Double Magnums & Imperials & Sunday opening...

I was looking to offer you a new Grűner Veltliner from Austria’s Anton Bauer but alas the wrong cuvée was delivered so let me pause until next week and re-stock, re-try and then pitch.

Well having wrongly predicted that Helen would win “The Apprentice” Final when actually “nice but dim” won instead, I did say I’d make a gesture. Right, for my penance, I will open this coming Sunday and any walk in sales or phone in sales (except En Primeur) I will knock off 5%. Or if you spend say £ 100 or more I’ll throw in a free bottle of Premier Cru Sauternes! Sir Sweetie however was wrong. Having called the last two, Helen and Tom, back into the boardroom, he should have said, “Neither of you actually merit a quarter of a million investment so I am moving the goalposts. The same money is there but I am employing you both, you’ll have to work together.” The only time Tom was successful was under Helen’s leadership anyway. He missed a Dragon’s Den trick. Two desperados would have effectively taken half each to secure the or rather their position. I think Lord Tate & Lyle is losing his touch.

This Sunday, 24^th July -

OPEN 11.00 a.m. until 6.00 p.m.

Come and have a wee glass of the Sauternes if you like.

An offer on Imperials of:

Château Brande-Bergère “Cuvée O’Byrne” 2009 Bordeaux at £ 150.00 per Imperial

Last year we offered some 25 Cases En Primeur (in Bottles & in Magnums) of this exclusive little import. Monsieur Dalibot is just about to bottle this 2009 Vintage (his finest) and as a one-off (for his family and for us) will bottle this in Imperials (8 Bottles). This is a really special offer, hand-bottled for us and one I highly recommend you indulge in. We need to know A.S.A.P. as he is beginning to bottle now. Not as good as but it’ll unequivocally be rarer than an Imperial of Lafite-Rothschild!

Weekly Indulgence and still on big bottles:

3 Double Magnums each of:

Domaine de Chevalier 1996 Cru Classé de Graves at £ 255.00 each

&

Château Brane-Cantenac 1995 Margaux 2ème Grand Cru Classé also at £ 255.00 each

Two terrific wines, fabulous format, for drinking now or a decade or two hence.

(These are due in stock in a week or two.)

Bordeaux 2010 – la dernier cri

Coincidentally, later today I will be e-mailing all of our En Primeur buyers my final offer (a mere dozen wines) plus my heartfelt view of what En Primeur now actually means. So for want of a better phrase, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Silly-season:

Is it just me or does anyone else think Rupert Murdoch looks like Homer Simpson?

Is A.A.Gill A) having an affair? B) being Ghost-written? C) his mind diverted by the Phone Hacking Scandal? I don’t actually have the answer but no fewer than three mistakes in his Sunday Times column this weekend so something surely is awry! Answers on a post card.

Funny thing Superstition, is it mere 50-50, coincidence, something else? Last week the 7^th Earl of Harewood died. On the 18^th June 1944 he was injured in battle before being carted off by Jerry to Colditz. Nothing unusual in that. The 6^th Earl was injured in WWI, on the 18^th of June. The 2^nd Earl too, Battle of Waterloo. You guessed it, 18^th of June, 1815. I think the 8^th Earl should perhaps stay at Home in June.

“I know I am just a fad.” – Pippa Middleton

“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.” – Oscar Wilde 1891.