Fellow Wine Lovers,
Alex has been holding forth this week, to anyone that will listen, about the joys of being old – and he should know. The prospect of varifocals, varicose and various niggling ailments all sound too exciting to have to wait for and that’s before he came to his punchline – the older you are the more memories you have, providing you can remember where you put them of course….
So, with memories in mind and a Friday email to write, I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and see what we had written in the mid-June emails of years gone by. My main purpose for this was to see on how many occasions we had mentioned the weather being rubbish for the time of year because, with our rose tinted peepers on, we oft forget.
So without further ado, the opening lines of our emails for the last 8 years:
17th June 2011
It had to rain really, it was Ladies day at Ascot. Standing on Wimbledon Common on Thursday morning, gazing at an extremely bespattered, but nonetheless happy dog, a bizarre thought crossed my mind – I don’t have enough wet weather/monsoon clothing. In June. The week before the tennis starts.
Hurray, it was just as awful in 2011 as now – vindicated!
15th June 2012
Queens tennis in the afternoon, Euro football in the evening, US Open Golf following on from that – it’s already a busy weekend in Park Vintners World (new theme park coming soon), before we’ve even thought about selling any wine!
No mention of rain, plenty of sport though, funny that….
14th June 2013
Undoubtedly the most important news across the desk this week was that Mighty Boosh are to reform and play Festival Supreme at Santa Monica pier. Any chance of a London gig guys?
A shameless pitch by Wayne for some free tickets.
13th June 2014
So here’s our problem, we don’t have enough tellies. The Test match starts at 11am, during which time Wayne wants to watch the Criterium-du-Dauphine cycling, then Queens wakes up for the tennis, now without Mr Murray. At 2pm the US Open golf starts its day and then later on we have World Cup football. Oh, and did I mention the Men’s Hockey semi-finals?
Sport and tellies – no obvious connection to wine here.
12th June 2015
So, I sent him off into the big city yesterday, with a bag full of corporate gifts, an oyster card and his mobile phone, which we had cross checked as being on and unusually, not critical for battery. It was a lovely day, as you all know, so he had his shorts on and I really didn’t expect him back in a hurry.
Slightly surreal email this one, relating to a supposed striptease in St Pauls by one of our staff members….
17th June 2016
This week has been fun hasn’t it? Write the a-board put it out in the sunshine, watch the rain wash it off and repeat. Seven or eight times a day.
Hooray, it’s raining again!
16th June 2017
So here’s a question – what’s in a name?
So here’s the answer, you really don’t want to know…
15th June 2018
It’s been a funny old week, starting off in acrimony over the G6 ½ at the weekend. The take home being that Trumpolina seems to think that Europeans don’t buy enough bullets, and that Justin Trudeau is economical with the truth. The picture tweeted by Mutti Merkel seemed to sum it up, though our in house art expert insists that comparing the picture to renaissance art is a bit wide of the mark.
No weather or wine or sport in the opening lines – what were we thinking?
And now here we are, the 14th June 2019 – Wayne has been wearing shorts, valiantly and varicose free, for the last two weeks but yesterday even he snuck back into his Levi’s – those jokes about summer starting and finishing in February seem a little too prescient now.
Don’t blow your nose!
Not one but two sportsmen have been caught out doing just this over the last few days. The Chris Froome incident is well reported and we wish him well of course – I have to say though, 35mph is a two-hands-on-the-handlebar speed for me. Meanwhile, in the cagey world of UFC, fighter Donald Cerrone suffered a broken nose during a bout in Chicago. In order to try and clear some of the airways between rounds he blew his nose and this clearing caused his right eye to swell shut immediately. Not a photo for the faint-hearted, I’d suggest.
High street royalty
One of the biggest wine retailers released their full year figures yesterday, without much to cheer about. Having shown some fairly epic losses over the last 12 months they aimed to reassure investors by suspending final dividends (?) and talking ‘positively’ about selling 200 of their branches – they seem to have 210 in total according to their website.
So, suspend the divs and sell all the shops – not sure why you think there’s a problem?! Still, at least they are in ‘advanced talks’ with multiple bidders over this sale. However, if it doesn’t complete they will continue trading through December before starting afresh in 2020. To our minds, these ‘advanced talks’ don’t sound quite as ‘advanced’ as advanced often means!
Raspberry & Rhubarb
Foxdenton, our fruit gin suppliers, kindly dropped off some reinforcements this week, just in time for the sunshine. The 35cl bottles are perfect picnic partners and should fly out the door once we’re all back in shorts and polo shirts…
Foxdenton Raspberry Gin – £14.99
Foxdenton Rhubarb Gin – £14.99
Wine School
So, we held our seasonal Rose tasting last night – as you can imagine we had the heaters on full and battened down the hatches to ensure a tropical feel and a thoroughly jolly time was had by all. What’s this got to do with Wine School you ask? Well, everybody who was on the tasting last night had signed up quite early on for the limited spaces available – we have, in more recent days and weeks, had to disappoint quite a few of you who had been meaning to sign up but had forgotten to actually do the signing up bit.
Which is how this links with Wine School.
Very soon a reasonable portion of you will be, quite reasonably, disappearing off to sunnier climes for the summer and will be in and out of Wimbledon for most of July and August, oblivious to the fact that the Park Vintners Autumn Wine School is surreptitiously filling up. Fast forward to September and the risk is that the Wine Course you meant, but forgot, to sign up for before you went away is now subscribed.
6 Week Wine School – Wednesday 2nd October – Wednesday 13th November (half term 23rd October) – £150 per person – Full details attached, unless we forget!
Wine & Cheese
If you don’t fancy six weeks of school but would actually prefer one evening of wine with a side order of cheese, then the good news is that we still have 6 spaces left on the next event:
Thursday 18th July – 8pm – Wine & Cheese Tasting – £20 per person
Wine this weekend
It’s Father’s Day this weekend and as our representative father, Alex has chosen these two to taste.
Sonberk Riesling V.O.C. 2015 – £23.99 – as a wise man once said, ‘what son doesn’t think his father is a berk?’, and so this wine was created.
Obviously that has no truth about it at all and in fact Sonberk is the name of a mid-sized winery in Popice, Czech Republic. Located in Moravia, the largest Czech winegrowing region, the winery is considered by many to be one of the best in the country, producing elegant and noble wines. Established in 2003 but with a history dating to the 13th century, the Sonberk vineyard is 45 hectares with an extraordinary view of the Pálava Hill. This Riesling has a beautifully fruity nose with hints of blossom and honey. The palate has notes of dried apricots, honey and spice with a fine minerality and finish and gives its German counterparts something to think about!
As he is planning to barbecue on Sunday, no matter what happens, the Flametree Embers Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 – £15.99 is his selection for the red. Hailing from the marvellous Margaret River region, this is a cracking drop with aromas of violets, ripe black fruits and just a hint of chocolate and coffee. Lovely and juicy in the mouth with lovely forward fruit this would be a real pleasure with that steak he is angling for, if anyone out there is listening?
That’s all for this week – let’s all treat the sun like a large golden Tinkerbell and show that we believe, not by clapping but by sporting shorts and t-shirts and suncream to encourage it to shine – who’s with me? Oh, alright, back as you were….