The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

A quick trawl around this week finds Tower Hamlets council so firmly on the naughty step that Eric Pickles has taken over.
Police in Sussex clearly have no work to do as reports come in they are investigating after ONE complaint that an effigy of Alex Salmond replaced Guy Fawkes on a bonfire in Lewes. Can nobody laugh at themselves anymore?

Whilst more locally, police probably should be investigating former transport minister Sadiq Khan, who was allegedly photographed talking on his phone whilst driving. Apparently, said mobile phone has been persistently going to voicemail ever since.

In wine news, the wine trade is abuzz with furious reports of outrage as Majestic Wine is charging its suppliers 4p per bottle sold from now until April to fund moving to a new warehouse. I may be a bit naïve but is it not the owners of the business who should invest in the infrastructure for growth?

Whilst we’re on the subject of wine news we’ll take this opportunity for a quick fanfare on our own trumpet. We were runners up (for the third time) in the Wines of Chile Independent Wine Merchant Awards. Sadly no wine-buying trip to Chile but it’s very nice to be in the top 10!

End of an Era 1
A lot of you have been sharing the binend delight that is Chateau Durandeau 2006 (£9.99) but now it is sadly nearly at an end. We think there should be enough to get us to Santa O’clock but we’re making no promises. We have just taken delivery of 20 boxes and there is one more lot to come, so if it is your favourite you have been warned!

End of an Era 2
Chateau Paillas 2002 (£12.59) is also coming to an end as the vintage has finally run out and we have just a few bottles left. But fear not, this is no Cahors calamity, as it will be moving on to 2005 later this month.

Tastings update
Just to keep everyone up to speed.

We have four spaces left on the Christmas Wine & Cheese Evening – Thursday 20th November – £20 per person.

We have two spaces left on the Fabulous Festive Fine Wines Tasting – Wednesday 10th December – £25 per person.
All the other tastings are sold out I’m afraid.

If however you fancy learning more about wine in the New Year then our wine school restarts on Wednesday 28th January – full details attached. Makes a fab Christmas present for those ‘impossible to buy for’ family members!

What’s in the Glass this Weekend?

We thought we’d take you all on a virtual trip to the Loire Valley. So picture if you will the two tone turrets of Angers, the beauty of Chateau Chenonceau spanning the river Cher, and perhaps the chalk caves where they grow mushrooms. Ok, so now you’re with us we’ll open with Val de Loire Sauvignon Blanc 2013(£9.99) a delicious Sauvignon Blanc from Valencay.

We’ll follow up with Terra Ligeria Gamay (£10.99) a crunchy red fruited little number that we’re hoping is going to tantalise those taste buds!

Friday, it’s the Fizz of the Week

In our quest to fill your glasses with deliciousness we taste lots of wines, discard the nasties and list the tasty ones as new wines. We thought you might like to join in the fun. So, as a Brucie bonus on a Friday evening, we thought we’d steal a feature from our friends in the north. We’re going to taste a new fizz Hambledon Vineyard Classic Cuvée which will be £29.99 (assuming we like it). It’s from near Waterlooville in Hampshire, which according to Uncle Google is 186 miles from Norwich.

Pop in for a drop of English!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Two monsters went to a Halloween party. Suddenly one said to the other, “A lady just rolled her eyes at me. What should I do?” The other monster replied, “Be a gentleman and roll them back to her.”

Do zombies eat popcorn with their fingers? No, they eat their fingers separately.

They don’t get much better than that, I’m afraid.

In a landscape that used to be dominated by Guy Fawkes Night (who the hell he, say the children in my house) Halloween has now become the major player.

Fireworks night has stood still, become a bit stuck in the Jurassic. It has failed to develop much beyond its ‘fireworks and hot dogs’ image, especially since the use of sparklers at public events was banned – a move that has resulted in serious loss of revenue and a noticeable crowd-shift away.

A few years ago the American conglomerate TorT Inc. (trading here as Trick or Treat UK Ltd) strode into the marketplace and through sponsorship, clever brand placement and a heavy reliance on sugar based snacking, developed into one of the biggest and most successful ‘Cash Allowance from Parents’ Removal specialists (CAPERS). Only Christmas PLC, The Easter Bunny Group and Coca Cola can claim to have better caper returns.

However where does TorT go from here. Yearly it is becoming more professional, there is more money involved now than ever before, the prizes are bigger and the rules are becoming clearer – numbers of players in team, amount of cold parents required to traipse behind, size of bag, pumpkin etiquette. Perhaps in the future we might even see competitive events staged at the old dogtrack?!

Finally, we hear rumours that TorT has been in early negotiations with The Fawkes Foundation proposing the creation of a supersize six day celebration culminating on 5th November with the ultimate goal being to put Christmas out of business altogether.

Now, wouldn’t that be a fun week?

Away from all this though, we have a shop to run. A little while back we were chatting to a nice lady involved with The Sherry Institute. As ever they are trying very hard to get people excited about the wines from Jerez and have asked us to help. What this means is that we have got four sherries open for tasting this weekend and we expect you all to try them!

Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla Fino ‘En Rama’- £9.99

This is raw Fino, no clarification just a very gentle filtering, it has spent 6 years ageing under the flor. Richer and fresher than the Manzanilla with an almost honeyed note to it, Alex suggests “gambas al pil-pil” but then he would, wouldn’t he?

Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla Antique Amontillado – £30.99
Silver – Sommelier Wine Awards 2014

Oh my! This little number has been ageing in a barrel for 20 years, having started life under flor before additional alcohol added to kill the flor allowing oxidative ageing. Nutty, caramel notes in the nose but the palate is bone dry and deliciously complex. Jamón Jamón!

Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla Antique Palo Cortado – £34.99
Awarded ‘Master’ title (one of just two) reserved only for outstanding wines with scores of over 95 points – The Drinks Business ‘Fortified Masters’ 2014

A real treat. This rarity starts life as a Fino until the flor goes wrong. Luckily for us, when the flor went wrong here it didn’t turn into sherry vinegar but into this rare beast that has hung out in a barrel for 30 years just becoming awesome. It has a lovely umami character that’d be mighty fine with some Foie Gras. If that’s not your bag, then why not give wild boar a go!

Bodegas Rey Fernando de Castilla Antique Pedro Ximenez – £30.99
Gold – Sommelier Wine Awards 2014

When the grapes were on the vine for this Alex hadn’t started shaving! Thirty years in barrels has made this soft, rounded and properly sweet with more sugar than is mentionable in polite company. This is unctuous and delicious and is most often enjoyed with some 70% Green & Blacks. Chocolate dodger Alex loved it with salted almonds, and there has been talk of marinating raisins in it, for a naughty apple strudel!

We’ve got some chocolate, some almonds, some habas fritas too, so we’re proper spoiling you, like – however if the whole sherry thing doesn’t really float your boat we will also be tasting a few wines on Saturday that we don’t sell yet but are thinking about listing – all feedback gratefully received!

Wine School

A number of you have been asking about the dates for the 2015 wine school. After much consultation with diaries and confirmation of half term dates, we are happy to announce that the 6 week course will start on Wednesday 28th January through to Wednesday 11th March with a week off in the middle (Wednesday 18th February, so if you do go away at half term, you won’t miss out!)

Cost as ever is £150 per person and spaces are limited. If you would like to find out more do pop in and have a chat!

Upcoming tastings

These are pretty much sold out but if you still want to grab a seat at the table we still have good availability on our:

CHRISTMAS WINE & CHEESE TASTING
THURSDAY 20TH NOVEMBER AT 8PM – £20 EACH

And just a couple of spaces remaining on our last event of the year, which frankly would be worth it just for the Bollinger’s and the Vin de Constance, let alone the excellent wines in the middle:

THE CHRISTMAS COLLECTION – FABULOUS FESTIVE FINE WINES
WEDNESDAY 10TH DECEMBER AT 8PM – £25 EACH

So give us a call on 020 8944 5224 or email us on shop@parkvintners.co.uk and be one of the first to admire Wayne’s new Christmas jumper…

To finish with a quote from the American comedian Rita Rudner which we feel sums it all up very well:

Halloween was confusing. All my life my parents said, “Never take candy from strangers.” And then they dressed me up and said, “Go beg for it.” I didn’t know what to do!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Some weeks we find that our weekly missive just trips off the keyboard, and other weeks it is more a labour of love. This week was one of those weeks.
Should we start with Mario Balotelli swapping shirts at half time, is it prudent to mention the falling apart of the Caterham F1 team, who have been locked out of their facilities by the administrator, what about the state of West Indian Cricket?

Should we discuss the fact that Chris Froome might miss the Tour de France next year (too many hills) and concentrate instead on the Giro and La Vuelta?

But no, none of those, I thought this week we’d talk about science instead. Given the lack of scientific coverage in The Weekly Wine we thought we’d jump straight to the pointy end and look at the rocket science bit.

“Rotten eggs, horse stable, and the pungent, suffocating odour of formaldehyde” is neither Alex’s new aftershave, nor the tasting note for a faulty wine. It is in fact the smell you’d experience if, for arguments sake, you were astral surfing and a comet crossed your path.

This ‘Eau de Comet’ has been discovered by the European Space Agency’s probe Rosetta which caught up with the comet 67P/C-G (What a name, move over Hayley) after a six billion kilometre trek involving four flybys of Earth and Mars. A Satnav experience surely shared with many of our readers.
So we’ve discovered that a comet smells much like a teenager’s bedroom, and it took rocket science to find it out!

In other news we find a sense of humour being replaced by corporation muscle as Disney Corporation’s Lucasfilm off shoot has objected to a new brew by craft New York Brewpub Empire Brewing. Apparently “Strikes Bock” is very similar to a movie title.

Also in beer a Papua New Guinea company is selling beer in insect repellent boxes. Drink the beer, put the box on the fire and say goodbye to the mosquitos, that really is thinking err…creatively.

Champagne

Apparently today is #ChampagneDay, the fifth annual social media fest to celebrate the bubbly stuff. As we’re the largest export market consuming a toast worthy 30.786 million bottles, I’m sure you already knew that. Personally I’m going to raise a glass to the Belgians who got through 9.525 million bottles which is very nearly 1 each for the entire population.

If you’re of a mind I’m going to suggest marking the occasion with Ruinart Rosé (£58) a fine drop by anybody’s standards!
Weekend Wines in Wimbledon Park

We think we’ll celebrate the European Space Agency’s dedication to aromatics with a couple of European wines this week:
Türk Grüner Veltliner Kremser Weinberge (£15.49) is a delicious white from Austria’s Kremstal region, crisp dry and without a whiff of horse stable.
Cantele Telero Rosso (£9.99) is a velvety red from Puglia, the heel of Italy. Made from 100% Negroamaro it is full-bodied, lovely cherry fruit and a hint of herbiness. Come and tell us what you’d eat with it!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

This week at PV Towers, we learnt of a new online tool that could revolutionise how we all engage with the rogues and ne’er do wells that are always asking us for our votes. Polifiller.com* is building a database that will enable us to cut all the jargon and cliché from speeches by the power of cut and paste.

Imagine how much shorter presentations, meetings and speeches will be without all those extra, pointless message words.

For example: “The fact of the matter is we’ve travelled up and down Arthur Road chatting to hardworking families and we’ve come up with a whole range of proposals. That is why we’re organising a Christmas Cheese and Wine tasting for Thursday 20th November. At the end of the day there is no instant solution, it’s going to take time to match the right wine to fabulous cheese from our chums at Norbiton Fine Cheese.”

Would become: “We’re organising a Christmas Cheese and Wine tasting for Thursday 20th November.”

Works for me!

New Wines Listed – Prohibition is over, Bollinger is in da house!

France

Bollinger Special Cuvée NV, Champagne – £45 (or £198 for six bottles)

“Lots of maturity, lightly bruised apples and character. Gentle fizz which feels as though it has had to battle its way through great intensity of flavour. Kick of acidity on the end. 17/20” – Jancis Robinson MW, jancisrobinson.com, 4 Dec 2012

Bollinger Grand Année 2004, Champagne – £70
“A wine of great power with enduring elegance. Perfectly ripe layers of mirabelle, apricot, poached vanilla pears, yellow apples and lemon sherbet against a pleasing, nutty backdrop. Vigorous and creamy-textured, with great depth, chalky minerality and a hazelnut complexity. Extraordinary.” – Decanter World Wine Awards 2014, August 2014

South Africa

Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc 2013, Constantia – £15.89

“Delicacy is this wine’s watchword. Matthew Day uses the coolness of his vineyards to good effect, producing a wine with a bright intense color and restrained fruit aromas, but once in the mouth, the sensation is one of freshness, finishing off with a moreish, tangy acidity.” – Will Lyons, The Wall Street Journal September 2014

Vin De Constance 2008, Constantia – £45

“Wonderfully complex, spicy and marmaladey with sweet, pure apricot fruit. The palate is fresh and sweet with grapes and raisins as well as spiciness. Lovely intensity here and a long, warm, spicy finish. Remarkable.” – Jamie Goode, wineanorak.com, June 2014

Spain

Bodegas La Horra, Corimbo 2011, Ribera del Duero – £27.49

We found this not as polished as the Roda, a bit of American oak used here not too much of which is new. Savoury spicy game notes complement the forest fruit aromas nicely. The palate has sweeter fruit than the Roda and a bit more bodyweight too with a lovely perfumed spice to the finish. So a tad more rustic but none the worse for that! – Wayne & Alex, Park Vintners (the comparisons with Roda are based on the fact that Corimbo is the Roda venture in Ribera del Duero)

Bodegas Roda I Reserva 2007, Rioja – £50

“This is a fabulous ultra-modern rioja, whose light toasting of vanilla oak coats a power-packed cherryish fruitiness topped and tailed by smooth oak and lively refreshing acidity in perfect balance.” – Anthony Rose, The Independent, May 2014

Drinks Cupboard Essential

Mentzendorff Kümmel – £22.99

“This caraway-flavoured liqueur can trace its lineage back to 1823 when it was made in an old manor house in the Latvian port of Riga. Regarded by connoisseurs as having the more classic or fuller taste, it is now produced at the Combier distillery in the Loire Valley. Best served virtually frozen over ice as a digestif.” – Will Lyons, The Wall Street Journal, July 2013

If these all sound simply fabulous and delicious and you’re wondering how you might afford to buy them all to taste then you can relax….
On Wednesday 10th December at 8pm you can taste them all for just £25 per person. Clive Ashby, world expert on all the above wines and an old pal of ours, will be pouring and sharing all the information, stories and innuendo before being sent home in a cab. Don’t miss out, this is the Christmas tasting to attend – far more fun than a pint and a pork pie with Nigel from accounts.

Tasting This Weekend

Alex tells me it’s National Curry Week this week. The Roberts’ kitchen has been overflowing with Tarka Dhal and Murgh Makhani and barely a day has passed when a suitable wine partner hasn’t been discussed.

In the white corner, we’re plumping for Broken Shackle White (£8.49) a fruity, crisp blend of Semillon, Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc.
Whilst Santa Julia Malbec (£9.99) a juicy, unoaked Malbec (made from organic grapes, no less) will fight the good fight in the red corner.
Will they both work with curry? Come and help us decide, corks from Crackerjack time. (Friday at 5 o’clock for you youngsters!)

Over to you, Paul!

Wayne & Alex

*The Directors and Management of Park Vintners Limited would like to point out they have no connection with Profiler.com other than as amused observers

Fellow Wine Lovers,

This week we discovered that several sportsmen (former or otherwise) have books to sell. Poor old Kevin Peterson had the mickey taken out of him in the changing room and Roy Keane thinks the song “Dancing Queen” is not an ideal pre-match motivator.

Whilst we’re talking about motivator’s, a how about Oleg Tinkov’s (owner of the Tinkov-Saxo cycling team) offer of 1 million Euro to top cyclists to compete in all three of next year’s Grand Tours (Giro d’Italia, Tour de France & Vuelta a España). The route for the Giro could well suit Froome and I can’t help but think this kind of gesture is what gets the sport much more media coverage. As ever the trick will be to stay upright!

Three people were rescued from the Strathmill distillery in Moray by boat when the river Isla burst its banks following torrential rain and high winds. Water with your scotch, sir?

This week we spoke to Helen from Maison des Bulliats whose Regnie we sell quite a lot of. She’s been up to her elbows in grapes and grape pickers but as they start the crush they’re pretty happy with this year’s harvest. We look forward to hearing more when they arrive back in sunny (!) Wimbledon Park.

7th October 2014: MK Dons 2 – AFC Wimbledon 3

A touch of history in the newsletter, we thought it was a score line worth mentioning.
Well done guys, it has been a while coming but surely all the sweeter for it!

Cheese and Wine Tasting 16th October at 8pm – £20 per person

Still a couple of places for next Thursday if you find a space in your diary!

Clive Ashby Tasting 10th December
Last week I mentioned this, with the words “Our chum Clive will be pouring (and talking about) a selection of delights from the Mentzendorff magic box.”

To put some flesh on the bones there’ll be Bollinger Special Cuvee (£45), and Bollinger Grand Année 2004 (£70) to get your palates tingling. Follow this up with some Klein Constantia Sauvignon Blanc (£15.89) from the famous South African estate. We then will shift a gear into red wines with top drawer Rioja in the form of Roda I (£50) and a touch of Ribera Del Duero in Corimbo (£27.49) which is the Ribera estate made by the Roda people. If all this wasn’t enough to get your cheeks rosy we’ll then spoil you with some Vin de Constance (£45) to add a bit of legend to the evening and we’ll then finish with a drop of Kummel (£22.99) just to aid the digestion.

All this for £25. Sounds like a fun evening to me.

Tasting This Weekend
Following on from our flit in New Zealand last weekend we are staying firmly in the southern hemisphere. South Africa is where the grapes grow this week, we’ll be starting off in Walker Bay with Barton Vineyard’s Chenin Blanc (£9.79). A deliciously versatile white with pear fruit and a crisp dry finish. Whilst in the red corner we’re going with Graceland Vineyards Strawberry Fields (£21.99) a Stellenbosch stunner of Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon. If Elvis was in the building he’d be having a glass of this!

Gesondheid

Wayne & Alex

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

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Awesome, another reason to love Starbucks and the joy it brings to the world. Not content with selling pretend coffee, pursuing retrospective planning permission and electing not to pay tax, they are now apparently going after Guinness.

Dark Barrel Latte is a drink that tastes like a dark beer but contains no alcohol. Why?

You start with an espresso and add some steamed milk. Then you add caramel and a stout flavoured sauce that apparently tastes like roasted malt. Why not stop at the steamed milk bit I’d suggest – we all like a ristretto.

But no, inspired by the rise in popularity of craft beers, there was a bandwagon to be jumped upon.

It’s being trialled in Ohio and Florida and let’s hope nowhere else.

First we had champagne that tasted like cider and now we have coffee that tastes like Guinness. What next, wine that tastes of peaches – oh hang about, they’ve already done that.

Oh, brother.

Wine and Cheese Evening

We choose four cheeses from our chums at Norbiton cheese, match half a dozen wines with them, have a group of you round the table and discuss the merits of our choices. If this sounds like fun why not join us Thursday 16th October at 8pm. £20 per person.

Wines of Chile

Our focus on Chilean delights draws to a close this weekend. The development and change we have witnessed in Chile over the past few years has been truly exciting for us and we hope we’ve been able to share that excitement with you. So pop in have a glance over the map, and a taste of…

Adobe Reserva Gewurztraminer 2013, Rapel Valley (£9.49) – Once upon a time Alex mentioned that we’d been kissing the wrong frogs on the fragrant variety front in Chile and found ourselves somewhat underwhelmed. Being tenacious chaps we didn’t give up though, and one day this appeared in our glass. Floral aromas with a splash of lychee perhaps, lead into a soft fruity palate with a touch of spice and a nice clean finish. For a fairy-tale food match I’d suggest smoked haddock with some mustard mash!

Perez Cruz Cot 2012, Maipo Valley (£17.99) – Perez Cruz is a family run estate in Maipo Andes, the foothills of the Andes between 1450-1700 feet elevation. “Cot” is the old French name for Malbec once integral to pre-phylloxera Bordeaux, and firmly rooted in Cahors. While the variety has found a happy home in Argentina, this example shows real vibrancy with power and elegance, cassis and raspberry aromas which are joined on the palate with a touch of spice and savoury finish.

And Finally…

The (Glen) eagle-eyed amongst you may notice the absence of a certain bearded wine merchant this weekend. It’s not because he played a blinder in the Ryder Cup qualifiers, or even that he is sitting in the stand watching with the ticket he bought just in case he didn’t qualify. Alex is helping to celebrate a wedding in deepest darkest Kent so you’ll have to put up with me this weekend.

Pop in taste something Chilean, we’ll raise a glass to the happy couple and not mention the golf!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

It was probably the most important vote in many peoples lifetime and one that would affect the future of many people in Scotland whilst also have lasting repercussions throughout the world be it Northern Ireland, Wales and beyond.

I personally believed the only possible vote had to be in the affirmative and to hell with the dissenters.

According to one of the executives yesterday, participation was very strong, with over 75% voting and, he added, he had high hopes that a “yes” vote would be confirmed on Thursday night. We can assume he then smiled and continued with his business.

And the net result of the yes vote – well it certainly puts pressure on Muirfield and Royal St George’s… what, ah yes, you see I’m talking about The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews landslide vote in favour of abolishing its men-only policy and allowing lady members…

Have I missed something?

If I have, it can only be because for the first few days of this week we’ve been attempting to emulate the mighty Gerard Depardieu. Now, if you didn’t read the interview as reported in the Daily Mirror at the end of last week then shame on you for letting your subscription lapse but here are the juicy titbits.

“But if ever I start drinking I can’t drink like a normal person. I can absorb 12, 13, 14 bottles per day.

But I’m never totally drunk, just a little p****d. All you need is a 10-minute nap and voila, a slurp of rose wine and I feel as fresh as a daisy.”

Clearly he’s taking the p*ss but you’ve got to love his bravura!

Back in the real world

Chile is still dominating the focus in the shop, and sales are booming.

This weekend we are going to taste the Viña Ventolera Litoral Sauvignon Blanc 2011 – £12.99 from the coastal part of the San Antonio valley. San Antonio is located 100 km (62 mi) west of Santiago, very close to the sea, south of Casablanca. Vineyards taunt the cold Pacific climate as they creep ever closer to its coast in this relatively new wine region. Vines bedeck the rolling hillsides as close as 2.5 miles (4 km) from the sea and test the mettle of strong-willed growers and pioneering winemakers. The work pays off with crisp, lean, mineral-fresh whites with great acidity and minerality and spicy reds that increasingly turn heads.

San Antonio is divided into four sectors: Leyda, Lo Abarca, Rosario, and Malvilla. It has a cool climate strongly influenced by the ocean which encourages slow-ripening and it endures around 350 mm (13.8 in) of rain per year. The soils are primarily granite and clay.

On the red side we will keep with the coastal theme and open the Tabalí Coastal Limestone Vineyard Talinay Pinot Noir 2012 – £17.99.

This comes from Limarí, located 470 km (290 mi) north of Santiago. Vines were first planted in the mid-16th century but new technology has led terroir-hunting winemakers to take a fresh look at this curious territory. The Pacific Ocean’s cooling Camanchaca fog creeps into the valley from the west each morning and retreats as the sun rises over the Andes and bathes the vines in pure light in the afternoon. With less than 4 inches of rainfall per year, drip irrigation allows the vines to flourish as their roots dig deep into the mineral-rich soil. The combination creates fresh wines with a distinct mineral edge.

Tastings

Our last wine school of the year kicked off, in true Depardieu-style, on Wednesday night but have no fear we are setting some dates for other tastings over the next few months. We will have a full calendar soon, hopefully by this time next week but in the meantime one tasting we can confirm is:

Domaine Treloar – Wednesday 26th November at 8pm – Jonathan Hesford will be over and we will taste through his range of delicious wines from the sunny south of France, hopefully with some snacks relevant to the Languedoc, or failing that, Biltong!

£20 per person, spaces as ever limited, first come first served, email us shop@parkvintners.co.uk or phone us on 020 8944 5224!

So pop and see me tonight and tomorrow, taste some wine and let’s discuss what might have happened if the whole UK had got the chance to vote….!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

This time next week it will all be over. The dust will have settled, Alex Salmond will have made his victory speeches, the sound of financial institutions scuttling towards the borders will be deafening and Scotland will have taken its first tentative steps on the road to independence – a road that 49% didn’t want to go down.

Anyway stuff the politics for now, let’s look at the settlement. As with all divorces, this is the moment when shared belongings get split up and returned to their original owners, regardless of whether they want them or not. Having undertaken some particularly thorough research over the last six minutes, we’ve come up with a short selection of items that Scotland brought to the world that we might need to re-pack and say farewell to next Friday.

Inside
The television, the fridge, the toaster, the electric clock, Roses Lime Cordial, Bovril, and dare I mention it, the flush toilet. Oh, and if you have a piano, the foot pedal also needs to go!

Outside
Not such bad news here, as many of the sports they have had a hand in are, let’s say, a tad niche in England.

Aussie Rules was apparently heavily influenced by Scottish settlers in Melbourne; shot put and hammer throw come from the Highland Games, and who can forget shinty and curling?!

Perhaps more significantly, we have to give back golf and cycling. For that matter the pneumatic tyre needs to go too but as we’ll have already returned tarmac we’ll be back on horses anyway!

Oh, and rather bizarrely they want the football dugout back in Aberdeen!

Finance
According to Wiki, the Bank of England was devised by William Paterson and the Bank of France by John Law; however I think we’ll be getting plenty of banks back.

Whisky & Haggis & Irn Bru
Bugger, we can’t let these go – who do we talk to, ACAS, UNESCO?

In the meantime, we still have a week left as the Great Britain we have been for the last 300 years, so let’s just carry on as usual.

This, for me, means I’m talking about Chile.

As mentioned last week, we’re ‘doing’ Chile in September in return for plenty of POS support from Wines of Chile. Pretty much all of this is now in our window and it would be hard to deny that Chile is strongly featured. This week though, I wanted to tie the tasting wines in with another topic that often gets brought up – Organic Wine.

Customers regularly ask if we sell organic wines, to which we reply, ‘Yes. Yes, we do.’

Such enthusiasm can often render people speechless so, to help their recovery and avoid awkward silences, we move up a gear and discuss the differences between organic wines, biodynamic wines and natural wines.

What we try to make clear in this discussion is that we fully support the ideals of organic (not using artificial fertilisers, pesticides in the vineyard etc), biodynamic (similar to organic but using special biodynamic preparations at particular times linked to the lunar calendar, often involving cow horns and hairy big toes) and natural (again, like organic but continuing the non-intervention, no artificial additive strategy in the winemaking as well as the grape growing, definitely involving hairy big toes, usually six on each foot) but we don’t make such practices the sole reason for us buying the wines we put on the shelf.

We buy our wines because they taste good and they are at the right sort of price for how good they taste. If they’re biodynamic too, fabulous, but it’s not a deal breaker.

This all leads me to the wines on show this weekend. Both are wines that we tasted, thought delicious and bought. It was only when they arrived and we looked more closely at the packaging that we found out they were both organic:

Emiliana Reserva Riesling 2012, Bío Bío Valley – £8.99 – previously the Alsace varieties we have tasted from Chile have been deeply disappointing and not worth anyone’s money. I think this was definitely a case of us kissing the wrong frogs – this is a lovely crisp, dry Riesling with lively lime, citrus character and a hint of apple on the palate. Spot on as an aperitif and an all-rounder when it comes to food matching – Wayne recommends Ceviche, I think he spends too many evenings at fancy restaurants!

Novas Gran Reserva Garnacha Syrah 2012, Cachapoal Valley – £11.99 – the classic southern Rhone blend with a twist of south American power and one to consider as the nights draw longer and the game season properly gets under way.

That’s it from us except for one note of admin:

Tomorrow, Saturday 13th September, we will be opening at the slightly later time of 11am due to a morning delivery to Croydon! Sorry for the inconvenience.

So do pop in and try some wine over the weekend and don’t forget to ask us about Organic wine – in the meantime, altogether now:

Ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak the low road, and I’ll be in Scotland afore ye…. (fade to black)

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Glass of Pinot Grigio, Wayne? Don’t mind if I do….

And so we signed off last week’s email.

Friday and Saturday saw many of your tasting the wines on show and numerous positive comments were made regarding our first ever Pinot Grigio tasting – the general consensus being it was pretty darn good. Imagine our amazement when this email arrived on Monday morning:

Dear All,

Di Lenardo has achieved a delicate balance of robust fruit and crisp acidity, characterising the complex palate with flavours that mirror the wine’s bouquet.

So to everyone that thought the wine was delicious give yourselves a pat on the back, you were right!!

Elsewhere

Not a great deal to report – Andy Murray loses to an extremely capable young man named Novak, England grind out a tedious win in a friendly football match and our boys in flannels watch a masterclass in One Day cricket that should only surely result in a serious change of personnel.
Phone/photo hacking sweeps the USA as the Cloud seems to be pretty much the least safe place to store confidential files but also shows an interesting celebrity idiosyncrasy – I’m beautiful therefore I must take some photos of my beautiful naked body over and over again – the argument for Polaroid’s has never been stronger!

Here

If it’s September, it must be Chile.

Over the last few years we have made September a chance to focus on the wines from this long, slim South American country partly linked to the fact that Chilean Independence day is on the 18th and the Wines of Chile chaps always send us some nice maps and goodies!

So the focus of this month’s tastings will be Chilean wine plus our Case Club this month is also a Chilefest, replete with a couple of Wayne’s favourite recipes!

For those of you wondering what this ‘Case Club’ thing is, allow me to elaborate. Each month we select 6 wines, 3 white and 3 red normally, write up tasting notes and charge £50 for the box of six – a discount of anywhere between 13-20% off the shelf price. We offer to deliver this case locally to you or you can pick it up from the shop – it’s a wine club like many other wine clubs the difference being you know who we are, where we live etc etc.

Should you be interested in joining in the fun just let us know and we’ll add you to the list. At the beginning of each month we send you the tasting notes, you then say ‘yes, please’ or occasionally ‘no, thank you’, we then deliver and you pay us. Pretty simple, much like us!
Here are the notes for this month’s case, to give you an idea of what we do:

Oyster Shack Chardonnay 2013, Central Valley – £7.29 This Central Valley Chardonnay is unoaked with lively ripe red apple and tropical fruit flavours with a touch of leesy complexity. Nice and crisp in the finish, we’re looking at some early season pumpkin risotto, or if you’re looking for something authentic how about Ave Palta, a chicken and avocado sandwich.

Carmen Reserva Cabernet Sauvignon 2013, Colchagua – £10.69 We figured it’d be rude to wander around Chile without popping a Cabernet Sauvignon in to your glass. We read somewhere that all the antioxidants in Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon are especially good for you. We’re not qualified to comment on that front, but we would mention the dark black fruits overlaid with hints of cassis, eucalyptus and allspice. Rich and velvety smooth on the palate with excellent weight into the finish. We’re suggesting Pastel de Choclo with this one which is similar to Shepherd’s Pie, which would also work.

All this, for £50, marvellous.

Tasting
As predicted we’ll be putting Chile in your glass too. I think we’ll dip into the selection above to start with and try the Muscat from Itata and whilst we’re towards the south, how about the Cabernet Sauvignon too?

Lot’s about wine this week, one of the most focused emails we’ve written for a long time!

Salud!

Wayne & Alex