Fellow Wine Lovers,
It being January, things have been a little quiet during the day here in Wimbledon Park. Wayne keyed the VAT return, whilst all the time quietly rueing the folly of letting Alex do the considerably smaller previous quarter, and Alex had his nose buried deep in some research. Reading aloud from the study, Alex stated that scientists had discovered that drinking sparkling wine gets the alcohol into your blood quicker than still wine – DUH!
They concluded that this faster action may increase the chance of a hangover.
As you can imagine we were impressed. Impressed that anybody had been persuaded to research something that for all our years in the trade we’d taken as a given. These researchers should be in sales not academia!
We further extrapolated the research and concluded that those of you detoxing this month with fizzy water might possibly be feeling worse than those slaking your thirst with still!
Sunblock Grapes
As Australia struggles through one of its hottest years on record we read, with a mixture of alarm and amusement, that winemakers in the Hunter Valley have been spraying their vineyards with sunblock! So, if in a year or two’s time you open a bottle that has a whiff of the Hawaiian Tropic about it, you’ll know what vintage it is and from what country.
Tasting tips as they happen folks, keeping you ahead of the curve!
Vote For Us, please
West London Mums have very kindly nominated our private tastings as one of the area’s top nights out. If you’d agree please do vote for us (voting closes on the 10th Jan) on the link below. We’re chuffed somebody mentioned us and always like something to brag about on a Saturday!
http://westlondonmum.co.uk/wlms-live-love-local-awards-2014/
January Sale
Our super deal for January is Six For The Price Of Five. Rest assured it is not one of those big chain fake deals, we’ve not bought a lorry load of slightly iffy toasters or tellys, and we’ve not randomly increased the prices by 15% first.
Buy six bottles and you’ll get 16.66666% off. Simple, straightforward and helping us to pay the previously mentioned VAT!
Wine School
Term starts on Wednesday 28th January at 8pm. There are no exams, plenty of practical, and let’s face it, the TV is rubbish on a Wednesday.
So if you’d like to know more about wine, want to taste around 60 wines come join us, there are, as I write, four places left and it costs just £150 per person.
Phone us on 020 8944 5224 or email shop@parkvintners.co.uk to join the throng.
Tasting This Weekend
We started with fizz and we’ll end with fizz. Having spoilt you all rotten with fine wines, spirits and sparklers throughout December, we’ve discovered a bit of a taste for the highlife.
We also like to use you as guinea pigs as much as we can when we are looking at new wines and the second Saturday in January seems like a good time to start.
A little while back, Alex met a winemaker at a tasting (imagine that) and he got chatting (ditto). Ulrich, the winemaker, explained that he had just made some English Sparkling Wine that he was rather pleased with. This was 2011, so the wine was still maturing.
Fast forward 3 ½ years and Alex bumps into Ulrich again and once more they chat. Ulrich mentions his wines had now been finished and had been released just recently. Being the gentleman and scholar that he is, Ulrich suggested it might be an idea to send us some bottles that we could try and then feedback on.
Fast forward to now. Tomorrow, we will taste three sparkling wines from the inaugural release of Hoffmann & Rathbone in West Sussex.
We have the Classic Cuvée 2010, Rosé Réserve 2010 and the Blanc de Blancs 2010.
These are rare beasts indeed, with a total production of only around 6,000 bottles so we’ll have to fight for an allocation. They look the business from a packaging point of view, so why don’t you come in and have a taste and let us know what you think?
I think that’s all for this week, one down, only three left until Feb!
Wayne & Alex