Fellow Wine Lovers,
I’ll drink to that. A sunny Thursday, just before the long weekend, can only make everybody happy and, by all accounts, thirsty. Thirsty Thursday. Whilst many of you enjoy Rosé all year round, for some of us it’s a seasonal treat and I think that yes, yesterday was the season opener!
I’ll drink to that. Park Vintners voted best high street retailer, forever. Ok, not entirely true, in fact not true at all but, with the persistent demise of ‘big’ high street names, never say never – give it a few years we might be the last men standing. First up this week was the Jamie Oliver business. In many respects not a great surprise, as the writing seems to have been on the wall for a couple of years now, quality of the food has slumped and if you ever get the chance to read Marina O’Loughlin’s review from September last year you’ll be amazed it lasted this long. So that’s 22 empty sites on the street already. And then we move onto Croydon’s favourite son, Philip Nigel Ross Green, who surely now must be stripped of his knighthood and who has had one hell of a good week. He too is shutting stores and looking to re-negotiate rents on his current sites, never a good sign – that’ll be 200 of his stores closed in the last 3 years… Oh, and at the same time, judging from what Peter Hain revealed in the Lords yesterday, Mr Green’s £2 billion net worth might be taking a bit of a hit quite soon in the courts. I’ll drink to that.
Oh, and whilst we’re drinking, is anyone else just a trifle bored of what’s going on in Westminster? We’ve all been more engaged than ever with politics for the best part of the last three years, we’ve all learnt a lot more about the political machinations and taken a far more vested interest in what the politicians are doing ever since that vote. Now, though, we (here at least) have had enough. We are really struggling to keep our eyes open every time a new democratic procedure is suggested; struggling to like, or empathise with, any of the key protagonists and, ultimately, struggling to see anyone coming out as a winner in this process. So Teresa is actually now going? Has she mentally already left, do you think? When she goes, is that the problem solved? Who is that great white knight waiting in the wings – or is it just the same old overweight mop? Oh, and seeing David Cameron sending supporting tweets just served as bitter reminder of where all this started.
Let’s all have a drink.
And yesterday, in a continuation of the bizarre times we live in, we voted in the European elections. I don’t think I’ve ever been confronted with such a long list of options to vote for and certainly a lot of ‘independents’ who I had never, ever heard of and, I have to confess, didn’t get a second glance. In the booths you could see people standing there with the paper trailing down to the floor, putting their ‘X’ nearer the top and ignoring the bottom half – where does all the lost deposit money go to we wonder? Europe? How does that fit with the current situation?
And there’s not even any sport really to distract us. Wayne is on his bike to Baku with 6,000 spare tickets, should you wish to make him an offer. The Cricket World Cup is yet to start and the kerfuffle over a man born abroad but with a British passport and an English parent being picked ahead of other players has died down – let’s face it Eoin Morgan is the simply the lead that Jofra is following. The Giro d’Italia, with Simon Yates almost 8 minutes off the pace, has been less of a viewing fixture here this year and all that means really is that Alex has been doing far more work with less distraction – I’ll drink to that.
Upcoming tastings – update
It seems we caught you all in receptive mood last week as the Treloar tasting on 27th June is now completely sold out.
We still have 4 spaces left on the Rosé tasting on Thursday 13th June – £25 per person.
We have 8 spaces left on our 72nd Wine & Cheese tasting on 18th July – £20 per person.
Further ahead, we still have plenty of space on our next Domaine Treloar tasting on Thursday 17th October but that might be a bit far into the future for most of us.
Wine School
Whilst we are looking into the future though, it’s worth me pointing out that we now have the autumn dates for our wine course – full details are attached but, in a nutshell, this is a six week, tasting focused course, with the purpose of getting you to try new wines and revisit old wines that perhaps you’d given up on.
We’ll open about 60 wines over the duration, so at the very least your tastebuds should be tantalised. Plus, you’ll be all educated and suchlike just before the Christmas party season kicks in and you’ll be able to impress your boss when you explain exactly how Champagne is made and why it’s so much better than Prosecco – we should all drink to that!
Wine School
Wednesday 2nd October – Wednesday 13th November (no class on 23rd October due to half term)
£150 per person – first come, first served!
Weekend wine drinking
As ever, we’ll endeavour to put something tasty in your glass this weekend and as a result we will be opening:
Sameirás Blanco 2017 – £17.49 – which is made from 5 grapes that just trip off the tongue – Treixadura, Albariño, Godello, Lado, Loureiro – but that are all indigenous to the Northwest of the Iberian peninsula. A really quite exotic pineapple and nectarine nose with touches of mandarin and similar orange fruits on the palate followed by a beautiful dry/savoury finish with hints of pithy acidity as it fades – monkfish tail sautéed in butter with some steamed green leaves would rock here!
Domaine des Mailloches Bourgueil 2017 – £13.49 – which is a light red made from Cabernet Franc in the Loire valley. This style of wine is one of life’s great joys and we have doubtlessly bored you all rigid about this before so no need to bore you again. Lovely, juicy fruit and fine tannins, could be chilled if the weather suits, I’ll drink to that!
And with that we’re gone – in fact, it’s worth noting that as of 6pm tomorrow we will be gone until Tuesday morning, so, if we don’t see you, have a bonne weekend and stay hydrated, as I think I might have suggested more than once…..