Tuggy's Tips
Perhaps our most expensive offering for an ordinary weekly but perversely, our “weekly indulgence” will be a somewhat cheaper offering. With a chill in the air, first day of Lord’s tomorrow I have to confess that it feels more like mid-October. Where-o-where dear Gulf Stream have you gone? Still, thinking ahead this small offering might well entice:
We have a modest parcel (18 only), due in perhaps tomorrow, of extra-aged Gosset Rosé but in Magnums. We had a nice run in Halves but these have now exhausted themselves. These Magnums have an additional three years bottle-age and are a wonderful mellow and almost tangerine colour.
These appear to retail from circa £ 125 up to £ 155 at Fortnum & Mason but we have, I think, a stunning deal at £ 105.00 each or even better, £ 98.00 each per case of 3 or more. To reiterate there are only 18 of these beauties left.
Gosset Grand Rosé N.V.(Aÿ) at £ 105.00 per Magnum
Weekly indulgence:
To be sure, to be sure, T.B.A., T.B.A. Trockenbeerenauslese to be well advised. On Friday we had a customer’s 48th Birthday here in the Shop. 11 Bottles and a combined total of 1,036 Parker points. Never tallied before but must have been up there if not an actual record for us. The after effects of which are still displayed in our Shop window. All wines were good but the one unequivocal pound-for-pound value stand-out was the Austrian Trockenbeerenauslese. I paired it against the fabled Château d’Yquem and old Yquem was a bit of a wall-flower in comparison.
To be shipped from the Estate in a fortnight:
“Sämling 88” Trockenbeerenauslese 1995 Weingut Helmut Lang at £ 32.00 per Half-Bottle
Amazing how a wine can be so good and yet it is a grape that I’d be surprised if any of you had heard of – Scheurebe!
Anyway, the current Vintage is the 2006, itself delicious but when I had the chance to stock-up on some 1995 direct from the cellar door, I’d have been an idiot not to.
Fabulous rich, caramel, Armagnac like colour. Classic botrytis with unctuous texture and tropical flavours and not unlike Dundee orange marmalade.
The flavour is so intense and extraordinary that I don’t think I am exaggerating here by saving, if this wine had been £ 50-60 a half, I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.
Silly Season:
A couple of weeks back I took my son to see “Iron Man 3”. Utterly dreading the prospect I was actually won round almost immediately. A totally camp Ben Kingsley in the Bin Laden role and the ever excellent Guy Pearce were worth the admission money alone. Some 20-30 minutes of gratuitous rubbish but the rest was surprisingly good and pretty much on a par with the much vaunted Bond film. A surprising thumbs-up.
Finally hurdling the 700+ pages of Antony Beevor’s “The Second World War” I felt about time I took on something a little lighter and more humorous. Though most fascinating about Beevor’s book was the Realpolitik of that era. Many things I learnt anew and virtually last page was one of the knock-on effects of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. Apparently Stalin intended to invade both Italy and France in 1946 but decided not to only once America flexed its Atomic muscle. Sober-ing. A highly recommended read. Anyway, to lighter authors. What for instance does a renowned author fill their own book shelves with? The obvious in Dickens and Shakespeare etc but fascinating to look at the gaps and the more frivolous. On the more day-to-day, on the more humorous, I’ll dissect “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls” more fully next week.
Tuggy
