BUBBLE BROTHERS - CORK WINE MERCHANTS

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The LIWF opens its doors to the wine trade between the 20th and 22nd May at the curiously named EXCEL in Woolwich in the east of London, near the Royal Victoria Dock. Prime Iain Sinclair territory. But anyway.

Dear suppliers and wine buddies, despite anything I may have suggested to the contrary, I regret that I shall not after all be making the trip to London this year. It’s a pity, but there it is.

However, a representative of Bubble Brothers will be in attendance: Valérie, our on-placement assistant from Reims in Champagne, will be making the trip to have a good look around on our behalf and, where possible, say hello to our existing contacts. If you were hoping to meet me but would like to have a chat with our Val instead, please drop me a line and we’ll see what can be arranged.

I’ve just signed Bubble Brothers up to LinkedIn, chiefly so that the other boys don’t call me rude names. I think it could be a useful thing if you’re ambitious, take a balanced view of the world, believe in progress, &c. All of these Bubble Brothers the company does, naturally; but it’s a bit hard, personally, to dissemble on so many fronts at once.

UPDATE(now less peevish)

The technical shortcomings of LI mean that if you wish to invite me, you’ll need to write to info at. My own name is unacceptable to the program, with the result that I am having to invite people who have attempted to invite me first: not a degree of involvement with the thing that I had anticipated, or care for.

When I get the full-time blogging job (and we all know when that will be) I’ll enjoy doing a Mulley-style fluffy links. Until then you have to make do with lazy, sporadic gestures in the direction of things that have caught my eye on the way between what I was doing and and what I ought to have been doing next. For instance, I wanted to tell Caroline at Bibliocook about a jazz musicians’ cook book I like, and the New York Times had a good review of it. I’d left the tab up all week and read through it this morning while waiting for something or other to load up or download or what have you, and at the bottom of the article I couldn’t resist following the link to this:What Motivates the Wine Shopper? — Eric Asimov - New York Times, which reminded me that, though I don’t have the time, I really should make sure I’m subscribed to Eric Asimov’s blog and try to get a look at it now and again.

I don’t know why the Irish Examiner still doesn’t make Blake Creedon’s weekly wine column available online. I’m reluctant to say anything tendentious on the subject, because I shouldn’t like to offend Blake (for reasons of personal courtesy rather than of corporate diplomacy) if his paper-bound status is of his own choosing. But it’s pretty silly and annoying that such an impartial, sensible, affable and regular analysis of what’s happening in the Irish wine world is print-only. What an archive those columns would make for anyone wondering where to start pursuing an interest in wine here, and preferring to do a bit of quiet research before taking the plunge! I can’t refer you to Blake online, I am afraid, but instead I’ll refer you to one of his links from today’s column about the wines at Aldi. Here’s some very candid writing from Danny Gibson, Aldi’s UK Wine Buying Director. I know very well, for instance, why it’s so hard to sell wine from Alsace; but he puts it more directly and precisely than I think I could’ve, or would’ve in this blog.

I’m still coming to terms with the dizzying possibilities offered by the Bubble Brothers website upgrade. This, in the context of the thousand and one things there are to do every day that are more strictly related to the business of wine merchantry. And then Conor gallops into view on his white steed &c. &c. and brings Wordpress up to date for us. We are not worthy. Thank you very much indeed, sir! Now that we’re safe from the spam-injecting exploit that has been distorting earlier versions of WP, it’s just a question of installing that new plugin that automatically keeps all your work under control and up to date.

Hosford’s Garden Centre are hosting a farmers’ market. There’ll be puppet shows, composting demonstrations, and of course all those great plants.

You might consider a spot of guerrilla gardening to brighten up a corner that no-one seems bothered about. Lidl and so on have super-cheap annual seeds that they’re trying to get rid of as May begins. Chuck a packet of eschscholzias about while you walk the dog (or something native, if you think that’s greener).

And, while my benighted views on progress don’t merit airing on the subject of whether building buildings is a good idea or not, I do like the mass planting of heartseas-y violas on the road side of the new shop’n'officeopolis of City Gate, Mahon. I wonder who thought of that sweet bit of micro-landscaping, and was allowed to do it. Not so sure about what look like three standard roses in the same scheme.

If you’re in Blackrock, Cork, you should try to get along and support the outdoor markets at the Pier, which are now weekly on Sundays from 10am-2pm. The Natural Foods Bakery blog has the full s.p. If you do go, leave a comment on the blog and let the natural fooders know what you thought. If you are elsewhere in Ireland, check out the Fresh Food map to see what might be going on in your area, sale of vegetables and so on-wise.

I’ll be at URRU Mallow this afternoon from about three-ish, to help introduce the people to Louis de Bélair’s light (yet profound) Dauphin de Rozier, which we continue to offer at two for twenty euro. If you do buy a bottle, from now on, as I’ll keep repeating, you can give your opinion on the Bubble Brothers site. The comments are subject to moderation, but I’ll publish everything that’s not obvious junk or gratuitously offensive, &c. I’ll be talking to LouderVoice to see how this might fit in with their much more magnificent service. In the meantime, keep everybody up to date this weekend by texting your reviews of things generally to LouderVoice.

Well, I bought those ham hocks from the Gubbeen guys, and I have some black-eyed peas lined up to keep them company in the near future. And now I’ve read this from the Humble Housewife, I’m wondering if there isn’t a gap in the market for a soulful restaurant. I know running an eaterie is a two hundred hour a week kind of job, but the cuisine in question deserves better representation than this in a capital city, far and all as we are from the motherlode.

The Humble Housewife Reviews: Review of Tante Zoe’s

I didn’t mention it on the day, but Kieran gave us a very generous mention concerning the fizz that christened his book launch. The Crémant from Eugene Meyer is not champagne, because it’s from Alsace and made with Pinot Blanc (Pinot Noir for the rosé), but the method is the same, and the price is in the consumer’s favour, despite the punitive Irish duty of four euro and ten cent per bottle. It’s a fully dry and delicious wine. You can keep buying champagne if you like, though the word in itself does not guarantee quality, but you ought to follow a good recommendation for a non-champagne sparkler from time to time.

I’m never quite sure when lauding is the word to go for, and because my approach to cookery is more or less the opposite of Mr Blumenthal’s, I don’t really pay much attention to his celebrity as being anything to do with eating. But he seems to have invented a Mas Amiel (well, AOC Maury anyway) milk shake smoothie. A summer sensation for the Murphys’ soda fountains? Here’s Decanter’s article:

Blumenthal lauded for chocolate wine - decanter.com - the route to all good wine

I apologize for any inconvenience caused lately while I was busy breaking the website. I couldn’t keep you informed about this because the website, blog included, was in bits on the floor like the works of a clock, so to speak. Publishing the blow-by-blow details and sending SOSes, consequently, was not an option.

However, using our newly acquired time reversal optimizer, a puff or two of blue steam and the matching long weights, we’re back online.

The way my uploaded pictures keep falling off the blog is the least of my worries, but I’ll get around to even this before too long. I’m on a roll, you see. Ignorance has proven no obstacle to reassembling the debris successfully into what looks like the old website.

NOW WITH ADDED STUFF!
The upgrade of our web shop that caused all the emotion, and associated toil, means we now have:

product reviews

no more encoding misery with accented characters

and a gentle laxative effect on how web orders are processed and administrated (nothing you’d notice at the customer end much, but a source of lasting relief to me).

A topsy-turvy week this week. The irreplaceable Austin is off sick, so I have been doing my best to keep the customers satisfied at the English Market shop. (And no, he wasn’t just skiving so as to go the Liverpool match - quiet at the back, please!)

I thought I’d better let yous know that you can try one of our wines in the flesh, so to speak, at URRU, McSwiney Quay, Bandon this Saturday. I’ll be there, between about eleven and about half past two, to introduce a promotion of Louis de Belair’s Dauphin du Rozier, a very elegant Grenache and Syrah blend from the Costieres de Nimes. The French can be a bit sniffy about the C de N for some reason, but I think no more than a sniff is all that’s needed to settle the issue as far as this wine’s concerned.

The deal is two for twenty euro, which pretty much corresponds to the £7.50/bottle we charged for it when it first arrived on the Bubble Brothers list in medieval times. Here it is on our website at the current retail price of 12.50. If you buy a few bottles online, I’ll apply the deal when I process the order. And if you notice that the accents in Costieres de Nimes turn to shrapnel in your browser, you can change View>Encoding> to UTF-8. I know it’s a nuisance. I have it on my conscience.

Every now and again I get the curious feeling people are reading this blog. Silly of me, I know, but there you are.