Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
Aaaaagh \u2013 the folly of writing the blog the evening before…. sometimes nefarious goings on in the darkest hours of the night can come along to make an absolute nonsense of what previously seemed half decent!<\/em><\/p>\n So, with time pressing hard, we have decided to plough ahead with what we wrote and be done with \u2013 the orginal email, written on Thursday, is below in <\/em>normal font, our edits from today are in italics, let\u2019s see how we get on…<\/em><\/p>\n Not wishing to get political but who saw that coming!<\/p>\n Blimey, that was more prescient than we intended.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Moving swiftly on, in spite of all the Champagne corks popping last night, it would seem that the Champagne houses, particularly the biggest beasts such as Nicolas Feuillatte, are struggling a little.<\/p>\n They are the third largest champagne brand in the world, and reportedly last year sold 10.4 million bottles the world over, a drop in sales of 4%, or 400,000 bottles, on the previous year.\u00a0 In money terms this was a loss of \u20ac13 million.\u00a0 Now, apparently, this drop in sales was \u201csolely\u201d due to the \u201cmarked decline\u201d in UK volume sales of Champagne \u2013 no mincing words there and one has to wonder where these sales have gone.\u00a0 Talking to our chap from Thienot the other day, he too mentioned that the British market has become a harder nut to crack over the last few years, with sales growing very slowly and the bigger brands acting more aggressively.<\/p>\n Small growers haven\u2019t reported similar declines, for example our favourite Moutard chaps produce somewhere in the region of 560,000 bottles per annum, perhaps it\u2019s them who have taken the Feuillatte sales….<\/p>\n Happy with all of that \u2013 the facts haven\u2019t changed since yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n Or perhaps it\u2019s Laura?<\/u><\/p>\n This Saturday is, according to our sources at Mumsnet (don\u2019t ask…), WORLD GIN DAY<\/strong>.\u00a0 Now in its 9th<\/sup> year it is a global celebration of all things Gin on the second Saturday of June.\u00a0 I know, we\u2019d never come across it before either, so thanks MN (see, we even have the lingo… what have we become).<\/p>\n Anyway, back to Saturday.\u00a0 World Gin Day, yattedy yattedy ya.\u00a0 A simple idea of getting people together all around the world with a legitimate excuse to drink some gin, whether it\u2019s in a cocktail, G&T or neat.\u00a0 Nice.<\/p>\n This all seems good but I have a feeling the wheels are about to come off…<\/em><\/p>\n And now for the bit that makes us seem clever-clever when actually we\u2019re not.\u00a0 Months ago we asked Laura from Little Bird, the gin of Peckham<\/strong>, to come in and do a tasting with us, and of course, you \u2013 what better way prepare for Saturday than to have some rehearsal gins on Friday evening.\u00a0 Clever-clever, if we\u2019d had any inkling of the existence of World Gin Day before 5pm on Thursday…<\/span><\/p>\n Laura will be here from about 5.30pm for a couple of hours and is under strict instruction to parry any political comments or questions with the words \u2018try some of my Gin, it\u2019s delicious!\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n Laura has, unfortunately ,had to duck out of tonight\u2019s tasting, citing personal circumstances but promises to be here in two weeks time, Friday 23rd<\/sup> June \u2013 don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ll remind you!\u00a0 Apologies all round….<\/em><\/p>\n Oh, and to explain the slightly obtuse \u2018Or perhaps it\u2019s Laura?\u2019 comment above: it would seem that whilst a glass of Champagne used to be the aperitif of choice in many restaurants, bars and hotels in the past, it is now more common for a cocktail or spirit based drink to be the choice before a meal, and Gin is leading this charge.<\/p>\n So, yes, it\u2019s Laura.<\/p>\n Yep, that works still.<\/em><\/p>\n eto update<\/u><\/p>\n If you signed up to the eto newsletter beforehand you will already know that the chaps went live at midday on Tuesday.\u00a0 You may not know though that they fulfilled their funding needs within 32 hours!\u00a0 Astonishing.\u00a0 You can still sign up and join in the fun and the really great news is that the project will go ahead.\u00a0 Pob lwc!<\/p>\n Lots of sport this weekend, so be warned that Alex might be distractedly trying to coordinate Rugby\/Cricket\/Tennis watching whilst ensuring Wayne doesn\u2019t get distracted by the Criterium du Dauphin\u00e9 \u2013 who will win?!<\/p>\n So, Gin is over the yardarm at 5.30pm, Alex and I will be at the top of the queue… see you there!<\/span><\/p>\n Cheers,<\/p>\n Wayne & Alex<\/p>\n Still good news about eto and we can re-use this last gin bit in two weeks time.<\/em><\/p>\n However, this does leave us short on what to taste this weekend.\u00a0 We, of course, will have our usual range of gins open should you still want to rehearse in time for tomorrow.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n On the wine side, as we missed the whole of English Wine Week in the fog of half term, we have decided to open New Hall Bacchus Reserve 2015 (\u00a312.99) <\/strong>which comes from East Anglia, the posh name for Essex it would seem.\u00a0 Anyway we find the gentle elderflower notes really quite more-ish so don\u2019t be backwards in coming forwards.<\/em><\/p>\n For the red, for no reason better qualified than we quite fancied it, we have Powers Merlot 2012 (\u00a313.99)<\/strong> which has voyaged all the way from Columbia Valley, Washington and is a constant reminder of how polished Merlot can be!<\/em><\/p>\n Finally, all next week we will be tasting and talking about Sherry here in the shop, as part of the Sherry Wines Sherry Festival 2017 <\/strong>\u2013 come and grab a copita!<\/em><\/p>\n That\u2019s it from us \u2013 we\u2019ll be opening later on Tuesday just so you know, we\u2019re in town for a tasting over lunchtime but we\u2019ll be back by four.<\/em><\/p>\n Edit done.\u00a0 Press send.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, Aaaaagh \u2013 the folly of writing the blog the evening before…. sometimes nefarious goings on in the darkest hours of the night can come along to make an absolute nonsense of what previously seemed half decent! 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