Liam and I enjoy a tipple or three and we’re all for supporting local businesses. So to celebrate the end of the latest lockdown, we’ve combined both passions with a few bottles of Chet Valley wine from our local vineyard, supplied by our local farm shop, Cannell’s. Cheers!
After the original post went out, we won a bottle of wine at our local church December fair. More from Chet Valley Vineyard. This time pink, dry and fizzy!
The fourth of July was independence day for boozers in England. For the first time since lockdown in March, pubs threw open their doors with staff waiting anxiously at the pumps. We were like rats out of a trap. First stop for a cheeky bottle of blush, the White Horse, transformed into a virus-free sanctuary (as much as anything can be) by the jolly landlord, Simon Peck, and his trusty staff.
The pandemic revealed an entirely different side to Simon as a bumbling and uncannily accurate BoJo impersonator as you can see in this tongue firmly in cheek performance.
Simon even made it on to Look East, our regional BBC news programme. If you’re on Facebook, give the video a like if you would. Simon would be chuffed.
Next stop was the Swan for a couple and then the King’s Head for a final snifter. We didn’t quite make it up to the Angel. That’s on the menu for next time. Too early for opening time? I’m no expert so I’ll leave that to the know-it-alls to speculate. What I do know is each establishment did their bit to keep people safe and all the punters behaved. Was it worth it? You bet! We got totally tiddlypooped.
I heard through the grapevine that a bottle of vino from Norfolk had been recognised as one of the best in the world. It won a platinum best in show medal at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2017, one of the industry’s most prestigious competitions. Fancy that! The winning white, the Bacchus 2015, comes from the family-run Winbirri Vineyard on the edge of the Broads National Park. Apparently, the name Winbirri comes from the Anglo-Saxon ‘win’ for wine and ‘birri’ for grape – though I suspect rough beer was the tipple of choice back in the day for those merry Angles of old swigging from their drinking horns, Beowulf-like. And so it is again, judging by the spectacular revival of indie brewers across East Anglia. These days, it’s artisan ale and hipster whiskers at every tavern. Drinking horns have yet to come back into fashion. Give it time.
English wines have been winning gongs galore for a while now. The weather’s brighter these days, it’s a global warming thing. With rising sea levels, we might as well make merry before the North Sea laps about our knees. At 14 quid a bottle, the Winbirri winner is a bit pricier than the plonk we normally guzzle but we thought we’d give it a go to see what all the fuss was about. All sold out. Sad face.
Images are courtesy of Winbirri.
Wine tasting (ok, wine guzzling) is an essential element of our hedonista lifestyle. Together, we survive on in a month what I alone used to earn in a week so we’re rather preoccupied with the cost; prices have been rising due to increased taxation on alcohol. We don’t have a car so we can’t take advantage of the bulk bargains to be had at Metro, the local cash and carry warehouse. Instead we have to make do with what’s on offer in local supermarkets.
We care about the quality (though less so after the second bottle) and quality isn’t necessarily linked to cost. As Brits, we’ve been rather spoilt for choice. Setting aside the small amount of vino produced by English vineyards, all wine in Blighty is shipped in from the four corners of the globe. Generally, this means the quality is reasonable, even at the plonk end of the market. Liam likes a full bodied red. I prefer a crisp white. We’ve found a couple of labels that tickle our taste buds: Sava from Carrefour (the French multi-national) and Beyzade, occasionally from Tansaş. Both sell at around 7 lira (about £2.40 or $1.80) and are very good value. We’re not experts. We don’t do the Jilly Goolden roll, smell and spit routine. We just sup. A lot. I’ll drink to that.
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Perking the Pansies – Jack and Liam move to Turkey
Last night, the heavens opened and we were entertained by a real snap, crackle and pop of a storm. What is it about Turkish raindrops? They seem so much heavier than the Blighty variety as they fall to the ground like cluster bombs. As we watched the spectacle from our balcony, our courtyard became littered with adolescent olives and the road outside was overcome by a river of brown sludge that sloshed against our garden wall. We unplugged our fancy electricals as a precaution against the strobe lightning, positioned towels at vulnerable points around the house and hoped for the best.
Perking the Pansies 