Fellow Wine
Lovers,
To borrow from
Mrs Merton:
So what first attracted you to ninth in
line to the throne, Princess Beatrice?
Or perhaps:
So what first attracted you to the
Italian property tycoon, Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi?
And then the
answer arrives:
We share so many similar interests and
values, and we know that this will stand us in great stead for the years ahead,
full of love and happiness – like
skiing and holidays on yachts and working not very hard or too often… let’s see
who ends up paying for the wedding shall we?
In truth though,
I shouldn’t be belittling this romance because it’s actually one of the few
pieces of happy news this week.
Politics, on both
sides of the pond, is in absolute mayhem and as a consequence has a somewhat
surreal aspect to it – can this all really be happening or are we just living
inside someone’s lunatic dreamscape?
Watching the mudslinging in parliament on Wednesday, frustration and
vexation were in abundance. What was
also in abundance was mobile phone usage – whoever was sat behind the Attorney
General when he was in full barrister-flood on Wednesday spent most of her time
on her phone. Now, I don’t know that she
wasn’t scrolling through important government documents nor that the colleague
next to her was watching House of Cards on her tablet but I do know when
discretion is called for – a well-placed sheaf of papers blocking the phone
from the television cameras would perhaps have been the guidance. Moreover, it was distracting – never did we
see her face, no matter how attentively we viewed, so we still don’t know who
it was!
Thomas Cook
finally curled up its toes this week, to much gnashing and wailing and reports
of skulduggery in hotels in foreign resorts.
What we have learnt from this is that whilst we pay up front for the
accommodation the travel company doesn’t actually pay the hotel until well
after you have stayed there so, effectively, when you are actually in the
resort, you are living on credit which is fine, unless your tour operator goes
bust. By all accounts there are towns in
Spain that dealt almost exclusively with TC and will now face an uphill
struggle to survive. The real injustice
here is that the writing has been on the wall for Thomas Cook for so long now
but still they were allowed to make promises that they stood so little chance
of being able to fulfil – which then leads to the question, as always, where
has all the money gone???
It has been
confirmed that Wayne did not travel on a package holiday so will not be
spending an extra week in Greece, awaiting repatriation – we expect to see you
on Monday, spick and span.
So with such
headlines, apart from the royal engagement, where are we looking for our
happiness this week? Well, I suppose if
you’re an Arsenal fan you can wallow in Tottenham’s spectacularly poor start to
the season in all competitions. If
you’re not a cricket fan then you can relish the fact that the cricket season
has finally finished and if you’re a rain fan you will have been very happy with
the way the week has shaped up.
But now we can
look forward because it’s the weekend and, for some of us, it’s payday,
hooray! Not wanting to spend your money
for you but, you know, it is Friday and thus it should really be fizz tonight
and with that in mind, I might mention that we’ve listed a couple of new
English sparklers from Hawkins Bros.
These have been
brought in to replace the Herbert Hall primarily, who was just becoming too
expensive for what he was putting in the bottle, which is ironic really
considering the most common bugbear people have with English sparkling wine is
the cost – but hey, let’s not listen to the punters, let’s just whack another
tenner on a bottle and hope Brexit makes us the only choice? Nice one Herbie, on your bike now!
Anyway,
back to the brothers Hawkins, who are English wine producers based just south
of Guildford, growing and making wine on the south-facing chalk of the Hogs
Back.
Brut Reserve 2014 – £30
Dosage:
6g/l – Alcohol: 12%
Gold
medal winner at the IEWA 2019 and Bronze at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2018
A
classic cuvée from 2014, made and grown on the Hogs Back in Surrey. This is a blend of 56% Chardonnay, 22% Pinot
Noir and 22% Pinot Meunier and has spent over three years ageing on its lees.
Baked
apple on the nose, a soft mousse gives way to a palate of wonderful depth and
complexity with a long citrusy finish.
Rosé Reserve NV – £29
Dosage:
4.5g/l – Alcohol: 12%
Bronze
Medal International Wine Challenge 2019
Made
in the Traditional Method from 95% Pinot Noir, 5% Pinot Meunier.
A
supremely elegant rosé with a subtle flavour of summer berries, a delicate pink
hue, notes of strawberry, and fresh brioche from 30 months pre-release ageing.
Sound
exciting, don’t they? I took a bottle of
the pink home last weekend on the false/fools assumption that, as my wife has
always been a bit suspicious of wine that’s not either white or red, much of
the bottle would be mine. However, in a
text book horse switcheroo mid-river, of which only she is capable, my beloved
declared that it wasn’t that she didn’t like pink it was just that she hadn’t
had a good one yet. As she poured the
last drops into her tankard, I could only surmise that this was a ‘good’ one!
Further
to my missive from a week back, we still have places on some of our upcoming
tastings, just a few less. If you fancy an
evening in the company of cheese and wine, or perhaps a winemaker’s wife, all
for a mere £20 per person, here are the dates once more:
Wine & Cheese Tasting – 10th October – 5 spaces left
Domaine Treloar Tasting – 17th October – 2 spaces left
Wine & Cheese Tasting – 7th November – 6 spaces left
Wine & Cheese Tasting – 28th November – 5 spaces left
Tasting this weekend
As
mentioned, it’s the last weekend of September and frankly we should be looking
forward to hearty reds not delicate Rosés and shorts should returned to use for
sporting purposes only, just so you know!
Last weekend we opened the World Cup Rugby with a head to head between
Meerlust Red from South Africa and Alpha Domus ‘The Pilot’ from New
Zealand. Intriguingly the Meerlust was a
clear favourite on the Friday evening and, for the first twenty minutes of the
game on Saturday we thought our wine predictor might be onto something. By the end of play on Saturday though we had sold four times as many of the
Pilot than the Meerlust – after a slow start it came back very strong,
appropriate given the scoreline!
This
weekend there are no obvious vinous clashes – I mean Uruguay v Georgia would be
an interesting tasting and Ireland v Japan could lead to a whisk(e)y fuelled late night but no, I’m not going
there.
This
week it’s purely about what I fancy tasting whilst the guv’nor is still
sunbaking:
From
the part of Italy that is almost Slovenia, we have Vigneti Le Monde Friulano 2017 – £15.99.
Established
in 1970 and recognised as a “cru” within Friuli, it is only under the current
owners that the estate has really taken off. This wine is made from 100% Friulano, with
aromas of fresh flowers, citrus, lemon and green apple. The palate is crisp and dry with again notes
of apple, peach and pear with a subtle floral note. Good weight, perfectly
balanced by a fresh clean finish – a delicious wine that often falls below the
radar of many Italian white fans!
And
from the Minervois in France, we’ve got open Chateau de Paraza ‘Cuvée Spéciale’ 2016 – £13.99 which is a Syrah,
Grenache Noir and Mourvèdre blend that give us a deep red garnet coloured wine
with cherry and raspberry compote notes, red liquorice string in the background
and a lovely juicy acidity. A great
all-rounder of a wine with red flowers and mineral notes entwining themselves
with the fruit into a great finish – if
you enjoy the Rhône, you’ll enjoy this!
So pop by and have a taste, tell us some happy tales from your week and we’ll all be the better for it!