Fellow Wine Lovers,
Today we’ve decided to start with some numbers for you, wee brainteasers for while you’re eating your sandwich at your desk and pretending to work – answers at the end….
16 ½ – 11 ½
42,000 bottles (or was it pints?)
253mm in 3 hours
12.3 billion vs 11 billion
1.95m and 34 years old
So now you’ve had a think about that, back to the news.
We’ve a natural aversion to NIMBY-ism so are finding it a bit tricky how to phrase this next bit. I suppose the simplest way of putting it is this: a planning application has been submitted to develop the Butcher’s shop – the reference is 14/P3288 on the Planning department bit of the website www.merton.gov.uk – have a look and see what you think.
So it’s October now and the Chile September has drawn to a close, hopefully you all enjoyed your forays to Limari and Elqui and ideally you have tried some wines that you wouldn’t normally have selected. Anyone who has been past the shop recently will notice that where the window once was festooned with all things South American it now contains a solitary bottle of Dodd’s Gin and a glass. This is Wayne’s art installation entitled ‘Ode to Autumn’. He is hoping to encapsulate the passing of the seasons, the sense of desolation that comes with the falling of the leaves and the shortening of the days. Much like Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box, the artist himself can regularly be seen lying in the window, nursing a gin and wailing.
When he’s not prone in the window he has been extremely busy organising our tasting calendar for the coming months. All the tastings below still have tickets available (apart from the private events of course) so if any of them tweak your interest phone us 02089445224 or email us shop@parkvintners.co.uk or come in for a gin.
Thursday 16th October – Wine & Cheese – £20
Wednesday 19th November – Private Tasting
Thursday 20th November – Christmas Wine & Cheese – £20
Wednesday 26th November – Winemaker tasting with Jonathan Hesford from Domaine Treloar £20
Jonathan and Rachel Treloar own and run this small, highly-regarded vineyard and winery in the Roussillon, France’s most exciting wine region.
Their path was rather unusual. They lived and worked within 500m of the Twin Towers on September 11 2001 and witnessing that event made them rethink their life and provided the catalyst to make their dream a reality. On the 10 hectare estate they do all the work in the vineyards and winery themselves. Describing it a labour of love to make the best wine possible at an accessible price, even if the quantities are very limited.
Thursday 27th November – Private Tasting
Wednesday 3rd December – Sparkling & Champagne Tasting £25
Thursday 4th December – Private Tasting
Wednesday 10th December – Clive Ashby from Mentzendorff £25
Our chum Clive will be pouring (and talking about) a selection of delights from the Mentzendorff magic box. We’ll kick off with some Bollinger, have a splash of white, a drizzle of red and send you all home with a lingering sweetness from one of the world’s top stickies!
And while we’re discussing tastings, how about having a slurp this weekend.
We’ll be opening the Free Sauvignon Blanc (£9.99 or 6 bottles for the price of 5) and Templars Hill Pinot Noir (£19.99) I had to open a wine named after a temperance society that used to meet in a local inn- you couldn’t make it up!
Back to the top now – and the answers – did anyone get them all correct.
16 ½ – 11 ½ – the Ryder Cup score of course – another epic effort and one that would have definitely worth trying to get a ticket for.
42,000 bottles (or was it pints?) – Winston Churchill’s lifetime consumption of Pol Roger – the story goes that he had specially made pint sized bottles but either way it’s evidence that wartime rationing didn’t necessarily effect the top in the same way as the bottom.
253mm in 3 hours – the amount of rain that fell in Montpellier in the Languedoc last Sunday which is quite a lot. Especially mid harvest. Bugger.
12.3 billion vs 11 billion – according to the Office of National Statistics, in 2013 £12.3 billion was spent on drugs and prostitutes in the UK whereas only £11 billion was spent on booze. Not sure how they got their stats but frankly we can see a new tax revenue stream here.
1.95m and 34 years old – Andrew Sheridan, the newly retired prop forward who has stated that he will be now seeking a career in the wine trade – pity the fool who pays late….
Finally an unashamed sales plug…
We have managed to lay our hands on a small parcel of Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 (£35) (you know the one with the chairs on the label!).
We’ve never managed to get an allocation before and this time was pure luck so please form an orderly queue!
Have a lovely weekend
Alex & Wayne