Rise & Vine News – January 2025

January 2025

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2025

January… most-hated month of wine merchants! Dry January… I mean “why?” Is it a global conspiracy to lose us all the money that we made in December? Or just a really bad idea to give up drinking in the grimmest of all months? Surely February would be better (don’t you dare!) as at least it’s the shortest? Or how about August? Why not cleanse yourself while you’re away sunning yourself, instead of sipping rosé on The Riviera (or Bristol Cream on the Bristol Channel)? Actually, scratch that. August is a crappy month for us too and we need all the help we can get from the half of Kensal Rise that isn’t in sunnier climes (or the Bristol Channel).

Actually, the best month to go dry is always, wait for it… Next month! (Never this month, always next month.) Or how about a compromise? I’m doing half of January dry… the mornings!

And with “The Orange One” (“El Gran Naranja”) having taken up residence once again in a flurry of executive orders, we all may well be needing a stiff drink a little more frequently than previously? (Executive orders – remember more innocent times when an executive order was the Prét order for a boardroom working lunch?) Anyway, strap on your Q-Anon bison hat, we’re in for a bumpy ride!

Strap on your Q-Anon bison hat… Luca has already

Goodbye dry January!

Open Season, Spring 2025

FREE Drop-in Wine Tasting
Saturday 1 February, 2-6pm

To mark the passing of Dry January, and having never knowingly passed over the opportunity for a pun, Rise & Vine is hosting it’s first Open Season FREE drop-in wine tasting of the year on February the first. Or February The Thirst, as we’re rebranding it!

Most of our newsletter subscribers know the form already, but just in case you’ve just crept out of a pandemic survival silo(?)… (Welcome back! We’d just like to say that everything’s all lovely now. We have a new government! The new POTUS is, at least, awake for extended periods. The Middle East is quieter than it’s been for… well… days? Like I said, we’d liiiike to say…) … or maybe you’re one of our newbies? This is how an Open Season tasting works:

We encourage our suppliers to share up to a couple of dozen sample bottles with us. We open them and, between 2 and 6 on a Saturday afternoon, we share them with anybody who cares to drop in. No need to book, all you need to do is pitch up and slurp! This time around, we’ll be showcasing a combination of new wines to our range plus some of the more overlooked-but-lovely-all-the-same wines already on our shelves. During the tasting, we offer a 10% discount on the wines featured and of course our local E-bike delivery service is available to get anything you purchase delivered to your chosen address. (We can deliver nationally too.)

A little light refreshment

You may be aware already, but during January we’ve been keeping the shop closed on Mondays. Not for post-festive recovery, but rather to take advantage of the quieter times to get on with a little care and maintenance. Some of it’s been along the lines of fixing broken tiles and wobbly taps, but we’ve also been doing a little decorating to brighten the place up a little. We say brighten metaphorically, as one thing we’re in the process of doing is painting the ceiling a dark colour to make the shop feel a little cosier. Pop in when you’re passing to see what we’ve been up to.