The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

As all our thoughts turn to parties, mince pies, wrapping paper and of course the pressies to wrap up we thought we’d offer some friendly help and advice…

Parties – wear something festively red, make sure you have a taxi number with you, and drink at least 1 glass of water.

Mince pies – don’t forget the Optrex, no party season is complete without the pocket brightener for the morning after. In the food sense, it’s the perfect afternoon pick me up with a cup of tea.

Wrapping paper – flock wallpaper is absolutely rubbish. It looks fantastic but the sticky tape does not stay stuck! Why not try one of our bottle bag options.

Pressies – we can suggest many things, two are below:

Wine Course

The gift that keeps on giving! Why not send your other-half/brother/sister/personal-trainer(delete as appropriate) on our six week wine course. You’ll have Wednesday nights free for six weeks, they’ll taste around 60 wines, discover the difference between red and white grapes and even learn some groovy new wine terms to impress their friends.

Sound too good to miss? Then come along with them. Term starts 30^th Jan 2013 for 7 weeks (break for half term in the middle) and costs £150. Considerably less than a pair of Gucci loafers and much more fun. Full details attached.

The Chocolate Block 2011 – Same price as last year £22.99 whilst stocks last…

Boekenhoutskloof have done it again. Just when you thought you’d never see one again, and you wish you hadn’t drunk that last bottle, up pops the new vintage. It makes the perfect present too. Over to the Mark Kent… “Winemakers comments: The 2011 Chocolate Block is a blend of Syrah (69%); Grenache Noir (14%); Cabernet Sauvignon (11%); Cinsault (5%) and Viognier (1%). This wine is the perfect example of identifying “undiscovered” parcels of vineyard with amazing potential and utilizing it to unleash its world class quality.”

*Rest assured no chocolate was harmed in the making of this wine.

Tasting this weekend

The tasting table has a definite Italian accent this weekend starting in Piemonte in the north with Roberto Sarotto’s delicious Gavi del Commune di Gavi (£12.99). This is the real deal, single vineyard wine from lofty slopes that is aged on its lees to add depth and character.

We’ll then head to Toscana and the beautiful village of Montalcino. Giacomo Bindi’s Brunato Il Cocco (£12.99) from the highest vineyards in Montalcino we found ourselves wondering if it might not be just fab with goose. Best reacquaint ourselves with its flavours.

Lest we get carried away talking with our hands, we shall provide focus with some suitably seasonable bubbles. Chassenay d’Arce is our new recruit on the Champagne front and we shall open Chassenay d’Arce Brut Premiere (£33.99) an elegant 60/40 Pinot Noir Chardonnay blend that’s been floating the boats at quite a few private members clubs lately.

Nearly there,

Wayne & Alex.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

 So, now that we’re two, we want to make a couple of things very clear before the press start sniffing around:

 1.       We are not pregnant, never have been, have no realistic prospect of becoming so, and thus a global media frenzy is somewhat excessive

 2.       We have never worked for the BBC

 3.       We would happily manage Chelsea (and be paid accordingly) even for just a few weeks, especially if we could also watch them lose so regularly direct from the dugout

 4.       We, somewhat foolhardily it would seem, pay all the tax we are due to pay in the UK and do not have a ‘one desk office’ in Luxembourg

 5.       We didn’t believe England would beat the AB’s last weekend, and were delighted to be proven wrong, but we don’t necessarily believe the hype

 6.       We have no comment on England’s cricket progress in the subcontinent (we have too much experience of giving the kiss of death to seemingly unbreachable positions) but are sure it’s warmer there

 7.       We do not think it a travesty that Justin Beiber has failed to get any Grammy nominations – how down with the kids are we?  Not at all, really – may I refer you to point 2 in the list….

 Thank you

 Huge thanks to everyone that popped by to see us last weekend, wine was drunk, nuts, olives, chorizo and cheese were eaten and generally a thoroughly festive atmosphere prevailed.  Having chatted to many of you over the weekend a number of you were asking the same questions (and not just where had Wayne’s moustache gone) so we thought we would address the most common ones here.

 Deliveries

 Yes sir, absolutely, where to?  We deliver locally for free in SW19 (but we have a reasonably fluid idea of local, let’s say close enough for Wayne to cycle to without having to do too much training – panniers full of bottles can be quite heavy – ask us).  You’ve probably seen us wandering around the grid with our noisy trolley and we do have a vehicle too so can deliver the four dozen Champagne safely and securely.

Further afield it’s a courier job – we do quite a lot of mail order so have suitable packaging available for transporting single bottles, 6 bottles or 12 bottles properly.  We also use a courier who is sensitive to the fragile nature of our deliveries and is used by a number of wine companies in London.  We feel that for a couple of quid extra it’s worth getting the wine delivered intact and ready to be savoured rather than delivered in the style of an American paperboy, smashed, unusable and frankly disappointing.

 So if you want to send a gift to your Dad in Bristol or all your staff in Doncaster then give Wayne a call and he’ll strap on his cycling cleats – 020 8944 5224 is his direct cycle courier line.

 Large, medium, small

 Yes, we do have different sizes.  We have 5 different reds and two Champagnes in magnum format, obviously we have loads in bottles, but we also have half bottles of Champagne, sweet wines and fortifieds, and a couple of wines in this size too – handbag/pocket size we call them.

 Wine School

 Last night saw our last formal tasting of the year – the Champagne and Sparkling Wine evening, which, as you would hope, went off with a pop – goodness me doesn’t fizz make you feel festive!

 We’ll have wine open on weekends as usual over the next few weeks, but our next organised tasting run will be our 6 Week Wine School that starts again on Wednesday 30th January and, as you can no doubt guess, goes on for 7 weeks.  What?  Oh yes, we have a week off over half term (around 21st February) and it all completes on 13th March.

 Last year this course was massively oversubscribed, a combination of thoughtful Christmas Gifts from loved ones and people wanting to take the edge off the new year with a glass of wine and some educashun.

 In short, the course is 6 weeks long (normally), costs £150 and covers whites, reds, rose, fizz, sweeties, corked/oxidised/faulty wines, food matching suggestions and a lot of belly laughs courtesy of Wayne’s seemingly limitless supply of one-liners. 

If nothing else you’ll taste 60-odd wines over the course and, as we always say, the best way to learn about wine is to taste it.

Call us, call in, email us – places are limited – first come, first served as ever.

 More details attached.

 Opening hours

We are open as usual up to the 22nd December (11-8 Monday to Friday, 10-8 Saturday) then it all goes a bit ding-dong merrily on high:

 SUNDAY 23RD DECEMBER                          11AM-3PM

 MONDAY 24TH DECEMBER                         10AM-6PM

 TUESDAY 25TH DECEMBER                        CLOSED

 WEDNESDAY 26TH DECEMBER                CERRADO

 THURSDAY 27TH DECEMBER                    CHIUSO

 FRIDAY 28TH DECEMBER                            11AM-8PM

 SATURDAY 29TH DECEMBER                     10AM-8PM

 SUNDAY 30TH DECEMBER                          11AM-3PM

 MONDAY 31ST DECEMBER                          11AM-6PM

 TUESDAY 1ST JANUARY                                LYING-IN

 WEDNESDAY 2ND JANUARY                       STILL IN DENIAL…

 THURSDAY 3RD JANUARY                           WARMING TO THE IDEA…

 FRIDAY 4TH JANUARY                                   11AM-8PM

 And then back to normal, happy New Year!

 Wine list

 We do have a PDF list of wines on our website www.parkvintners.co.uk, which is also attached and will be updated on Monday – stock comes in and goes out, such is the nature of commerce, and we aim to keep it as up to date as possible in December, but do please be gentle with us if something has already left the building.

 A bit long this week, too much exciting going on, and I haven’t even mentioned wines on tasting this weekend.  Suffice to say it will be with Christmas in mind, for the white we will be looking at our Chablis 1er Cru and the red has to be our 2005 Graves, Chateau Gaubert.

 Alex will be standing behind our stall at the Wimbledon High School Christmas Fare from 11am until 4pm on Saturday, so if you’re there please remind him he’s driving and to put that glass of Port down!

Cheers

Wayne & Alex

Fellow Wine Lovers,

It’s all thanks to you.  You never asked us to open here on Arthur Road, you never lobbied for extra wine shops, Merton Council received no petitions.  Nonetheless, we opened up here without so much as a by your leave, filled our shelves with fun you don’t find in Tesco, in Wine Rack, or the pub – put white wines and Champagne in the fridges, stuck some of our favourites in the window, put blackboards outside telling you what was going on and generally made a nuisance of ourselves.

And in spite of all this, you all came to visit us.

We opened wine on Saturdays, put on monthly Wine and Cheese tastings, got winemakers in to show you their wares, filled up 6 week wine courses, did private tastings at people’s houses/schools/churches, provided wine for weddings/christenings/knees up(s?)…

And still you came to see us.

We bugged you to ‘Vote for Us’ in Time and Leisure – you did, bless you – and we won Best Wine Retailer 2012.  Two Septembers on the trot, we inundated you with info and wine tastings from Chile – twice we came Runners-Up in the Wines of Chile Independent Wine Merchant Awards.

And you know what, all this has happened in less than 2 years.

So as they say, time flies.  Monday 3^rd December sees us celebrate our second birthday, the onset of our third Christmas on Arthur Road, and the official start of silly season.

However since our big day falls at the start of the week, when we will obviously be drinking fizzy water and green tea, eating our five a day and going for a long healthy run, we’ve decided to pop celebratory corks this Friday night and Saturday.  Wayne also celebrates another birthday on Saturday (how many does one man need?), so frankly it will be taxis home come 8pm on Saturday night…

We had thought long and hard about how we could celebrate – too cold for a street party, speed dating would be too weird, some helpful customers mentioned a supermarket sweep style affair (thank you, but no), others a drink the shop dry event (must explain the difference between on- and off- licences), but then Spain rang us up and solved all of our problems: how about a Spanish tasting with some nibbles kindly provided by Brindisa? ¡hola!, we said to ourselves…

All we need is for every single one of you to come and see us over the weekend so that we can thank you individually for your support over the last two years and hopefully, via the medium of food and wine, we can bamboozle you into supporting us for the next 200 years!

As an enticement here’s what we’ll be opening:

• Mas Macià Cava Brut NV – £9.89 – a fresh and creamy Cava with complex flavours of apple and stone fruits, herbal notes and some nutty yeasty influences from its time spent on its lees.  Good acidity and a long, crisp finish.
• Macià Batle ‘blanc de blancs’ 2010 – £16.49 – A blend of Prensal Blanc and Chardonnay.  This stunning white is from Mallorca.  Local variety Prensal Blanc provides a light structure of herbs and white fruit character to set off the appley Chardonnay.  Think Condrieu meets Burgundy in a Spanish nightclub…
• VIña Zorzal Graciano 2010 – £10.49 – this wine, from Navarra uses one of the lesser known Rioja varieties, Graciano.  We love this grape for its ripe, round, elegant fruit, its softly integrated tannins and gentle fruit development.
• Bodegas Ontañón Gran Reserva Rioja 2001 – £25.49 – ‘it has a traditional, dusty, sandalwood-scented bouquet, while the palate has a freshness and vitality lent by the acidity.  Fresh dark cherry, boysenberry and wild strawberry fruits combine well on the silky smooth finish that urged you to take another sip’ 91 Points – Neal Martin – Robert Parker Wine Advocate August 2012
• Bodegas El Maestro Sierra Oloroso – £9.99 – Aged in solera for 15 years, this is a complex wine oozing hazelnut and spice aromas with a rich textured palate covered in nuts and spice once more.  Superb value especially given its complexity.  Wayne has his gaze firmly set on this wine, so if you want to try some I suggest you arrive before his sun disappears over the yardarm…

So that’s it – sport free, news free, no mention of Leveson, an email all about us this week, and of course you.

You never invited us, we turned up anyway, you checked us out, we stayed, we thank you!

Saludos,

Alex & Wayne.

p.s. As you’re all coming to visit us, why not check out the turning on of the Arthur Road Christmas Lights at 4.15.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Two companies, with the fastest revolving doors in the business, both appoint new managers on the same day, who’s going to last the longest? Answers on a postcard please …Rafa Benitez at Chelsea or Tony Hall at the BBC?

As is traditional at Thanksgiving, Barack Obama ‘pardoned’ two turkeys yesterday, Cobble and Gobble. Reports they are looking forward to Christmas seem wide of the mark.

In Reading, Father Christmas was due to turn the Christmas lights on. In a break with tradition he arrived by zip wire. Well, I say arrived, his beard got caught and he was suspended for 40 minutes till somebody rescued him. Should have taken the sleigh!

Champagne & Sparkling Wine Tasting

We’ll have Sparkling wine from around the globe in a selection of colours, four different Champagnes and smoked salmon and other delicacies. At 8pm Thursday 6^th December the cost is £25 per person and we have just a few places left. What are you waiting for? (Wine list attached.)

Birthday Drinks & Lighting Up

I mentioned the other day we’ll be hitting the terrible two’s at the beginning of December. We’ve linked up with Wines from Spain to do something special tasting wise.

Luckily it coincides with the turning on of the Christmas lights in Arthur Road, which is on Saturday December 1^st at 4.15pm. So, no excuses!

Party & Gift Orders

We received a couple of party and gift orders this week, people getting in early and all that. I’m not mentioning this to make you feel stressed, disorganised or disgruntled. However, if you’re having a party and may want to borrow some glasses come and see us, we only have so many glasses to offer and we’d really rather not disappoint.

Planning on sending a gift but not sure what packaging? I’ve attached some piccy’s of what we have.

Cheese & Wine Tasting

Alex mentioned last week that we sold this out in record time. A few people showed interest in running another night, which we can do on Tuesday 11^th December at 8pm if enough of you can manage the date. Let us know please, there is a lot going on.

Weekend Wine Tasting

This weekend we thought we’d go all a bit Southern hemisphere and show you all to the delights of Mulderbosch Chenin Blanc 2011 (£10.99) from Western Cape, South Africa and Petit Clos Pinot Noir 2011(£14.79) from Marlborough, New Zealand. We think both are perfect dinner party wines, particularly given the season.

Cheers

Fellow Wine Lovers,

No messing this week, straight down to business. 

We’ve been very kind to you thus far and not mentioned the C word, but as the temperatures rapidly descend and the nights get darker and the days shorter there is no escaping it, Christmas is on its way.  Less than 40 days if my abacus is correct and the big day still falls on the 25^th.

However, between then and now plenty of fun is to be had, lots of late nights, mistletoe, Bluewater, Furbies, pre-Christmas Christmas lunches, family reunions and Champagne tastings.

Champagne tastings?

You see sometimes December needs a bit of a kick-start, and our kick this year is to hold a Champagne and Sparkling Wine Tasting evening, here in the shop, on Thursday 6^th December at 8pm. 

Suffice to say it promises to be an awful lot of fun, we’ll give you an outline of how sparkling wines are made and how different countries produce different styles.  We’ll try Cava, Prosecco, Cremant, a couple from the New World, an English one and of course Champagne.  We’ll chuck a bit of smoked salmon on some plates, perhaps even take the crusts of some brown bread and polish up a dozen or so flutes all in the name of kick-starting the festivities.  Usual rules apply, we’ll take a maximum of a ten people, it will cost £25 per person, we take most modern forms of payment and this payment reserves your chair.  Call me, email me, come and see me – just make sure you don’t miss out!

(020 8944 5224 ; shop@parkvintners.co.uk )

Our Christmas Cheese and Wine event sold out pretty much as soon as we confirmed it, but if enough people are still interested we could very easily be persuaded to repeat it, so do let us know if you’d be keen to see what goes well with Stilton, Cheddar et al and we’ll find a date.

Italy has moved

Not as exciting as it sounds really, all we’ve done is move Italy to the shelves at the front of the shop so it gets a chance to look out of the window for a change rather than just staring at the Champagne fridge.  However one of the reasons for the move was because it was getting too big (that was my second choice header – Italy getting too big! Pasta and Pizza prime suspects…) and the reason for this is that we keep on buying wine.  New Amarone, new Barolo, new Carema, new-ish Nero d’Avola, returning Nero di Troia, to name just a few.  We’ve also got an astonishingly more-ish Sambuca and a habit forming Amaretto, but we keep those closer to the counter for comfort.

Tasting this weekend

We will be, will you?  We’ve gone with Australia and Argentina this weekend, mainly because as we get closer to Christmas we will probably shift our focus more towards old world classics.  The red is Bodega La Flor Cabernet Sauvignon 2011, Mendoza, Argentina – £11.99, a delicious Cab. with loads of blackcurrant fruit and easy tannins.  Good mouth weight and length, superb with lamb, venison and other game dishes.  Brilliant after my coffee on Saturday morning, and no doubt magnificent by 7pm that evening.  Should you fancy white, Broken Shackle Classic White 2011, South Eastern Australia – £7.99, is as you would expect from a country that names things as it sees them (Southern Ocean, Great Sandy Desert) – it’s called Broken Shackle and it’s a classic white, what more is there to know!!

So, that’s pretty much it from us.  One more good reason to look forward to Christmas though is the one-off Superstars Olympic special that the BBC are promising – Brian Jacks used to be the king, but I believe one of the Brownlee brothers might have all the answers this time around.

Oh, and that Ibrahimovic goal, just goes to re-emphasise the fine line that exists between success and failure!

Anyway, must go now, the phone’s ringing – someone for the Champagne night no doubt!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Well it seems the BBC has forgotten the adage about telling, rather than being, the story for yet another week. They banned Professor Brian Cox from attempting to make contact with aliens as BBC bosses were worried health and safety laws would be broken. Who’d have thought there are already regulations and compliance to go through in case of communicating with aliens?

“Permission to speak, sir?”  We wish a sad goodbye to Clive Dunn this week, a man who has amused us since we were in short trousers.

Elsewhere in the world, Obama’s in, Hu’s on his way out, and Rod Stewart was in tears as Celtic beat Barcelona.

Chuffed in Chile

We are absolutely delighted to announce that for the second year running we were Runners Up in the Wines of Chile Independent Wine Merchants Awards. As you’ve discovered we’re pretty keen on the wines from there, Alex is even speaking at a debate in a couple of weeks.

Gifts

It is getting to that time of the year, so if you have chums you’d like to send a case to, colleagues who deserve a bottle of bubbly for their efforts, or a cantankerous uncle who only likes Italian wine then “Don’t Panic” just come and have a chat with us. We’ve done gifts in the past for an art gallery, architects, bankers and barristers, not to mention a GP’s surgery!

Birthday – Terrible Twos

It’s our birthday in a couple of weeks so we’ll do something a bit special to celebrate, eyes peeled people, you wouldn’t want to miss out!

Tasting This Weekend

Finally our search is over! We have spent months looking for a white Rioja that was both interesting and worth its price ticket. Some have been delicious but too expensive, and far too many have just been dull as dishwater. Vetiver 2009 Rioja Blanco (£10.39) is both deliciously tasty and a decent price, so we’ll have this one open.

Keeping an Iberian theme we thought it high time to show you all a Portuguese red. We think the wine from Portugal are offering some decent flavours and excitement at the moment so will open Quinta da Falorca 2007 (£13.29) a rich spicy number from Portugal’s Dao region.

And Finally…

A speedy recovery to both Bradley Wiggins, and TeamGB cycling coach, Shane Sutton, both involved in cycling accidents this week.

Let’s be careful out there folks, look twice!

Wayne & Alex

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Reasons to be cheerful:

• The clocks went back,  thus the sun crosses the yard arm sooner after lunch
• You’re not a referee trying to run a Chelsea game
• Halloween is now done, no longer will mutants be knocking on your door demanding sweets
• Half term is nearly over
• You’re not stranded in New York, and you’re alive
• The face fur you’re growing for Mo-vember makes you look more Errol Flynn than Bruce Forsyth
• South Park have aired in the US their ‘We all got duped’ Lance Armstrong special
• You’re not a relative of Jimmy Saville
• You’re not an Ash tree
• The red wine season is now officially open, you can bag yourself a brace with no guilt!

Feel free to add your own reasons, this is just a selection that has been keeping us going/sane this week!

Red Wine Season

As mentioned above, the season is now in full swing.  Today I am expecting the return of my Rioja, Decenio, both the Crianza and the Reserva.  Also from Spain the ever popular Zorzal Graciano should be returning to the shelves.  Elsewhere, Italy will be getting a few new arrivals covering North to South, Les Clos Perdus will be joining us from Corbieres and a new very fabulous Syrah from South Africa called Tamboerskloof will be jumping into your shopping bags quick as you like!

Not forgetting the Whites…

Mulderbosch Chenin is back in, English fizz returns in the form of Gusbourne Estate and also back is our Austrian Eiswein by Hiedler.  Did I mention our new Tokaji 5 Puttonyos and halves of PX?   Now you know…

All this exciting new wine glut depends on the delivery drivers getting here, since as yet I haven’t seen any of them, but I remain hopeful!

Tasting this weekend

If the Rioja arrives, then I will be pulling the cork on the Decenio Crianza 2009 (£11.49), mainly because I haven’t had it for a while and we have missed each other enormously.  For the white I’m going to Austria, Turk Gruner Veltliner 2010 (£14.99), which we tasted again last week and my god does it remind you there is life after Sauvignon Blanc…

So, pop in and say hello any time today or tomorrow, lots of wine back in, bottles open, plenty of reasons to be cheerful!

All the best,

 Alex & Wayne

Fellow Wine Lovers,

“That’s pretty potent.  Not the cork.  Your after-shave.  Strong enough to bury anything. But the wine is quite excellent.  Although for such a grand meal, I would have expected a claret.”
“ Of course. But unfortunately, our cellars have run out of clarets.”
“ Mouton Rothschild is a claret. And I’ve smelt that after-shave before, and both times I smelled a rat.”

Oh yes, he’s back.  The man they call Bond, James Bond.  Skyfall premiered on Tuesday night, Wayne lent Bear Grylls his special Saturday night strides, the red carpet groaned beneath celebrities ranked from A to Z, and they all drank Heineken and Martinis into the wee hours.  Hopefully only the Martinis were shaken, otherwise it could have been a touch messy…

But, as you see from the opening quote from Diamonds Are Forever, times have changed a bit for Mr Bond.  Clever wordplay about First Growth Claret has given way to, well, lager.  WKD, Magner’s, Hooch – get those cheque books ready, there’s a new film due in a couple of years.

Doesn’t mean to say we won’t go and watch the film though!

Otherwise the week has carried on in its own sweet way.  Some brilliant results in the Champions League, Malaga beating AC Milan, Olympiakos beating Montpellier and Borussia Dortmund beating Real Madrid – not sure if any English teams were playing though, perhaps not…

Cycling is still taking a battering, the Kick it Out anti-racism t-shirt standoff seems to be getting more polarised on a daily basis, and two Olympic medallists lose their medals sometime between midnight and five in the morning – if you know you’re going out late, dancing and perhaps even carousing a little, maybe don’t take the most valuable thing you own with you, chaps?

“Red wine with fish. Well that should have told me something.”

Loving these Bond quotes, managing to waste many hours ‘perfecting’ the accents!

Anyway, I suppose I best talk about wine now.  As an opener, you can have red wine with fish, Pinot Noir with tuna is a common favourite, but perhaps not the bottle of Chianti to go with Sole that Bond is referring to.

We finished our wine course this week, 6 weeks of vinous discovery rounded off with a foray into the world of fizz. 

As ever Moutard Grande Cuvée (£26.49) was highly acclaimed, as was our new vintage Champagne, Chassenay d’Arce 2004 (£33.99).  From the non-champagne side the dry Mayerling Crémant d’Alsace Rose (£15.49) and the Mas Macia Cava Brut (£9.89) both showed that there is oodles of quality to be enjoyed outside the realms of Champagne, and the Emeri Sparkling Shiraz (£13.49) became everyone’s guilty pleasure.  We’ve also formulated a strategy for ‘a day of bubbles’ starting at breakfast and finishing after dinner, but this is still Top Secret, I’m afraid.

So what shall we taste this weekend?  Greywacke Sauvignon Blanc 2011, Marlborough, New Zealand (£16.99) and Domaine des Pierres Blanches 2008, Faugères, France (£9.99), simply put.

Greywacke is the pet project of former Cloudy Bay winemaker, Kevin Judd.  When I say former, he was the winemaker for 25 years from its birth until his last vintage in 2009.  In 2009 he decided that the Cloudy Bay world was not enough, and that he should set up his own label and thus Greywacke was born.  Universally acclaimed with near Universal Exports, this is a golden opportunity to taste what all the fuss is about!

The Domaine des Pierres Blanches is one of the wines that we fell in love with at a southern French tasting earlier in the year.  Grenache, Carignan, Syrah, Mourvedre from the hills above Beziers, just east of St Chinian, this has dark fruits, herby spice character and a rich mouthfeel.  Faugères Eyes only….

That is probably enough bad wordplay for this week, I must apologise, please don’t unsubscribe, I think you’re all Thunderball!

Halloween next week, trick or treating, ghostly pumpkins, scary skeletons, enough to scare the Living Daylights….

Park Vintners Will Return!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Where to start this week? I think we’ll start with something relatively low key.

Some of you may have heard of a horse called Frankel. He’s been relatively successful so far, and has caused a somewhat unseasonal sell out at Ascot this weekend, where he will be running his last race. By all accounts he will then enter an entirely different training regime, lazing around in the fields, chatting up the ladies: bet he can’t wait!

Rolling Stones tickets are HOW MUCH!

Awesome Sauce

Now, I know we always deny sitting around tasting wine and shooting the breeze with our chums from the wine world, but sometimes it just has to be done.

On one such occasion, over the summer, we met a couple of very nice chaps, Tom and Paul, who are agents for a small champagne producer: Chassenay d’Arce. We tasted several of their wines (it’s work I’m telling you!) and filed them under ‘To Be Listed’.

Well, they are here (the Champagne, not Tom & Paul) and Awesome Sauce they are too…

Chassenay d’Arce Cuvée Première Brut – £33.99 – an appealing blend of 60% Pinot Noir and 40% Chardonnay which has a beautiful lemon/gold colour and a fine, vigorous mousse. Rich and elegant on the palate, with apple fruit, honey and spicy floral notes. In short, it’s delicious.

Chassenay d’Arce Blanc de Blancs 2004 – £40.99 – is a pure Chardonnay, matured on its lees for 5 years. Golden coloured, with a persistent fine mousse and pretty acacia and white fruit aromas. On the palate it is crisp and delicate with a lovely elegant tension between citrus and honey notes.  Way more exciting than some of the more famous vintage champagnes knocking about.

If you need an excuse to drink some champagne, just ask, we have an extensive excuse list, from the sublime to the ridiculous!

Claret shelves restocked!!!

“I hover over the expensive Scotch and then the Armagnac, but finally settle on a glass of rich red claret. I put it near my nose and nearly pass out. It smells of old houses and aged wood and dark secrets, but also of hard, hot sunshine through ancient shutters and long, wicked afternoons in a four-poster bed. It’s not a wine, it’s a life, right there in the glass.” ― Nick Harkaway, The Gone-Away World

Cheese & Wine Evening

Is this Thursday, 25^th October, at 8pm. As I type this there are 2 places left. You know you want to come, but have you just missed out?

Tasting This Weekend

We shall bring our Rhône extravaganza to a gentle close this weekend and open up Vignes du Prince Côtes du Rhône (£8.99) which is made by Celliers du Prince, the only co-op in the Chateauneuf-du-Pape area. When we tasted this wine with our chum Adrian, we thought ‘an inexpensive Rhône red from the Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyards, what’s not to like?’

We will also open Domaine de Coyeux’s Muscat de Beaumes de Venise (£11.99) if only because it’s ages since we opened a sticky. Don’t say we don’t spoil you!

And finally…

A happy birthday to Tarzan, who is 100 today.

Aaah aaah aah aah aah!!!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

We’ve been people watching this week…

We watched as Australian PM Julia Gillard showed the leader of the opposition the perils of choosing the wrong battleground. 

We watched as The Rolling Stones (a band that’s had even more birthdays than Wayne) released their first single in seven years. (Thought it sounded pretty good too!)

We watched as the USADA unveiled their case against Lance Armstrong (and it seems pretty damning to us). It’s tough to lose seven titles I’m sure, but you know what, I guess it really wasn’t about the bike.

We watched as Steve, the man with the keys at Rocky Head Brewery brought us our first shipment of…

Rocky Head Pale Ale 6.5% – £3.00

A truly handmade (hand bottled and labelled for that matter!) beer, packed with an enormous amount of New Zealand and North American hops giving it a beautiful floral character. Unfiltered and bottle conditioned, it is a really satisfying brew, exuberant and fully flavoured. We feel pretty honoured with this, being the first people outside the brewery to taste it and now one of the first to sell it.

Oh, and I almost forgot, the brewery is only about a mile from the shop. You couldn’t get much more local than that unless Alex starts with his barley wine in the cellar!

Keep your Spirits Up

We know the nights are drawing in and the sharper eyed amongst you will have noticed our spirits section has got a little more crowded. We’ve added Maxime Trijol VSOP Grande Champagne Cognac (£45) which has a character more akin to most houses XO. Indeed it won the Cognac Trophy at the 2003 Wine & Spirits Competition beating all the XO’s in the process. We’re fairly sure it comes down to the large portion of older matured cognacs in the blend (some is 40 years aged) adding a rich, mellow complexity.

We’ve also added Salizá Amaretto (£24.99) which is distilled from only the finest peach kernels by Bepi Tosolini, probably Italy’s finest distiller. It’s a little drier than some, which we find makes it seriously moreish.

There are other delicious post prandial delights too, so come and have a browse.

Taste This Weekend

We’re still droning on about the Rhône (sorry couldn’t resist it) so will kick off this week with a glass of Domaine les Chenêts Crozes-Hermitage (£17.99) a family run estate in the northern part of the Rhône who, until 1993, used to sell their grapes to other more famous estates.

The grape here is Syrah and, when we tried it, we were bowled over with its lightly spiced red berry fruits and touch of pepper in the finish. Food matching I’d say it’s a delicious partner to Sunday’s roast pork, but if you’re feeling more adventurous give Mark Hix’s pigeon tagine a go, it is game season after all.

Often we find a fantastic bedfellow to a good red Rhône is a crisp and zingy white from the Loire Valley.  We see no reason to upset good bedfellows, so the white on tasting will be the Val de Loire Sauvignon Blanc 2011 (£8.99). This Sauvignon Blanc is from the vineyards of Valencay, which are about 80 km south-west of Sancerre, and thus share similar soil types.  Crisp and dry with elegant, grassy fruit character and a seam of precise minerality, we think of it as one of those must have wines that are always in the fridge.  Food match?  Goats cheese, goats cheese and perhaps goats cheese!

So come on over and sample some French wine pleasures, it’s what weekends were invented for!