and Man City didn’t and Arsenal have all to play for when they entertain the Milan Foot-Ball and Cricket Club back in London next week.
But this still isn’t really putting any flesh on the bones.
As a distraction (?) though, when we searched for the history of drawing straws, we discovered that ‘if a local or national election has resulted in a tie in which candidates receive exactly the same number of votes after three recounts, the winner can be decided either by drawing straws/lots, coin flipping’ (Wikipedia).
And it’s not just Wikipedia making things up, this actually happened last year, last May in fact, in the South Blyth local election in Northumberland. The eventual winner, Lib Dem Lesley Rickerby said the following to ITV:
“It’s unbelievable that when you consider we have a democratic service that we end up having to draw straws. It was very traumatic and I certainly would have preferred it to be a majority, but the way our system works, after a couple of recounts, we had no choice.
The returning officer decides if we would flip a coin or draw straws and he went with straws.”
Who knew Alex & I were following such precise political processes?
Snow’s gone, March marches on, what have you bought for Mum?
Anyway time to get back on message now, a page and a half written and we’ve got exactly nowhere. The snow disappeared overnight last weekend, much to the chagrin of the local school children but not the local shopkeepers. February is now long gone and March is forging ahead – we like this, as every day we get closer to the switch to summertime which, I think we can all acknowledge, is a very good thing.
And now to Mother’s Day. The opportunity to give your Mum a treat on Sunday is one that should not be missed – it’s one day in the year to treat her like a Queen and, from what I’ve heard, she’s a saint and you don’t deserve her!
Furthermore, she’s given us a shopping list…
Yes, she would definitely like some flowers but not ones from the florist that also sells petrol. Ditto chocolates, but ones that have actually been bought recently, not re-gifted. Oh, and she would also like a drink. She’s a bit over Prosecco but could be persuaded to a glass or two of Beaumet 2007, with its delicious leesy richness.
She is also very keen to experiment with Gin: she believes it has an undeserved reputation in relation to mothers and the ruin thereof. She would therefore like to dispel this myth once and for all and, having read, in the Daily Telegraph a while back, that nice Victoria Moore say ‘it might be the best martini gin I’ve ever tasted’ with regards to Hepple Gin, thinks this is a good place to start. Her words, not mine.
Flowers – £?
Thorntons Chocs – £?
Beaumet 2007 – £35.99
Hepple Gin – £38.00
Should you feel the need to provide something a tad more vinous in substance, might we suggest one or both of the wines we are opening this weekend?
Domaine Alexandre Chablis Vieilles Vignes 2016 – £19.99 – this 13 hectare property is in the small village of La Chapelle-Vaupelteigne just north of Chablis. This Cuvée is from the estates oldest vines, around 60 years old and planted by the current winemaker’s grandfather. It is an excellent, elegant Chablis with a nice richness from the old vines and a good, lean minerality and Mum thinks it would go very nicely with that smoked salmon you’re bringing round.
Vivir Sin Dormir Monastrell Barrica 2016 – £12.99 – this wine arrived back on our shelves this week and we couldn’t resist laying it on thick for Mother’s Day. You may have translated it already but if not, the name of the wine is ‘live without sleep’. As any parent will tell you, the key to successfully managing to be a parent whilst also actually trying to be something else apart from being a parent, relies solely on sacrificing bedrest. So this is the perfect gift for your mum to acknowledge all those sleepless nights plus it’s delicious. Velvety dark blackberry fruits, with silky tannins that provide a framework for the medium to full bodied character of the wine – very classy, just like your Mum!
And that’s how we write a blog.
Snow’s gone, March marches on, what have you bought for Mum?
That’s all from us, have a great week, see you soon!
Wayne & Alex