Weekly Wine...

Nothing brand new to stick under your noses this week but just to let you know of two popular wines that are now down to the last 100 or so bottles, which simply put, means we won’t have stock indefinitely!

Nebbiolo Langhe 2009 Produttori di Barbaresco, Piedmont, Italy at £ 17.00 per Bottle

We tried their 2010 yesterday with was terrifically Burgundian but for drinking right now, the 2009 is more expressive and characterful.

Macon-Vinzelles “Clos des Grand-Pères” 2008 Bret Brothers at £ 17.50 per Bottle

We still have some stock of the more feminine 2007 but this fatter 2008 Vintage is now under 120 Bottles.

Weekly indulgence (and with Christmas in mind):

We do have some terrific Vintage Ports

(1977-1985-1991-1994-1997-2000)

From the Aristocracy like…Dow’s; Graham’s; Taylor’s

&

other Port Houses like…Cockburn; Delaforce; Gould Campbell; and Warre’s.

Silly season.

Well you wouldn’t be mad enough to leave your front door unlocked or even open would you? Funnily enough though, that is exactly what humble shopkeepers do! That means one is open to whoever decides that my door needs pushing and then just wander blithely in. Most of the time this works pretty well and having done this for twenty nine years now, one learns to take the rough with the smooth. The last week however has been simply one coo coo ca choo after another. Without exaggeration I would say that we have had people in that were the wrong side of the bars. At times amusing, at times crushingly dull, at times I am looking for the merest hint that a knife is about to spring out and how to I deflect, jump, hide. I don’t know if it is just the looming Pantomime season or the Government has put something in the drinking water but loopy lou it most certainly is and way, way above the usual remit that eighteen of the twenty leading world eccentrics live in Kensington. Battersea Dogs Home, Barking Central…

On the front page of the Torygraph this very morning I spotted “Chancellor warns of falling living standards, rising unemployment and even deeper public spending cuts”. George Osborne doesn’t yet strike me as a man of gravitas ready to imprint his Dr Martens on the world stage but as Chancellor, as Prime Minister, and in retirement I cannot conceive that Gordon Brown would or will, ever, concede such ground.

Not quite so gay any more. I always loved the name of that chain of launderettes called “Go Gay”. I can’t say I was a customer but I was sad to see the last one close on Wandsworth Bridge Road just yards from me in deepest darkest Fulham. It is always amusing to see how inventive some Shop names can be but a certain shoe shop in King’s Road and a host of Chinese Restaurants (unintended) are simply too blue to reiterate here. The naffest by a long shot are the Hairdresser fraternity. Anyway, for Go Gay, end of an era.

Pause for thought.

“God Speed”

The Charlie Waller Memorial Trust

www.cwmt.org.uk

Tuggy

White Burgundy @ £17.50 & Thanksgiving...

Watching the telly last night I was struck by how many Christmas adverts are already springing up and yet to me it feels as if the Summer has only just finished. Anyone for Champagne…Vintage Port…Sauternes…Magnums…? Woops, kettle and black. We have just fast forwarded from the 2007 to the 2008 for one of our real stalwart White Burgundies, the Mâcon-Vinzelles “Grand-Père” by the Bret Brothers. The 2007 was pure, elegant and refined. The 2008 however is a terrific and more substantial example.

Mâcon-Vinzelles “Le Clos de la Grand-Père” 2008

Bret Brothers at £ 17.50 per Bottle

Gone is the relative subtlety and poise of the 2007 and move over, the 2008 has richness, opulence, and bags of fruit.

This flavoursome White Burgundy is incredibly expressive and engaging.

Not merely a blockbuster like many a New World example but possessing a solid backbone of wet stone minerality and well balanced.

Invariably, the smaller the crop, the better the quality. The vineyard lost close to half their grapes with late hail but the late September sun and late

harvest picking in October really helped to concentrate the wines and to produce what the Bret Brothers feel is their best Vintage of Grand daddy and I agree!

Not all too surprising given the 50 year old vines in this tiny vineyard, a smidgen over half a hectare.

In stock.

Thanksgiving Day – Thursday, 24^th November…

“The Usual Suspects” -

Au Bon Climat (Central Coast)

Olivia Brion (Sonoma)

J. Christopher (Oregon)

Dominus (Napa)

Flowers (Sonoma Coast)

Kistler Vineyards

Peter Michael Winery

Ridge Vineyards

Joseph Swan (Russian River)…

Additionally, just shipped and recommended:

Palladian Estate Cabernet-Sauvignon 2005 St-Helena, Napa Valley at £ 28.00 per Bottle

A bit of bottle-age, full-bodied, chewy, rich Cabernet.

Silly Season:

Short and sweet this week:

The day before Remembrance Day my interest was pricked by “Muslims Against Crusades” on the BBC News. In retrospect if you were on the receiving end of pretty much any Crusade you’d be right to be feel a tad miffed. The irony to me however was what one of their spokesman first said when being interviewed. He said that their primary aim was to bring Sharia Law to Britain. Correct me if I am being particularly dumb but isn’t that itself a Religious Crusade?! We are against Crusades but here is our Crusade. A bit like Alcoholics Anonymous but why don’t we each start with a bitter shandy…?!

Champagne by Half...or Magnum...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

            Having winged a House Champagne offer or two to you in the last few months, always in Bottles, I thought about time to offer you the Little & Large version - Half-Bottles and Magnums. As with the Gosset Bottles we had about a year ago, these both come with additional bottle-age having been cellared longer than usual. A treat in other words. We should have these in stock on Friday. The Magnums are in individual card boxes and we sold these pretty quickly pre-Christmas last year as they make quite a convenient present.

            With the Taramasalata Wars (how many A’s can you get in one word?!) and parts of Europe descending to Monty Python like scenes, Champagne is arguably the perfect mental tonic.

With extra bottle-age:

Gosset “Brut Excellence” Non Vintage Champagne £ 16.95 per Half Bottle

Gosset “Grande Réserve” Non Vintage Champagne £ 97.00 per Magnum

“We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at the stars” – Oscar Wilde

Champagne it is then!

Weekly Indulgence:

24 Bottles available:

(by the case or individually)

Textbook lush, gamey, fleshy, seductive and perfectly mature Margaux…

Château Brane-Cantenac 1985

Margaux 2ème Grand Cru Classé

at £ 59.00 per Bottle

Silly Season:

However mind boggling it is that there is no end to space and how many planets there are all around us, equally mind boggling is that each and every snow flake is a unique geometric pattern. How one can tell 20 feet down on a Peruvian mountain compared with an Aspen slope is beyond me but if they really are all unique, quite remarkable. Don’t forget, “Frozen Planet”, BBC1 tonight, 9.00 p.m. Worth a butcher’s.

Is it really any surprise that the City of Westminster is extending payment charges (and thus potential fines) to evenings and Sundays? For years, these people have been taking six figure salaries by simply treating the majority of ordinary hard working visitors and customers and clients and families of residents and businesses as, well, criminals. For every M.P. that was dispatched to jail of late, I strongly believe that ten-fold from Local Councils should be thus scrutinized and duly dispatched. I ask, have any of you ever had a parking ticket quashed with a letter out-of-the-blue, from the Head of Parking, saying that it has been cancelled on a technicality? Not when I asked about that but immediately after I requested (under the Freedom of Information Act 2000) how much revenue had been raised at a particular junction and what changes to signposting had been instigated after initial complaints that the signage was misleading and inadequate. A few days later, a letter letting me “off the hook”. Smell a rat? A whole damn lot of them. City of Westminster, take thousands in local rates and top up by treating their customers as criminals to be duly mugged on a daily basis.

I don’t know what Angela Merkel is up to? I thought it was our job to mention zee war, not theirs. He was able to ride financial and sex scandal time and again but I think Silvio Berlusconi’s final demise was probably down to him announcing that he was about to release an album, accompanied by a traffic warden. Some things really are just too much.

Magnums of Guigal at £ 19 to £ 22!

For many years we have followed Guigal’s stunning value everyday Côtes-du-Rhône Rouge. With any half-decent or better vintage we have always advised shrewd customers to squirrel away 5 cases, as though simply put a Côtes-du-Rhône, it still has the gifted ability of aging gracefully in the cellar for about a decade. In Magnums, potentially longer. 2007 is a terrific Rhône Vintage, a real classic. To get a Magnum of something drinkable at £ 22.00 is sound enough. In quantity, to get a Magnum under £ 20.00 and with 10+ years cellaring potential is, how do I say, recession busting?!

Côtes-du-Rhône Rouge 2007 É.Guigal at £ 22.00 per Magnum

£ 22.00 per Magnum…

£ 21.00 each for 6 Magnums (1 case)

£ 20.50 each of 12 Magnums (2 cases)

£ 19.50 each for 18 Magnums (3 cases)

£ 19.00 each for 30 Magnums (5 cases)

In stock.

Notables recently back in stock:

Château Beaumont 2005 – our best selling red.

Cloudy Bay Sauvignon-Blanc – for you label hunters.

Henriot 2002 Vintage Champagne - for the discerning set.

Weekly indulgence:

A little sweetie…

Château Doisy-Védrines 1988 Barsac

2ème Grand Cru Classé at £ 25.00 per Half-Bottle

1988 was the first, and purest, in a trio of exceptional Sauternes & Barsac Vintages.

Nearly a quarter of a Century on and at this price, it shows that not all Bordeaux is expensive!

We have just 18 halves left in the Shop.

Wine Journal May 2009	Neal Martin	91	Drink -	$80-$105
Tasted at the Doisy-Védrines vertical at the chateau. This has a very Barsac nose with notes of marmalade, barley sugar and a touch of quince, all with excellent definition, although it probably lacks the vigour of the 1989 or 1990. The palate is very smooth and harmonious on the entry, a little low in acidity, but remains cohesive to the finish with a certain degree of elegance to it. Touch of dried apricot, fig and marmalade, although just lacking the complexity and precision of the 1989 on the finish. Tangy, orange cut marmalade on the aftertaste. Moderate length. Still a very fine 1988 Barsac. Tasted September 2008.

Silly Season:

Impossible to say from the relative comfort of my Viking swivel chair but on Saturday night I drove past the annual Guy Fawkes Fireworks display at nearby Ladbroke Square. One side was clear as a bell but on the south side it was an absolute “pea souper”. Very eerie, very Dickensian, and I was even, having, to be cautious at 15 m.p.h. It was fog by another name. What happened on the M5 last Friday is guesswork for most of us but what I drove through in a little corner of London last weekend was best described as, fog. Don’t want to be a killjoy but every year we get deaths and maiming from the fireworks and it’s not as if like the Chinese or Sydney Harbour Bridge we do it particularly well. Perhaps Guy Fawkes attempt, sacrifice, whatever, would be better served by simply popping a Champagne cork.

I have to confess that I have perhaps only traipsed into a Boardroom three or four times in my life so negotiations are not my greatest skill. Nonetheless I seriously doubt that I would have traded 1,027 convicted Palestinian prisoners for the solitary Gilad Shalit. However nice he might be. Those are pretty impressive odds. Maybe Goldman Sachs should look to recruit a few top negotiators from Hamas.

We have many mutual customers with nearby Sally Clarke’s so just a brief mention for one of their longest serving staff, Barry Deady. Now moustaches might be out of place for most, unless you still fly a Spitfire, yet our Barry is putting himself through some daily ridicule by growing a ‘tash. For the month of November he is growing a moustache. More Ronald Colman than Adolph Hitler, thankfully, but all in a good cause which concerns’ Prostate Cancer. www.Movember.com

Tuggy