Cold Wine & Keats

Cold Wine

Now that the Death Valley phase of the heat wave is hopefully behind us it may be safe to shift the focus away from wines of a purely thirst-quenching nature (the joy that is Provencale rosé).  A glass, perhaps, of cold red wine? Not cellar temperature, cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, as Keats had it. But cold.  

For the next two Sundays, we will be serving magnums (by the glass and carafe) of wine ideally suited to coldness.  

This Sunday (26th) provides special excitement with a big bottle of the magnificent Sesti family’s 2023 Grangiovese, one of the last wines to be made by the late lamented Giugi Sesti who left this world in 2024. Unmissable.

Next Sunday (2nd Aug) we move on to a double-bottle of Beaujolais, a 2024 Saint-Amour, Domaine des Combiers, Beaujolais no less. To those of you that have been living on a desert island, the wines of Beaujolais have evolved to such an extent in recent years that they now compete with the Burgundians for elegance and poise.

Events, dear boy, events…

After a smashing launch of our monthly pub quiz in aid of the Rugby Portobello Trust,  we go again on 7th September. Hosted this month by local legend and quiz fanatic Hugh Warrender. Tickets can be booked here.

Almost unbelievably, we have a couple of tables unsold for Tuesday's landmark collaboration between Jeremy Lee and our very own Jacob Farley, who will be cooking a dinner in honour of Alastair Little. Snap them up now by clicking here!

Wine Quote

"Give me Books, fruit, French wine and fine weather and a little music out of doors, played by someone I do not know…I admire lolling on a lawn by a water-lily pond to eat white currants and see goldfish: and go to the Fair in the Evening if I’m good. There is not hope for that—one is sure to get into some mess before evening. Have these hot days I brag of so much been well or ill for you…”

John Keats, from a letter to Fanny Keats 1819

(while writing Ode to Autumn)

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