Rise & Vine News, March 2024

The Rise & Vine Newsletter you’ve been waiting for all year…

So where have the Rise & Vine newsletters been this year? Well… to begin with, we had (dry-) January and (not-particularly-moist-unless-you-were-outside-) February – both months in which everybody just hunkers down. So we did just that – hunkered down.

Gradually business has picked up again and now we’re getting back into organising events. We began with one of our Open Season drop-in free wine tastings in March. Time to write our first 2024 newsletter, thought we… Unfortunately, our mailing software thought otherwise, requesting us to reconfigure something which took a week to fix and meant that we missed that window. Sorry if we missed you, pencil in our next Open Season for either last Saturday in May or the first in June (tbc) which is going to be a big ‘un as it’s Rise and Vine’s fifth birthday!

It’s a shame that we couldn’t get the newsletter out last month, not just because it may have meant that a few peeps might have missed a lovely afternoon of slurping, but because – if I say so myself – the newsletter lined up was a cracker! It connected Spring via Ogden Nash and Spike Milligan with Charles de Gaulle and the French theme of our tasting. Because we try and run Rise & Vine responsibly and are keen to recycle as much as possible, I’ve included the opening of that newsletter at the end of this message.

But Easter is upon us and there’s another event in the pipeline.

Jazz & Wine

Hot House Gypsy Swing
Friday 12 April, 7pm, £20/£35

Hot House are back to get our Jazz & Wine programme underway for 2024. If you haven’t seen these guys before, we cannot recommend them too highly. If you’ve been before, we don’t have to tell you how good they are and hope, no, expect to see you back next month.

Local guitarist Simon Moore gets together with leading light of the London Django Collective, Harry Diplock (guitar) and their mate Alec on double bass to revisit and reimagine the gypsy swing sound of Django Rheinhart and all who follow ‘The Djangsta’! We expect Simon’s daughter, Romy, to join us for a rew vocal numbers too.

We’re pricing things a little differently from now on. As for everyone else, the cost of being a band has gone up too and we need to try and get a little more money to our artists without Rise & Vine losing money in the process. So we’ve changed the ticket price to two options: a plain £20 to just come and see the band and £35 if you’d like to partake of a cheeseboard and a glass of wine at the interval. Of course, we will be moooore than happy to sell you wine by the glass or bottle (as well as beers, cocktails and more) throughout the evening. We just ask that you book your cheeseboards in advance to keep things simple on Jazz nights.

Tickets are available from the shop and on our website.

New for Easter

While you’re stocking up for Easter, we thought we’d take this opportunity to let you know about three new wines which arrived on our shelves this month. Now the chances are that you’ve tried the Jones Fitou (£21)? The delightfully broad and bold Fitou from SW France made by expat English winemaker Katie Jones from grapes from vineyards that Katie has saved from abandonment and including the delightfully monikered Hairy Grenache? (The one from One Direction?)

Well we’re now stocking a couple of more keenly priced wines buy Her Jonesness, the Jones Blanc and Jones Rouge, perhaps not as dense and textured as her Fitou, these wines are designed as good, crowd-pleasing swiggers that will delight any palate. The Blanc is a blend of Grenache Gris and Macabeu with a nose of pear drops and a hint of oiliness (believe us, this is a good thing!) and the taste is clean and fresh green apple with a pleasing wisp of smoke. The Rouge is a blend of Grenache and Carignan (maybe the most iconic vine of Roussillon – the area of France where the Mediterranean coast turns south towards Catalunya and Spain). It has an earthy fresh blackcurrant nose with a touch of nettle. As the fruit comes through on the palate, it is more that of a blackcurrant sauce if not bramble. There’s soft acidity and nice pepperiness to boot.

Our third new wine is an Albariño from Rias Baixas in NE Spain, Torroxal (pronounced Torroschal, we are reliably informed). It’s not a direct replacement for the popular Orballo Albariño, which unfortunately is no longer available to us, but offers some of the characteristics of its predecessor as it shows some of the typical saline characteristics of Albariños grown close to the Atlantic coast. (Unlike the less salty Lusco Albariño, which is more typical of wines from grapes grown more inland.) Torroxal’s soft nose is full of plump apricot with notes of lime, almond and ozone. On the palate it’s dry, deep and saline with low acidity, tropical fruit and a hit of citrus oils (lemon, lime and orange) in a long, full finish.

And a last little suggestion – our new cocktail served in the bar or in 250ml premixed bottles in the shop (we can’t sell our own mixed cocktails on the website for licensing reasons). The Leith Apple Sour is our take one the American bar standard, the Whiskey Sour. That’s not to say that prissy cocktail served in a poncey glass and covered with beaten egg white, but the more honest / workmanlike blend of rye whiskey and the house’s own citrus sour mix. Ours features the Leith Table Whisky (it’s from Scotland, so no ‘e’ in whisky) a grain whisky similar to an American rye with a sour mix blending green apple juice, lime and rhubarb bitters. Best drunk on the rocks with a slice of Granny Smith, or with a dash of ginger ale to make a longer drink.

And old favourites on the horizon

Now we are being asked frequently about a few wines missing from our shelves at the moment. We are waiting for new vintage bottlings of Origine Chardonnay and Ponte Viro Primitivo and will be getting them sent northwards as soon as they are available (soon). Other wines such as Romarion Chardonnay and Valdtion Alpilles will follow around the same time. Unfortunately, we will not be able to supply any of the Californian Rioja that a customer recently insisted they had bought from us just a week or so ago as (1) we really didn’t ever stock it and (2) we know we didn’t not just because we know we didn’t but because there is no such wine as Californian Rioja. (Sometimes we do wonder about the xistance of parallel universes!)

That Spring Thing

So that’s enough for now, heh? Remember to book your jazz night tickets. And here’s the introduction to that aborted newsletter from last month. Enjoy…

So the Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
What you need today is a glass of fizz…

You know the poem? It was popularised by Spike Milligan, attributed to Ogden Nash, although officially scribed by A Non. (Incidentally, that’s the default first option on all French application forms since the 1960s: (A) Non, (B) Oui – the first option is always ‘Non’. Ask Président de Gaulle.)

As well as referring to de Gaulle’s attitude to the UK joining the Common Market – honestly, why did he bother? It was only ever temporary – that gag then tied us nicely into the focus of the Spring 2024 Open Season tasting being our French wine collection. We then reproduced the full poem at the bottom of the newsletter, as we have here, below…

And there we are.

Hope your keeping well, safe and jazzy

and the Rise & Vine team
wine, beer and spirt of independence

And the poem in full…

The Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where them boidies is?
Them little boids is on the wing.
But that’s absoid!

The little wings is on the boid!

attrib. Ogden Nash (officially Anon)

Or the alternative 21st Century version…

The Spring is sprung, the grass is riz
I wonder where them boidies is?
Them little boids is on the decline
due to pesticides, hunting, deforestation and climate change

attrib. Chris Packham