Somewhat Crestfallen

Well, it’s turning out to be a nice enough week. I took Tuesday through Friday off, giving me ten days’ holiday in total with the Easter long weekend. My intentions have been realised as far as I could expect: some partying (at the weekend), and some work in the garden.

I’m totally revamping that patch of briar we call our back garden. I’m currently laying a patio at the top (it’s a slope, lowest at the back door, highest at the new wall and fence boundary with the flats built on the plot behind). This means levelling the site, after it has been stripped of brambles, bricks, concrete and assorted soil-dwelling grubs. Then sand – a lot of that. A thick layer, stamped-down to stabilise it, followed by a weed-supressing membrane, then more sand, then flagstones. So far, it’s been heavy but not long toil, and I’m very pleased with my progress. I want somewhere to put pots full of tomato plants grown from seed, and a table and chairs – so I can host great al fresco get-togethers.

In between back-and-forth trips to the B&Q by the motorway, my mum and I have been shopping and today to Lytham (a very pleasant little town just down the coast, for those of you not acquainted with the geography of maritime Lancashire). I bought two new champagne glasses from the wonderful kitchenware shop there – a pair of Schott Zwiesel tulips to be precise.

The reason for this is that I want to move up to the next level in my champagne tasting. The Austrian crystal flutes I got from Tesco (where else?) are very pretty, and perfectly adequate, but not quite the right shape for tasting the wine, as opposed to floating round parties with it. I had toyed with some extravagantly expensive glasses from an online retailer (clearly superior, but £40 a pop), but a flash of inspiration led me to my favourite specialist boutique in the Fylde region.

And so to the title. I was anticipating a delivery of two interesting but, above all, excellent-value, vintage champagnes from a newly-discovered website. Namely, a 1979 Mumm René Lalou, and a 1983 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne. However, it is not to be: they emailed me today to inform me they were out of stock. They’ve offered me a discount on what they do have, and sent me a list of all-too-interesting alternatives. Sadly, none are anywhere near as cheap, but many are far more intriguing. For a champagne anorak like me, the sniff of a bottle of 1928 Moët or Mumm, or any number of old and oversized bottles of Dom Pérignon, Bollinger, and Dom Ruinart, is too good to miss.

Shall I trade-up, or take my business elsewhere?