Mamma Mia: Here we go again with Wine at The Mockingbird

Tony Elvin
14 hours ago
4 min read

Updated: 42 minutes ago

Thank you to everyone that 'took a chance' on us for our Mamma Mia 2 Movie with Wine Tasting Experience at The Mockingbird Cinema.

As promised, here are the real stars of the show, our five Mediterranean Wines:

Wine 1 - Codorniu 1872 Organic Brut Cava 1872 - Majestic £11.50 (£10.50 mixed six price)

1872 is a tribute to the first bottle of Cava ever produced by the legendary Codorniu. A deliciously traditional blend of Macabeo, Xarel.lo and Parellada offering notes of pear, apple and florality.

Wine 2 - Zacharias Assyrtiko, Nemea Valley, Greece – Waitrose £13.00

From Greece's Nemea Valley, Corinth, this white wine is a dry style with fresh citrus and white peach aromas followed by zesty acidity and refreshing mineral character.

Wine 3 - Jas de Vignes IGP Mediterranee Rosé - Majestic £12 (£9.50 mixed six price)

The Jas de Vignes is an attractive pale pink colour. Intense flavours of fresh strawberries and raspberries that build and linger on the dry clean finish

Wine 4 - Nero Oro Apassimento, Sicily – Majestic £12.50 (£11.00 mixed six price)

Velvety-smooth and fruity. This is one of the top selling wines from Majestic. Stefano Chioccioli uses the appassimento method for producing this Nero D’Avola. After picking, grapes are left to dry in the warm sun, adding richness and intensity, offering concentrated flavours of cherry, damson and blackcurrant.

Wine 5 - Thymiopoulos Atma Xinomavro, Naoussa NW Greece - Waitrose £13.25

Young producer Apostolos Thymiopoulos, is a master of the ancient Xinomavro grape producing it in a modern, approachable style.

Ruby red, fresh, rounded and humming with flavours of spice, coffee, roast meat, flowers, cherry, Marmite and pomegranate – an easy going, dangerously drinkable wine.

Next up, our Super Trooper trivia from the night:

Mamma Mia 2 had the biggest opening weekend box office in the careers of Meryl Streep, Amanda Seigfried and Cher. This was also the first ever Meryl Streep sequel.
Streep and Lily James, both playing Donna are actually vaguely related, ninth cousins! Streep filmed all of her scenes in just one week and all lines are sung.
Cher handpicked Andy Garcia to play the character of Fernando out of a bunch of selected actors.
Though movie is set in Greece (on the fictional island of Kalokairi), unlike the first movie, this was actually shot in Croatia.
Hugh Skinner, Jeremy Irvine, and Josh Dylan, played young Harry, Sam, and Bill, they all lived together in a villa in Croatia for 6 weeks while filming. Dylan arrived in the country two weeks earlier in order to learn how to sail a boat and also to get tanned (much of the cast had to get a spray tan, including Dylan).
The young cast did extensive research on their "legacy" counterparts by studying the first movie and watching countless interviews and other movie footage from their early days.
Lily James was already a huge fan of the musical from an early age. Having seen it over ten times on stage, she already knew every moment of the movie adaptation by heart before auditioning.
Prior to starting production on this movie, Lily James went to Stockholm, Sweden, to work on the vocal soundtrack with Composers Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. She wanted a "feel" for the music from their perspectives rather than what she'd experienced from simply listening to ABBA.
Lily actually broke her toe during filming running into a lighting stand, this caused issues when cartwheeling for Waterloo!
"Be still, my beating vagina", said by Tanya (Christine Baranski), after she saw Fernando Cienfuegos, was only added into the script once Andy García was cast to play Fernando, because he is "that hot".
Cher was originally offered the role of Tanya Wilkinson in the first movie, but turned it down.
She appeared in this movie, but in a different role, per invitation of her former agent and dear friend, Ron Meyer, who is now head of Universal Pictures. Cher claimed this time she wasn't even given a chance to refuse, as Meyer hung up the phone right after he urged her to do it.
Producers have discussed making a third film. Amanda Seyfried said she would be on board for another movie, but has questioned if there are enough unused ABBA songs. Julie Walters, said its the only movie she would come out of retirement for.
Cher was the oldest cast member (born May 20th, 1946), but still only three years older than Meryl Streep. Paid $1mill for just 3 mins, same salary range as the main cast members.
When filming the movie's credits scene, Writer and Director Ol Parker simply blasted "Super Trouper" and let the cast have fun. What you’ll see is just "cherry-picked bits of it". During that scene, the male cast members competed to see who could stuff the most down their spandex trousers.