The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

This week finds us both wallowing in disappointment. As many of you know, we’re no strangers to a spot of nosebag and have been known, on occasion, to visit an establishment that might put a plate of something extremely tasty in front of us. But never, NEVER has anyone mistakenly given us a bottle of 2001 Le Pin. Neither of us has ever tasted any vintage of it, so that lucky diner at Hawksmoor in Manchester, who was the recipient of such a fortunate mix up, was lucky indeed.

Disappointment on hearing that an explorer breaking the record for the deepest ever sub dive down to 10,927 metres, in the Mariana Trench, found a plastic bag and sweet wrappers. He also found 4 new species of prawn – coming soon plastic wrapped to a supermarket fridge near you!

This Saturday sees Rugby League played at the Nou Camp in Barcelona for the first time, as Catalan Dragons host Wigan Warriors. Rumours that the expected crowd of 30 000 only warrants one turnstile being open, are possibly on the fake side of news.  Sadly for Wigan fans, The Boiler Club, Barcelona’s only Northern Soul night, seems to have closed down.

Thomas Cook seems to have had a bit of an oopsy daisy with £1.5 billion as Brexit curtails holiday plans, apparently. This commentator certainly has done no such thing and wonders if Airbnb and booking over the internet in general are not having a more disruptive effect than they’re getting credit for.

The Giro d’Italia is rolling on, nearly everyone has fallen off at least once and one of the favourites, Tom

Dumoulin, has headed home to recover from his injuries (in time for the Tour de France we suspect).  Mr Yates is still poised in the right place, we feel.

It would appear that Pret a Manger is proposing to take over fellow lunch chain Eat and turn them into vegetarian branches. We’ve already seen one headline suggesting “Eat to be gobbled up by Pret” and imagine it’s only a question of time before we see a headline suggesting they have “bitten off more than they could chew” or perhaps that the merger is a” bit hard to swallow”!

In Germany, a Munich based start-up, Lilium, has unveiled its prototype electric flying taxi. They claim it will be able to travel 186 miles in an hour and seat five people. They’ve successfully made the first flight and are now the first electronic jet to seek certification. Researching for this article revealed there are about 100 different electric aircraft projects on the go around the world, so watch this (air)space.

Winemaker Tasting – Domaine Treloar

Jonathan and Rachel Treloar own and run this small, vineyard and winery. Regarded by Jancis Robinson as the best in the Roussillon. They were also chosen as the Coup de Coeur (Favourite) Roussillon producer by La Revue du Vin de France, the country’s most influential wine magazine.

We’re really excited about this one, a couple of our most popular French wines come from this estate and we’re looking forward to welcoming Jonathan to the shop to meet you all.  So come along, taste his wine and ask those questions you’ve always wanted to ask a winemaker… here’s a list of the wines that we take from them – I suspect they will all be open to taste on the night!

WHITE

‘La Terre Promise’ 2016 – £18.49

This white is a lovely rich blend of Grenache Gris, Macabeu and Carignan Blanc. From 35-60 year old vines, it has a lovely quince and buttered toast character and is made with natural yeasts and minimal sulphur. Named after the Bruce Springsteen song ‘Promised Land’, this is a fine match for one of those Mediterranean fish dishes with garlic and tomato.

RED

‘Le Ciel Vide’ 2015 – £12.49

This unoaked red is made from Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Carignan. It is the most approachable of their red wines with crunchy forest fruits and an earthy, smoky character that’d be great alongside a sausage, or three, with mash and onion gravy.

One Block Grenache 2015 – £13.99

Since we listed this it has rapidly become a firm favourite. Mostly Grenache (including the Catalan variant Lledoner Pelut) and a small splash of Carignan, this has lovely dark brambly fruit, a hint of cumin, leather and tobacco. Wayne loved it with some Merguez sausages and winemaker Jonathan suggest lamb chops.

Three Peaks 2016 – £14.99

Classy blend of 50% Syrah, 30% Mourvèdre and 20% Grenache.  A rich and spicy blend that spent 12 months in French barriques and shows lovely crushed forest fruit character, a touch of earthy minerality and maybe even a hint of leather.  Proper, old school Roussillon made by an Englishman, how good is that!

‘Le Secret’ 2013 – £17.99

This wine is nearly all Syrah, rich with lovely dark black fruits, quite blackcurranty even, and a lovely fresh elegance to it too.  Great with a smoky chargrilled steak, I reckon.  It’s not just us that rate them highly; previous vintages have featured in Decanter Magazine’s Best Syrah’s in the World under £25.

‘Motus’ 2015 – £18.49

80% Mourvèdre, 10% Syrah 10% Grenache. A cracking wine this, a complex, almost autumnal aroma of stewed fruit, leather, roast coffee and mixed spice. The palate is an interesting combination of dark fruits, spicy tannins and an earthy minerality. A real wine-lovers wine, that Jonathan and Rachel suggest drinking with a duck breast in a wine and chocolate sauce.

‘Tahi’ 2011 – £25.99

Domaine Treloar’s icon wine. Tahi is the Maori word for “1”. It is made from the parcels of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre on Le Roubau, a rare limestone hillside, and aged for 12 months in French oak barriques. Then only the barrels which make the most harmonious combination are selected. There is toasty oak and roast coffee on the nose, perfectly balanced by the spicy fruit aromas. It is a very well balanced yet complex wine, which wine maker Jonathan suggests partner excellently with the steak recipes from Rick Stein’s “French Odyssey”.

SCHWEET

Muscat de Rivesaltes 2013 – £11.99

A Late-harvested, fortified sweet aperitif and/or dessert wine.  It has a beautiful floral aroma and a rich honeyed palate with dried fruits and nuts.  Treloar Muscat de Rivesaltes always aims to be less sugary and have more richness than others.

So, hopefully that has sufficiently tickled your tastebuds, just give us a call or email us and we’ll reserve you a space!

Thursday 27^th June at 8pm –

DOMAINE TRELOAR WITH JONATHAN HESFORD – £20 per person

Wine School

A few of you have been asking us when we will next do our 6 week course.  The answer is after the summer holidays, most likely starting early October, on Wednesday evenings.  We expect to be able to confirm the dates very soon.

Late opening – Monday 20^th May

We’ll be in town for a tasting on Monday but should be back by 4pm.

Tasting this Weekend

We thought we’d through you a curveball this week and open a brace of Malbec. Wearing the white hat will be Vicentin Blanc de Malbec 2017 (£22.50) from Lujan de Cuyo, a cracking white made from 100% Malbec grown at 1,000 metres highness, as some might say.

Sporting the red neckerchief will be Antonio Mas Single Vineyard Malbec 2016 (£16.49) from Tupungato. This is also 100% Malbec but grown at 1,300 metres.

That’s probably enough guff from us for this week, so sign up for Treloar, come taste a white Malbec and have a great weekend.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

After last week’s email being all about learning life lessons, it seems this week has been all about firsts.

We have the Fresh Prince of Berkshire, the first royal to be named after the Queen’s favourite Beatle, or Charles’ favourite Star Wars actor, or William’s favourite agricultural machinery supplier in Cambridge, you choose.

We have two English teams in the Champions League Final, certainly not a first for Liverpool but definitely for Spurs – perhaps, in a few weeks, it’ll be the first time Liverpool lose to a debutant?!

We have two English teams in the Europa League Final too – the first time two English teams have faced each other in the Finals since Tottenham beat Wolves in 1972 – with these stats, I predict a London club lifting the trophy on 29^th May….

It’s the first time the UK has gone more than a week without using any electricity produced by coal – no mean feat and quite exciting in fact.  Wind energy provided 10% of the power, anyone who ventured outside last weekend will not find that surprising, solar around about 5%, again no surprises.  The one potential parade raining moment might come from the 10% of ‘imported energy’.  Where does this come from and how is it produced?  A little research shows it to be from France, the Netherlands, Eire and NI.  France is largely nuclear but I fear that the other three have a heavier lean towards fossil fuels – let’s hope the bits we got were wind generated shall we.

The BBC achieved a first of some sort, not quite sure how to describe it beyond the fact that it just goes to show the state of the news arena nowadays.  Danny Baker tweeted that tweet.  The BBC reported his apology.  They then, more eagerly reported his sacking, from the BBC.  Since then, they have constantly had a Danny Baker story in their headlines.  I don’t know, for someone they sacked, they seem very keen to keep him on the front-page, far more so than many other new outlets.  As I said, a first of some sort not sure exactly what but not a good one.

Since our cycling correspondent is halfway through a beer/hillclimb in Mallorca right now, it seems it’s up to  me, for the first time, to remind you all that the Giro d’Italia starts tomorrow and pedals on until 2^nd June.  It also means that, for the first time, I have to divine who might win without any help from Dr Dave, Will or Guy – who are all clad in Lycra somewhere too, no doubt.  Anyway, having consulted the pinstickers in the pub I’ve gone with Simon Yates, as my main man, and Robert Power at 2500/1 because I believe in nominative determinism…

Another, more local, first comes to mind.

ROSÉ WINE TASTING – £25 – THURSDAY 13^TH JUNE AT 8PM

Picture the scene, a barmy evening in mid-June.  You’ve just googled ‘air conditioning’ because, perhaps, it might be worth investing this year if summers are going to continue to be so hot and standing by the open doored fridge is not the most sustainable method of keeping cool. 

‘Gosh, I fancy a glass of wine and I think this weather demands a nice glass of rosé…’

Well, how about going one better than that – how about coming to our rosé tasting?  We’ll be opening a Champagne, a Cremant, some Provence and others beside for your delectation and delight.

We last held an event like this in 2015 that sold out overnight so we thought it was high time we did another one. 

This one hasn’t sold out overnight though, in fact is largely unsold, which is a surprising first!

So, if you fancy getting some pals together it should be a fantastic evening!

On the tasting table this weekend

One old friend and one making a first appearance.

Barton Chenin Blanc 2015, Walker Bay, South Africa – £11.29 – Walker Bay is considered to be an area with exciting potential: the region has varying altitudes and ideal soils that help produce some world class, elegant wines.  This Chenin has a lean, green apple and white pear nose whilst the palate has a full, rounded mouth-feel, still with the apple and pear but also some hints of spice and lingering acidity.  Peri peri prawns and a cucumber salad, I reckon, if the weather is summery enough!

Sierra Grande Pinot Noir 2017, Valle Central, Chile – £8.99 – A delicate and elegant Pinot Noir showing ripe fruit flavours of plums and wild strawberries, balanced with subtle smoky notes and a deliciously lingering finish.  Very pleasurable on its own mainly due to the winemakers lightness of touch.

So, that’s it from us this week, do try and stay dry – on the outside at least!

Wayne & Alex d

Fellow Wine Lovers,

This week has been all about learning life lessons.  

Jurgen Klopp discovered that playing attacking football against Barcelona has its risks. After only 18 years in the wine trade Wayne learnt that the bottle wrapping paper has a shiny side and a dull side! Alex has learnt that muscles pulled in the gym may affect the effectiveness of his golf swing.

Also, one of our number discovered that playing football in your long trousers can lead to separated seams. Apparently dark trousers and coloured underwear make for a slightly self-conscious train journey.  We’re not sure if the take home here is co-ordinate trousers and underwear colours, or wear suitable sporting equipment.

Despite local election drubbings, and with European elections in a couple of weeks, not much seems to have been learned on either side of the house in Westminster. The Cabinet appears to still be in fiascos of their own making, as does Jeremy Corbyn with all his Brexit and anti- Semitism contradictions. On the bright side, a YouGov/Cambridge Globalisation study found that British people are more persuaded of the benefits of immigration than any other major European nation.

We have some unexpected news from Suffolk too. Suffolk is a place close to our hearts, we both have chums who live or have lived in the county, and Wayne spent a good number of summers as a child fishing in the broads, or swimming in the Lido at Beccles. Imagine our surprise when reading a Kings College and University of Suffolk environmental study which found all the shrimps at 15 locations in Suffolk tested positive for cocaine and many for ketamine too! Has Suffolk become the centre of rave culture for sea life perhaps? Has there been some cricket pre-season training going on?  The report was described as “surprising”.

We’ve also heard from one of our roving correspondents, this time from Switzerland. It appears that bathing in champagne is really rather yesterday’s news in that locale, everyone is showering in Chardonnay these days. He wonders if we shouldn’t be starting a cosmetic arm to the business, perhaps we should investigate.

On the musical front, Wayne suggests that jazz fans may want to check out BBC4 tonight as they’ll be broadcasting an homage to Jazz 625. Shirley Tetteh, Joshua Redman, Gregory Porter and Charlie Watts are all lined up to appear in the programme shot in black and white.

On the wine front our fizzy pink has landed. Domaine de Landreau Cremant de Loire Rosé Brut NV (£15.99) is in the fridge, on the floor stack, and also in the 6 for the price of 5 fizz deal!

Beer drinkers might be interested in the arrival of Belleville Brewery Spring Break Sour (£2.50) which is a seasonal and frankly scrumptious Grapefruit Sour. Grab some while it lasts or else Wayne is threatening to drink it all.

Tasting This Weekend

A Bank Holiday weekend ahead of us might involve some barbecue, but again it might not. We have chosen a couple of South African wines for tasting, as they’ll certainly work if you do decide to cook outside.

Alex has put some Meerlust Red 2014 (£14.49) in the eto to see how it shapes up, so that’ll be sporting the red shorts. We certainly find these Bordeaux blends from sunnier climes are perfect with grilled meats, what do you think?

Wearing the white shorts will be De Wetshof Estate Bon Vallon Chardonnay 2017 (£13.49) revel in its unoaked charm, its balance of fruit and lees character, perfect with your Sunday roast or as an aperitif whilst the coals warm up on the barbie…

Lastly, as it’s a Bank Holiday Weekend we will close at 6pm on Saturday and be closed on Monday.

Chewie, may the 4^th be with you!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Welcome back Girls & Boys, hope you all had a lovely Easter break – for those of you who stayed around, wasn’t it blissful.  Just like a Jubilee it was a double Bank Holiday and, with so many people away, drinking Aumerade Rosé all day and waking up the following morning without a Badhead, it was utterly brilliant!

And Arthur Road felt like it had been thrown back to the End of a Century past, no cars to be seen, families promenading and enjoying the sunshine, children hoop rolling, governesses’ steering first generation Silver Cross perambulators towards Wimbledon Park whilst young men laughed, smoked and played croquet.  I know, it all sounds a bit Far Out but as you weren’t here you can’t prove me wrong…

Back in the real world, the one thing that London Loves is a bit of disruption and boy have we been getting it.  The whole of the District line seemed to be shut last weekend and the Extinction Rebellion has developed it’s fascination with gluing a whole range of body parts to inanimate objects to a new level.  However, there was a slight hint of Trouble in the Message Centre when Dame Emma Thompson jumped on her plane and flew in to join in the protests which some saw as arch hypocrisy.  Frankly darling, I’m rich enough to plant lots of trees so I can do what I want really – no, she didn’t actually say that but you know, makes you wonder…

Elsewhere it was neither Magic America for Wal Mart/Asda nor was Sainsbury’s in Clover over Dover as the Competition and Markets Authority scuppered their plans for merging, citing all the obvious reasons that we all thought of when it was first mentioned – a poorer shopping experience, less competition, less choice, global homogenisation.  The general consensus was that so far as the shopper would be concerned, so far as future retail is concerned, This Is a Low and, as a consequence, should be stifled.  Good work.

Back in the shop, we’ve been organising our a tasting calendar a bit more, tidying it up a bit and adding a couple of things in for all of our enjoyment – so here’s a brief overview of what is going on over the next few months in the evenings when the TV gets boring and you fancy a night out…

Thursday 2nd May – Private Tasting

Thursday 16th May – Private Tasting

Thursday 23rd May – WINE & CHEESE TASTING – SOLD OUT

Thursday 6th June – Private Tasting

Thursday 13th June – ROSÉ WINE TASTING – £25

A Rosé tasting?  In June?  Are you mad?  It’s bound to rain!  Well, if it does, we’ll just crank the heaters up and Provence-ify the shop! 

If you love a bit of pink drinking then come along – we’ll open some bubbles, we’ll show you still wines and we’ll even show you a sweetie!  This is bound to fill up quickly, you have been warned!

Thursday 20th June – WINE & CHEESE TASTING – £20 – TWO SPACES LEFT

Thursday 27th June – DOMAINE TRELOAR WITH JONATHAN HESFORD – £20

Jonathan and Rachel Treloar own and run this small, highly-regarded vineyard and winery in the Roussillon, France’s most exciting wine region – we will taste through their range of whites, reds and even a sweetie and be able to ask all those daft questions you never normally get the chance to ask a winemaker!

Thursday 18th July – WINE & CHEESE TASTING – £20

Thursday 17th October – DOMAINE TRELOAR WITH RACHEL TRELOAR – £20

A second visit from Domaine Treloar and well worth a second go – we already have people signed up for both!

All these events take place here in the shop, start at 8pm and spaces are limited – first come, first served – payment confirms your seat at the table, Wayne is exceptional in his role as  The Debt Collector, you have been warned!

Friday 26^th/Saturday 27^th April

Well, since we’re going to have wine open this weekend I suppose it counts as a tasting date too and as such we can readily reveal what we will be tasting:

Domaine Morin-Langaran Cuvee Caroline Picpoul de Pinet 2016, France – £12.49

Picpoul: a grape variety that has been grown for years on the banks of Lake Thau, in sight of the famous oyster-beds of Bouzigues.  The vines bask in the sunshine, being gently aired by the salty breeze and thus this wine is unmistakably Mediterranean.  Domaine Morin-Langaran has been in the same family since 1966 and they produce a classic Picpoul, aged on its fine lees for complexity and the perfect match to shellfish (oysters perhaps?), grilled fish or just as an aperitif!

Angulo Innocenti Malbec 2016, La Consulta, Mendoza, Argentina – £18.59

Two 19th century immigrants from the Basque country and Tuscany respectively, Pedro Angulo and Angel Innocenti, moved to Argentina along with thousands of other European settlers to plant their vines and carve out a living in the vast, dry plains of Mendoza.  This wine is produced by their great-grandchildren, Mariano and Maria, and is classic La Consulta: very dark, opaque purple in colour with an inviting leafy/curranty nose.  Whilst quite plush on the palate, it is tidy and precise with very pure fruit and lovely, silky tannins – very classy Malbec.  Whilst perhaps it isn’t going to be barbecue weather this weekend, apparently you can also cook steak inside too!

And That’s your Lot (105)

It looks like we’ve made it To the End – it was the 25^th anniversary of the legendary Blur album, Parklife, yesterday – who knew?!

Wayne & Alex (and, of course, Tracy Jacks)

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Chapeau! To the French firefighters who have managed to save far more of the Notre Dame than looked likely when the pictures first came through. Not only is it an integral part of the Paris skyline, it is almost part of the very essence of French-ness, appearing so prominently in both France’s history and literature. Victor Hugo will be coming to a best-seller list on Amazon very soon I suspect.

Chapeau!  Also to Victor Campenaerts who has beaten Bradley Wiggins Hour Record. He managed to ride a massive 55.089 km at the Bicentenario Velodrome in Mexico with a perfectly controlled ride. That’s just over half a kilometre further than Sir Wiggo. I’m not sure I’ve ever reached that speed on the flat, let alone for an hour!

If the Met office is to be believed you’ll be needing your sunhats this weekend if you’re still in Wimbledon Park, we’re expecting 20˚C and sunshine, that’s on a par with Barcelona and better than Thessaloniki!

Following on from our golf chat last week we couldn’t help but notice Tiger Woods was the man who gets to borrow the green jacket for a year.  Some of the sports commentators got a little over excited with this news and seemed to think it was the “Greatest Comeback Ever”. I don’t wish to take away from his win, but I would just point out that two of Greg Lemond’s   three Tour de France victories came after being shot in a hunting accident.

In booze news Asda has had an oops on the translation front offering it’s Welsh speakers ‘Free Alcohol’ rather than ‘Alcohol Free’ . It would appear that HMRC is also at risk of booze jokes as it appears to be losing entire or large parts of applications for new distilleries or excise warehouses!

Happy birthday to The Queen, 93 years young on Sunday! Happy Birthday your Maj! The official hoe down will be in June as usual.

Easter Opening Hours – it being a Bank Holiday weekend we have some funny hours!

Today 18th April  – 11AM – 8PM

Good Friday 19th April – Funny Hours – 11AM – 3PM

Saturday 20th April – Funny Hours- 1OAM – 4PM

Sunday 21st April – CLOSED

Monday 22nd April – CLOSED

Tuesday 23rd April – Back to Normal

Anyway as it’s going to be nice this weekend we are very happy to announce (Drum roll please)

Chateau de L’Aumerade ‘Cuvée Marie-Christine’ 2018 our Cru Classé Côtes du Provence Rosé is in stock, and we’ve managed to keep it at the same price as last year!

£14.99 per bottle or 6 bottles for £78

Tasting This Weekend

Given we’re doing it all a day early we’ll open these wines this evening around 5-ish. Your weekend starts here!

Where would we be without an open bottle at the weekend? I can’t help but think it might be nice to show some solidarity with the French, so in the white corner we’ll start off with Domaine Alexandre Chablis 2017 (£19.99) a classic crisp mineral white that we managed to grab a small parcel of.

On the red front I can’t help but think that if we’re eating spring lamb we might want to have a glass of red burgundy with it. On that basis I’m pouring the Domaine Fournillon Epineuil Bourgogne Rouge (£14.99) which will be just fabulous with that lamb.That’s about it for us this week, but if anyone knows what glue the climate protesters are using give us the nod, we’ve some things up for repair.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

I have to confess, I do love the school holidays, the Easter ones in particular.  The sun often shines, the roads are empty and you can get a seat on the tube.  Plus we have the four day weekend that encapsulates Easter Sunday.  Plus plus, our own bearded asylum seeker, Alex, gets dragged kicking and screaming from his priest hole in the cellar and taken to far flung exotic climes (Warwick and Dorset this year, I believe) and I have the place to myself.  And I get to write the email, uninterrupted.

And, as I get to write the email without any ‘helpful’ insertions, I get to write about whatever I want.  If you’ve read any of my previous pieces then you will be aware that I have a passing affection for bikes and cycling; what you won’t know, I suspect, is that my actual true passion is for the little dimpled ball.  Yep, I’m a golf nut.  There you go, it’s out in the world now, it’s in print, it’s on Facebook and our website and my goodness, I feel a great weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Whilst I do enjoy going out cycling on a misty Sunday morning swaddled in luminescent lycra and feeling like a million lira, the opportunity to stroll around a large country estate swinging clubs (less than 80 times ideally) dressed in plus fours and Pringle knitwear is what I really want to be doing.  I’m not the best player I know, but then I’m also not the worst.  I’m certainly in the top 10 of people I play with and that is all I need really – Strava rarely has such nice things to say to me.

However, there is one way that cycling surpasses golf.  When I watch the Tour de France, the Giro or La Vuelta I see narrow mountain roads being gobbled up by the superfit masochists, I see swooping descents that make roller coasters feel pedestrian and I know that, should I have the desire, I could jump on my bike and attempt my own heroics on these exact roads, any time I wanted. 

Golf however isn’t quite like that, particularly the golf that’s going on right now. 

For those of you less fanatical, the US Masters started yesterday.  This is arguably the biggest week in golf each year as it heralds the start of ‘the season’, is the first major, the winner gets a natty green jacket to wear (but not keep) and it always takes place at Augusta National in Georgia.  You know Augusta, that truly cosmopolitan and inclusive club without a whiff of racism and sexism, always a club to open its doors willingly to all comers.  There is no members’ waiting list because you have to be invited to join, it only has a few hundred members, the majority of whom are men and captains of industry and you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than get a chance to play it. 

So, unlike the Col du Tourmalet, Augusta will never open its arms to me – perhaps I am better off on the bike…

Elsewhere, it seems that we are still in Europe, Tottenham and Liverpool are still in Europe, Julian Assange has left South America and is now in Europe and Omar al-Bashir isn’t in Europe, yet, but he is to be expected at ICC at some point.

But what has any of this got to do with wine I hear you ask?  Nothing at all, is the honest answer but now I will remedy that.

UPCOMING TASTINGS – DATES FOR YOUR DIARIES

Our Cheese and Wine tasting evenings have been as over-subscribed as ever and as of now we have 2 spaces available on Thursday 20^th June and then plenty of spaces on Thursday 18^th July – should you wish to join us then it costs £20 per person and it all starts at 8pm.

You may have noticed us rattling on about Domaine Treloar over the last few weeks.  One of the reasons is that we think the wines are ace and should be in everyone’s shopping basket.  Another good reason is that Jonathan and Rachel, the owners, are thoroughly good eggs – so good in fact that they have agreed to visit us not once but twice this year!

Thursday 27^th June at 8pm – Domaine Treloar Wine tasting with Jonathan Hesford – £20 per person

Thursday 17^th October at 8pm – Domaine Treloar Wine tasting with Rachel Treloar – £20 per person

I appreciate that the October date feels a little in advance but when they offered to come and do this we thought we’d get the dates in the diary as soon as possible so they can book their flights – we expect both tastings to be very popular so do book early to avoid disappointment!

OTHER WINE NEWS

After a brief hiatus, I can confirm that we have Chocolate Block back in stock – and we have it in magnums too, for £50, which just has to be a better Easter gift than any overpriced oval confection…

TASTING THIS WEEKEND

Often when Alex is given the reins he thinks he’s being super smart and tries to link the tasting wines to events of the week ‘don’t you think it segues rather nicely’  he might be heard to say, whilst I’m thinking ‘segue’, really, did you really just say that?  Anyway, there will be none of that nonsense this week, just fine wines that need to be tasted by you fine folk.

Naia Verdejo 2017 – £14.99 – this is a new listing for us since the previous inhabitant of the posh Verdejo throne became just too expensive and the Naia had always been in our sights as the pretender and now it has found its seat.  Produced in Rueda, the Verdejo heartland, the grapes come from 98 acres of vineyards, the majority of which are 26 years old (and 5 acres of which are ungrafted 90 year old Verdejo vines) all located in La Seca.  The wine has ripe stone fruit aromas with lightly savoury, herbal notes that persist on the palate and then leads onto a bright and long finish.  Great with shellfish and perhaps with water nymph (Greek translation) or dolphin (Hawaiian translation) but I’m not sure that’s allowed any more….

The Pilot by Alpha Domus 2014 – £13.99/6 for £72 – this is the exact opposite of a new listing – it’s a bin end, once it’s gone, it’s scone!  From Hawkes Bay in New Zealand this is a stonking Bordeaux blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.  On the nose it’s busy with berry fruits, plums and spicy herbs.  The palate is again filled with plum and blackberry fruit, some clove spice and a silky, savoury finish – a perfect partner to Sunday’s roast lamb.

That’s it for now – enjoy your hols whilst I enjoy the tranquillity and the golf!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Alex has been out and about this week, putting his sniff, swirl and spit skills to good use in the judging of the early rounds of the International Wine Challenge. His teeth have now returned to their original colour, he has caught up with a fair few old chums and also discovered some of the latest buzzwords in the land of winemakers and consultants. Because such things are as strict as Official Secrets Act we can’t say much more than that but there was talk of a game changing tooth product that should help those of us that continually subject their enamel to a short intensive acid bath. We’ll trial it and let you know.

An enormously heart-warming piece of news we saw was that, at the age of 85, Madhur Jaffrey has still got it. She’s recruiting a new generation of fans as a guest star as a Grandma MC in NY hip hop artist Mr. Cardamom’s new track “Nani”. The very fetching yellow beret she sports in the video was her only payment.

News reaches us that Ukraine may be in line to get a comedian as President. Leading the race in first round of Presidential elections is popular TV comedian Volodymyr Zelensky. I see no problem with it at all; we have 649 jokers in our parliament, whilst the US has a TV star in the top role who definitely knows his oranges, what could possibly go wrong.

Meanwhile, at the European Parliament, MEP’s have made some revisions to the food-labelling regulations by this week approving a ban on the producers of vegetarian food from using nomenclature usually deployed to describe meat. French socialist MEP Éric Andrieu, overseeing the debate, said: “We felt that steak should be kept for real steak with meat and come up with a new moniker for all these new products.”

So, goodbye to the veggie burger, welcome to the veggie disc. We wondered what happens to fish cutlets or chicken fillet, is only beef allowed to have fillet? What about beef tomatoes and lambs lettuce? Where does that leave crab apples?

We’re not entirely sure all MEP’s understood the debate, with Molly Scott Cato, MEP for South West of England and Gibraltar (?), stating “I think this could unlock a lot of creativity. My personal favourite is nomato soup, which is a tomato-tasting soup made of peppers.”

This Saturday sees the annual visit of the Grand National at 17.15. It seems to us to be getting later and later, time was you could pop out for a pint and lunch, put a bet on, go home watch the race with Gran, then pop back to the bookies to pick up Gran’s winnings for her before they shut. These they days they’re on the point of introducing floodlights! Anyway, we’ve had a look at the runners if you’re interested? Wayne has had a flutter on Vintage Clouds as that’s where he keeps his head most of the time.

Alex meanwhile has been much more studious on the form and chosen Jury Duty and Valseur Lido, though possibly the latter just because he has the hots for Rachael Blackmore after she won him some money at 50-1 at Cheltenham!

You may recall a few weeks ago we mentioned in passing that Constellation was looking to offload some of its lower valued brands to concentrate on the more premium end of its portfolio. E J Gallo has spent $1.7 billion on a chunk of them (including Paul Masson!). You heard it here first.

Tasting This Weekend

Continuing or record of tasting recent listings the white this week will be Tenute Pieralisi Villaia Verdicchio Classico 2017 (£19.99).  This is the flagship wine from this producer.  The grapes are sourced from their most prized vineyard of Colle del Sole – situated right next to the winery. It has an open and expressive nose with aromas of apricot, orchard fruit, white flower and citrus. The palate has minerality and texture with ripe tropical notes of pineapple and stone fruit, underpinned by racy acidity and a touch of salinity.  Oh, and guess what, it’s vegan too, so it is a natural bedfellow for the veggie burger, whilst it still exists!

The red wine is less controversial, or perhaps more – they use egg whites in the fining process, the scoundrels. However don’t let that put you off the majesty of Bodegas Roda Sela 2015 (£22.49). 2015 was an almost perfect Mediterranean vintage here in Rioja and the blend has a bit more Garnacha than the previous vintage which gives us a lovely and juicy drop with fine tannins and an almost balsamic note from the French oak ageing.  It’s a serious wine for serious wine lovers or is it a fun drop for the jokers amongst us?  Probably both – come and decide for yourself!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Right, that’s it, I’ve had enough, I’m leaving Europe, with or without you. 

Apparently, there was an online consultation that attracted an unprecedented 4.6 million responses last year, of which 84 per cent were in favour of a new legislation.  This then led to a vote amongst the EU lawmakers, where the darling MEPs voted 410 to 192 in favour of ending it, with 51 abstentions, (not sure where the other 98 members were, I’d have thought there would have been a three line whip for this), which means that, as of 2021, it’ll no longer be with us. 

Yep, Strasbourg has stolen our summertime. 

No more spring forward, fall backwards; no more 7 months of summer because that’s what the clocks tell us; no more cheeky extra hour in bed in late October; and frankly the alarming potential for the sun to rise in London at 3.45am and 3am in John O’Groats over solstice.  For me it’s purely a nostalgic thing, I’m not a farmer or a factory worker although a longer evening is more beneficial to our trade than a lighter early morning.  I’m sure I would get over it very quickly but, as one of my peers oft states, the EU just wants to homogenise everything and neutralise individuality – we kept our pints and our miles, let’s keep our changing clocks!

‘Right, that’s it, I’ve had enough, I’m leaving Europe, with or without you!’, thus spake my wife last night.

I don’t think we’d had a row or anything and in fact I’m not sure she was addressing me anyway as most of the vitriol seemed to be targeted at the Toshiba laptop in front of her.  It seems, and I’m giving you the edited/sanitised highlights here, that the EU has proposed putting speed limiters in all new cars from 2022.  Now, my wife, being of the country, has always had a close relationship with cars – if you couldn’t drive you couldn’t go out – so the prospect of Brussels meddling with her preferred form of transport certainly seemed to get her goat.  No more spinning along at 52mph on the A3, no more racing along at 73mph on the M3 – no more life in the fast lane for Mrs Park Vintners…. And she was incensed, big brother was mentioned and that crushing of independent spirit, all in the name of homogenisation, was once more aired.  I did mention that it wasn’t until 2022; it would only be on new cars (not a thing we usually get involved with); that the driver will be able to override the restrictor by just putting their foot down but, by this stage, the rant was in full sail.

And, with that, my wife brexited – anyone going to join her?

Back on planet wine, the eternally optimistic team at Majestic have finally let the mask slip – things are not as peachy at the wine warehouse as carefully spun annual figures would have had us believe. 

Hot on the heels of Oddbins facing a forced departure from the high street, Majestic announced it was going to close a portion of its stores and rebrand as Naked, the online side of the business.  “A dramatic and unexpected change in strategy” is how one analyst put it.  The cynic amongst us might suggest a bit of asset stripping by selling shop freeholds and then a sale of the retail business to Mike Ashley perhaps – in the meantime Naked remains online, as it was and always has been, but £70 million richer from when Majestic bought them 4 years ago and with their database too – clever.  However, the cynic amongst us is on holiday, so this is all probably nonsense….

Suffice to say, we don’t have an online presence so you’ll have to keep on popping in to visit us and, hopefully, we can make this chore less tedious at weekends by opening some wines for you to taste?

A few weeks back we mentioned new wines we had listed and old wines that had returned to the fold and we have been opening examples each week.  This week it is the turn of Domaine Treloar and Bodegas Resalte de Peñafiel.

Domaine Treloar has been on the books for a number of years now and we have no doubt bored you before about Jonathan the Yorkshireman and the Rachel the Kiwi Lady responsible for these superstar wines down in the deep south of France?  Have we not?  Oh, okay then, here goes.  Their path into wine was rather unusual, after working in IT for 15 years; they were living almost next door to the World Trade Center when it was destroyed in 2001.

Having experienced that disaster at first hand, they decided to change direction, heading to Rachel’s native home of New Zealand where Jonathan studied oenology and viticulture at Lincoln University.  He graduated top of the class, and then worked as the Assistant Winemaker at Neudorf Vineyards for 2 years.  In 2006 they founded Domaine Treloar, where they do everything in both vineyard and winery themselves.

In 2013 they were chosen as the Coup de Coeur (Favourite) Roussillon producer by La Revue du Vin de France, the country’s most influential wine magazine.

La Terre Promise 2016 (£18.49) is a delicious white blend of Grenache Gris (50%), Macabeu (30%) and Carignan Blanc (20%).  A rich weighty white that’ll be delicious with some garlic and herb roasted chicken or Bouillabaisse if you have time, or on its own if you don’t!

Since we lost Emilio Moro from our shelves we have been kissing a lot of frogs in search of a new prince – meet Lecco Crianza 2014 – £19.29 – proper Ribera del Duero royalty.  Reading Wayne’s notes, he says:

Es un vino sensato, maduro y seguro de sí mismo. Se elabora a partir de viñedos de una cierta edad, de media superan los 30 años momento en el cual ya la viña por si misma empieza a reducir su producción de forma natural en pos de aumentar su calidad. Se seleccionan los suelos que nos aporten mayor elegancia y potencia tanto aromáticamente como en boca.

Estas viñas se vendimian en cajas de 15 kilos de forma manual y después de un estricto control analítico y de cata, así elegimos el momento de mayor expresión de cada viñedo. La elaboración se lleva a cabo por gravedad con el uso de los ovis y durante la cual se controla la temperatura de fermentación y maceración para dirigir la extracción. En total la maceración estará en torno a los 18 días.

El paso por barrica, gran parte de ellas nuevas, de roble francés en 70% y el resto en americano durante al menos 14 meses termina por realzar y acomplejar las características aromáticas y sensaciones en boca, guardando un buen equilibrio entre la expresión frutal de la tempranillo y los tostados y aromas del roble.

I think he likes it!?  14 months in oak, lovely and rounded, tasty tannins and a long and lovely finish –as he said at the outset, a self-assured wine! 

Right, that’s it from us… don’t forget to spring forward on Sunday morning whilst we’re still allowed to and be prepared for lots of silly pranks on Monday – you’ll thank me for reminding you!

¡Salud! as Wayne would say….

Fellow Wine Lovers,

And so it goes on.  One minute we’re leaving next week, the next minute we’re leaving at the end of June, then five minutes later the EU says we need to be out by 22^nd May or 12^th April –  crikey, so much choice.  Surprisingly, France seem to be very keen for us to sling our hook asap, whilst Theresa has ‘personal regret’ about asking for a delay, perhaps alienating any of her last supporters in the commons, and Jeremy has had some ‘very constructive’ talks in Brussels.  Oh whoopee, well done you, MP’s one and all. 

Now, we’ve all rented rooms in the past and thus had the whole kerfuffle of moving out and moving on.  So, experience tells us that by now, with a week to go (previously agreed with our landlord) we should be nipping down to the local offie to buy a bottle of something cheap whilst picking up some empty wine boxes  to put our crockery in over the weekend; we should have booked a van, booked the day off and organised cleaners to do a deep clean so that we can leave the premises as we found it and thus leave on good terms, ideally with a few quid in our pocket from our deposit.

As demonstrated over and again, leaving Europe was never going to be as easy as moving house but we really have seen the process escalated to levels that will be the subject of politics A level essays for year to come.

Let’s pretend though that we were going to leave Europe next Friday.  Irrespective of how Wayne and I voted, this has been a day that we have been quite looking forward to from a commercial point of view.  It’s our year end next weekend and we were hoping for one last fillip to our turnover before the close.  It seemed like a win-win for us – eager Brexiteers raiding our shelves for bottles and bottle of English bubbly whilst disappointed Remainers buy Champagne to drown their sorrows whilst they still can….

Herbert Hall Brut (Kent) – £32.99 and Hambledon Classic Cuvée Rosé (Hampshire) – £40 for the leavers and Louis Roederer Cristal 2009 (France) £175 for the stayers – might as well go out on a high!

Otherwise, life seems to go on here in Wimbledon Park.  We completed our first wine school of 2019 on Wednesday night, 6 weeks of tasting torture that rounded off with a bubbles boot camp – 11 more palates are released onto the world, brimming with knowledge and expertise and an intimate working knowledge of all of Wayne’s jokes – if this all sounds too good to be true and the sort of thing you’d like to get involved in then we’ll keep you posted with dates of our next course, which will start late September, I imagine.

And then I read the booze press and my heart sank.  Initially, the idea of Graham Norton launching a pink gin, to go alongside his wine range, seemed a target worthy of a few well targeted darts but then I read about  more crimes against wine being committed by the scientists at Blossom Hill and Echo Falls.  For those of you oblivious to such things, Blossom Hill and Echo Falls are volume producers of very low quality wines in the USA but available globally.  It seems that, of late, sales of vinous beauties like Zinfandel Blush and Sun Kissed Red have been experiencing a bit of a slump.  So what does any self-respecting wine producer do to counteract such a dip – of course, they make a wine that isn’t actually a wine at all.

Blossom Hill Gin Fizz.  Yep, you read it correctly.  So far as bandwagon jumping goes this gets a gold star, previously only awarded to Sparkling Pink Pinot Grigio a few years back.

Anyway, very excitingly it comes in two flavours – Lemon & Rosemary, and Rhubarb – and we are told we need to be pouring it over ice and serve it with a garnish.  But surely ice and garnish is just gilding the lily, we say?  Surely the production method of blending white wine with ‘botanical-infused water’ and gin is enough?  Apparently not. 

It’s not wine, it’s not gin, it’s flavoured with lemon, rosemary and rhubarb and is fizzy – it’s the bride of Frankenwine, it’s in the sparkling wine aisle of your local supermarket and it makes me want to weep.  Echo Falls did a similar launch about a month ago with a Rosé Wine & Gin Fusion which is about £4 cheaper than the Blossom – fill yer boots!

Here are some wise words from their Global Marketing Manager, Bo Jakubenko:

“We know that gin is booming and that people are looking for refreshment and convenience from their drinks purchases.  With Blossom Hill’s Gin Fizz we have developed a product that responds to this need.  By focusing on what the consumer wants and making wine more accessible via a fun, approachable brand like Blossom Hill, we are helping to ensure future category growth.”

Translation:

We asked our customers and they resoundingly confirmed that whilst they buy our wine they would far prefer it if it tasted like gin and had bubbles and herbs in it – anything, frankly, to make the wine taste better than it currently does!

Tasting this weekend

I’ve been so insanely busy that I haven’t been able to get down to Morrison’s to get any Blossom Hill, so we’ll just have to stick to gin in one glass and wine in another.  As ever, we have Eclectic, Sacred, Bloody Bens, Hepple, Sacred Juniper and Sacred Pink Grapefruit open to taste on the Gin trolley along with other spirits and whiskies too.

Wine wise, I’m planning on opening a couple of Chileans that we listed a few weeks back.  The world, it seems, has fallen out of love a little with Chile but we have always been big fans and hopefully you might see why when you taste these wines…

Naciente Chardonnay 2018, Casablanca Valley, Chile – £11.99 – This is an unoaked white, pale yellow in your glass, aromas of very intense fruit with an emphasis on citrusy notes, and mineral touches.  The palate is fresh with the natural acidity making the wine very vivacious and fruity; it has a medium body and a lovely long finish.  Fish and chip Friday anyone?

Metic Carmenère 2018, Colchagua Valley, Chile – £10.99 – A limited production wine from 30 year old vines, the intensely blueberry fruit nose leads on to a bright fruited palate with a lovely intensity and length.  It’s made by a couple of Chilean guys as a side-line to their main business which is consulting for other wineries around Chile.  Their very laidback approach to winemaking intervention is unusual at this price and we’re certainly not complaining about that.

So pop in and try the wines and, if you ask me nicely, I might open a bottle of San Pellegrino and we can mix it with the Chardonnay and some Eclectic!  Actually no, no I won’t, that would be disgusting…

Fellow Wine Lovers,

How’s your week been? We’ve been bumbling along in our normal fashion, tasting here, delivery there, quick squizz at the horses running at Cheltenham, is it time for lunch yet?

As many of you know, and many more suspected, we are no strangers when it comes to the subject of pies. Over the Christmas period we tend to have the odd mince pie or two handy, we have been known to partake of the odd Melton Mowbray after, or even before, a wine tasting and are even known to pop over to Manuels for an emergency sausage roll on a chilly day.

You can imagine then, our excitement to read the BBC headline “Emma Haruka Iwao smashes pi world record with Google help”. Sadly,  the story went on to explain that Ms Iwao has not harnessed Google’s computing power to make the crust that finite bit better, crustier, or melt in the mouth. She has just extended the number of decimal places in л from 22 trillion to 31 trillion, which if recited would take 332,000 years or so. We’ll spare you,  3.14159 has always been good enough for us, but suffice to say: Well played Ms Iwao!

Cheltenham Gold Cup today, for many it is the highlight of the race calendar, Wayne’s been looking at Might Bite or Presenting Percy but I warn you he’s a bit off the pace this week.  It’s also the finale of the Six Nations this week, so if you’re partaking of the fun at Twickenham give us a wave, we’ll be watching on the telly. We’re a bit surprised to see big Joe left out this week, but then we run a wine shop not the England Rugby team.

You know that moment when a song pops up in your head and just won’t go away, a proper earworm that bugs you even though it’s a song you love? We’ve had a bit of that with Joy Division this week.  We pulled up the BBC website and that triggered it: “Confusion in her eyes that says it all She’s lost control”. Counting the boxes in the cellar for the stockcount there it was again: “And she’s clinging to the nearest passer-by She’s lost control” Alex loading the car for a delivery, up it pops: “And a voice that told her when and where to act, she said I’ve lost control again.”  We’re a bit puzzled as to why this song keeps tormenting us.

Meanwhile Trumpolina has spoken about Brexit: “I’m surprised at how badly it has all gone from a standpoint of negotiations but I gave the prime minister my ideas of how to negotiate it, she didn’t listen to that and that’s fine but it could have been negotiated in a different manner.”

In wine news, word on the street is that Pernod Ricard might be putting Jacob’s Creek and Campo Viejo up for sale as part of their move away from focussing on discounting. Meanwhile over in the land of the weird diet or ten (aka USA) we couldn’t help but think that one punter has taken it a little bit too far. Del Hall, director of sales at Ohio’s Fifty West Brewing Company, says he will refrain from all solid food until Easter, drinking only beer for sustenance, as well as water. We can see the appeal of a simple shopping list like that, and couldn’t help but wonder if that made him a vegan, but don’t feel it is something we can recommend. Like any form of extreme exercise, we feel you should check with your GP before embarking on such practice.

I don’t know about you but all the drama in the press this week leaves me reaching for a glass of wine. My aperitif glass of wine is Deep Roots Riesling 2018 (£12.99) a classic dry Riesling from Rheinhessen with citrus and orchard fruit character, a touch of minerality and quite possibly the best partner for that Pad Thai for supper!

Main course red will be One Block Grenache 2015 (£13.99) from Jonathan and Rachel’s Domaine Treloar in the Roussillon. I quite like a glass off it on its own, but I see absolutely no reason not to chomp on a lamb chop with it if you’re peckish.

With that I’m off to sun, sand and fish curry. Wine? Less likely.