Sunday Drinking: 25 August
A round-up of everything I've been up to since the last time I rounded up everything I've been up to. Plus a couple of drink recommendations.
It’s my first month as a freelancer since 2018 and I have been busy. But before we dive in, I just want to post a picture from our recent family trip to Sandridge Barton in Devon where we stayed as guests. It’s a vineyard so beautiful that even my limited photography skills couldn’t help make it look anything less than stunning. The wines are very good too - I’ve popped a couple of recommendations in at the end. I’ll be writing more on this producer soon.
Right, let’s get on with it! On Substack I’ve written about how more education isn’t the answer to declining wine sales, why blended wines like Penfolds are brilliant, picked some whites and reds from Laithwaite’s, and looked at how the changing economic climate is affecting English wine. Then I wrote a defence of English wine to counteract all the criticism I got from that article. I also wrote about Picpoul, Frasier, looked at whether wine could be funny and asked some well-known food and drink types what their last wine on earth would be. Oh and I introduced a new feature for (my burgeoning band of) paid subscribers, Wine of the Week, choosing a La Rioja Alta and a Morgon.
Outside Substack, I celebrated the power of positive drinking in the New Statesman, looked at how English pinks went upmarket for Club Oenologique, rounded up some pinot noir for BBC Good Food, toasted 50 years at Breaky Bottom, and investigated how the South Africans are taking over English wine. Plus I covered sherry and Greece for The Critic. I also got out of my drinks rut and wrote about Stan Getz and a forgotten classic Geoffrey Wolff’s The Duke of Deception.
Elsewhere the always interesting Joe Fattorini looks at how wine scores on apps like Vivino are meaningless. I’d also highly recommend reading Felicity Carter on the disappearance of good quality affordable wine as everyone is going for ‘premiumisation. This is something that at the moment is more pronounced in the US but you have probably noticed how previously affordable brands, and not just in wine, are positioning themselves as luxury products.
And talking of luxury Beyoncé has joined Rod Stewart in announcing her very own whiskey, or whiskéy as Joe Fattorini dubbed it. Called SirDavis, it’s an American rye/malt produced with LVMH, blended by Bill Lumsden from Glenmorangie and apparently inspired by her great-grandfather who was a moonshiner during Prohibition. Yours for £89.
Now for some more affordable drink recommendations. The Sandridge Barton range is a bit confusing as the mainstream wines are marketed as Sharpham (the site of the estate until 2008), the prestige range is called Sandridge Barton and then there’s an offbeat range called Don’t Feed the Pony.
This is the wine for you if you find English fizz a bit lean, my wife commented that it tasted like a richer champagne. Think bruised apple and hazelnuts. There’s a lot of class here for the money.
Don’t Feed the Pony Cider 2021 (£13.50)
This is made from apples from the estate, fermented in the bottle like champagne to create a very superior kind of cider. It joyfully fruity, mainly clean, but with little mulched apple scrumpy note which I like. If you like French cider, this will appeal.
That’s it. But before I go I just want to say a big thank you to all paid subscribers. Numbers are going up promisingly. I'm enjoying writing this Substack immensely and it’s been wonderful getting such positive feedback from readers. The plan is to do two posts a week, a paid only look at a particular wine or producer, and a news/ comment/ ideas thing which will usually be free to read.