Fellow Wine Lovers,
Lovely, lovely, lovely, thank you very much. Christmas was fab, New Year’s Eve was an appropriately late night and having the first few days of 2017 away from the grindstone was marvellous – how about you?
However, we are now back to the aforementioned grindstone. Christmas decorations have come down, apart, of course, from the really obvious one that we won’t notice until mid February but that’s almost as an important part of the tradition as the big day itself. We’ve even seen some customers – our first day back we mainly sold Champagne and fine wine, belated gifts allegedly but we think that more than one of these was a case of letting the good times roll, just a little longer! We’ve looked at some sales figures but not too forensically – unsurprisingly Prosecco was our best selling fizz but, overall, Champagne outsold sparkling wine in December – as it should do. Hepple Gin was still our best selling spirit, maintaining category dominance for a full year now and, as we have been predicting all year, our best seller overall, January to December, was Chateau de L’Aumerade Cru Classé Rose from Provence and at a canter. Not a bad shopping basket that though – Rose for the summer, Prosecco for weekdays, Champagne for weekends, high days and holidays and Gin for 5pm – make mine a large one.
As you can imagine we are fully eschewing abstinence (tautology, perhaps?), certainly when it comes to alcohol – be a bit like being a vegan butcher really – although speaking of veganism, Wayne has fully immersed himself in Veganuary, because he’s clearly nuts and wants to become one, whereas right now all that Alex seems to have given up is telling the truth!
But, we know some of you will be dry January-ing so if there was any way that we could encourage you all to visit 126 Arthur Road sometime over the next 25 days, how could we incentivise you. We’re all done on mince pies, smoked salmon and boxes of Celebrations, so perhaps we must offer something with a little more wallet appeal in these dark cold days…
6 for 5
… of course! All we had to do was look at what we wrote in January 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 to find the appropriate mechanic. Yes folks, as now seems traditional in this small corner of southwest London, might we present to you the Park Vintners January 6 for 5 Offer. Similar to the ongoing Champagne and sparkling wine deal we offer all year, for January we will be extending this offer to wine too. Why don’t we include beer as well! But not spirits I’m afraid, all the profit on those is reserved for HMRC, unfortunately it’s our Duty. Oh, and it’s only wines we have in stock currently. And a couple of the Champagnes aren’t in the deal either but let’s not get caught up in all the Ts & Cs, this is a glorious offer – 6 bottles for the price of 5, mixable, a ‘16.66% off’ straight-up deal, none of this ‘cheapest bottle free’ malarkey. Drive your cars down and fill your boots.
The other thing this deal doesn’t apply to is Wine School, sorry. If 6 of you want to attend then I’m afraid you’ll all have to pay, although this might be a bit academic(!) since we don’t have six spaces left. However we do still have some unallocated seats at the table so if, like our customers earlier in the week, you are still short of a Christmas gift then this could be just the ticket. Equally, again like our other customers earlier in the week, if you fancy this as a gift for yourself, don’t let anyone judge you!
WINE SCHOOL – WEDNESDAY 25TH JANUARY UNTIL WEDNESDAY 8TH MARCH – £150 PER PERSON
Half term 15th February – further details attached.
WORLDS BEST MARTINI
http://www.worldsbestmartini.co.uk/
It would seem Hepple should be paying us a commission – two mentions in one blog! Anyway, whilst we wait for that, how about seeing how they get on in this challenge on Tuesday January 17th up at Bar 366, which is just a hop and a skip from Clapham Junction or a shorter trip from the 156 bus stop at Plough Road. Either way, they’ve done extremely well to make the shortlist of 5 Gins and well, frankly, as Victoria Moore once said, when writing in the Daily Telegraph “it might be the best Martini gin I’ve ever tasted.” You never know, you might even see us there – Tuesday night Martini’s, let the good times roll!
That’s it from us – we’ll have a white and a red open tonight and tomorrow, we just haven’t had the energy to choose it yet, what with this new vegan diet…
Bananas!