Fellow Wine Lovers,
So there has been quite a lot going on this past week. The British police have hacked into ‘Encrochat’, an encrypted phone network used solely by the criminal fraternity. As a result some £54million, 77 firearms, a couple of tons of drugs, high-end cars and luxury watches have all been seized as well as more than seven hundred crims nicked. A result for the Police and a bunch of Mr & Mrs Big’s cursing using Huawei for their private network!
China has abandoned any pretence of being an honourable state actor on the International stage, threatening imprisonment for any Hong Kong citizen caught implying less than I’ve just written. As a direct result, the US has applied sanctions and the UK has honoured plans to allow a citizenship pathway for nearly 2.9 million Hong Kong Citizens.
Whilst we’re busy trashing democracy, it could be mentioned that a poll that allows Putin to stay in power until 2036 “may have been rigged” but we’re not sure anyone would hold the front page for that one.
It looks like we may well be able to go on holiday as the Government looks set to relax travel restrictions to around 90 countries. All I would say is check the regulations for your destination, as many countries have their own separate regulations. You can fly to Australia but there’s no guarantee you’ll get in, and we’re not sure if Hong Kong or Russia are on the list but, as always, you pays your money and makes your choice!
News also reaches us that the FBI has arrested Ghislaine Maxwell in charges relating to Epstein. Despite offering three times Prince Andrew still hasn’t made it to a New York Pizza joint, so we’re certain that the sweat on his brow is from a Click and Collect Romano Diavolo from that lovely place in Woking, and no other reason whatsoever.
On the sport front both Arsenal and West Ham have finally found teams they can beat, West Ham’s was the more surprising. Elsewhere, Wimbledon isn’t happening but on TV last night we witnessed a rather young looking Pete Sampras and we can definitely recommend strawberries lately.
Big news on the music front this week, McFly have just signed their first record deal in ten years. We were certainly surprised to find it was 7 years ago that ‘Love Is On The Radio’ was released but it wasn’t us that tweeted ‘McFly have just saved 2020’ – we never go in for such hyperbole. In other music news, The Rolling Stones and Panic! At The Disco have both told Trump to stop using their music at his rallies. A happy 75th birthday to Debbie Harry, seems a long time since Sunday Girl!
In wine news, fraud is being investigated in both Spain and Italy. In Spain it seems unscrupulous large wineries in Valdepeñas may have been selling millions of litres of wine labelled as higher quality and more aged than it might have been. Whilst in Italy bulk wine has been refilled into original bottles collected from restaurants and then sold in online auctions. The Italian one sounds rather like a film we saw on Netflix! Neither are particularly new frauds but then neither is a pyramid scheme I guess.
According to National Geographic rosé is the thing we should all be drinking and judging by the boxes we’ve been delivering, you lovely lot could have been their case study!
Talking of delivering we still are, so if you’d like us to bring wine to you email us: shop@parkvintners.co.uk and we’ll do the honours. If you prefer to come to the shop we’re open 4-7pm Monday to Friday and 2-5pm on Saturday.