The Weekly Wine

Fellow Wine Lovers,

It’s been a distressingly sombre week, with very few laughter moments, so I feel a bit of whimsy is called for.

You’re born.  You grow up, you go to school, you become a teenager.  You rule the world for a few years because you now know everything.  Perhaps you then go to University, become a nurse, join the armed forces.

You go out for drinks.  You find suddenly that you’re going out for drinks more often with just one person.  Suddenly that person is stealing half your duvet in the middle of the night and resting their cold feet on the back of your legs.

Sod it – would you do me the great honour of…. etc .  You get married, you smoke cigars.  You give up cigars in order to be allowed back in to the marital bed.  You carry on going to work.

Children arrive.  You smoke cigars again.  This time you really do give them up when you see yourself in the mirror looking more Churchill than Tom Selleck.  You sell your flat, buy an estate car, start to seriously consider the merits of owning a shed.  And a lawnmower.  Before you know it you have all of the above, plus 6 fish, a dog, a hamster and more High School Musical DVDs than is safe.

Someone, your Mum usually, mentions schools.  What do you mean schools?  I only just left… twenty years ago.  Blimey.

And so it comes to pass.  It’s 8.30pm, kids are in bed, dinner’s in the oven, time for a cheeky glass of wine.  You’ve earned it, not just today but the whole of your life you have been earning this glass of wine.  Respect it, enjoy it, sniff it, swirl it, savour it, luxuriate in it – this is what it’s all been building towards. 

But what is it?

Erm, I think it’s a Sauvignon, but it might be a Chenin Blanc, I’m not sure, but I quite like it and the bloke in the wine shop rattled on about citrus and acidity and balance and mouthfeel and apples and floral blossom and good long finish and… aaaah, why don’t I know more????

Because you haven’t had time.  In your Mars life of work, rest and play, you have never actually had the chance to appreciate your drinks.  You can change a car tyre, juggle spreadsheets, juggle even, snowboard, cook a mean Paella and explain the nuances of being offside to a six year old, but you still haven’t got a Scooby what’s in your glass.

Time for us to offer some help.

Our offer

How do you fancy a couple of hours a week, for six weeks, out of the house, tasting wine?  We’ll provide spittoons (still in mint condition, but there just in case!) and some gentle education. 

The first week we’ll learn how to taste wine and you will get to practice with at least 8 different wines.

Weeks 2 and 3 we will continue our tasting practice with many different white wines and different grape varieties – let’s say about another 20 wines.

Week 4, Wayne will guide you magnificently through the wines of Bordeaux and their alter ego’s in other regions of the world.

Week 5, more red wines, from all over the world.

Week 6, bubbles, bubbles, bubbles.

In amongst all this we’ll try some Rosés, some sweet wines and examine common wine faults.  We’ll also discuss food and wine matching and cellaring.

You’ll try in the region of 60 wines, and if nothing else, by the end you should have a fairly good idea of what you do and don’t like, and you’ll have discovered a number of new grapes that you hadn’t previously dared to try.

Sound good?  The course starts on Wednesday 1^st May at 8pm, and wraps up on Wednesday 12^th June.  There is a week break (Wednesday 29^th May) for half term, or as we like to call it, a revision week.

It costs £150 per person and we provide everything you need.

To recap

• 2 hours a week, for 6 weeks, drinking wine
• That’s probably enough of a recap…

As they say on those marvellous TV adverts, our team are here and ready to take your call on 020 8944 5224.  Or you can email us – shop@parkvintners.co.uk – or pop in and see us, which is by far the best idea, because we’ll have wine open to taste tonight and tomorrow.

Wine open to taste

Wow, I’m slick.

Wayne’s off on his bike somewhere this weekend, so I’m in charge for once.  Pandemonium.

Whilst I would love to open every bottle in the shop when the guvnor’s not here, I’m under strict instructions and am limited to just the two bottles.  I’ve opted for two wines from the Australian estate De Bortoli The Accomplice Semillon-Sauvignon 2012 and The Accomplice Shiraz 2012 (both £8.49), which we believe are extremely good value, really approachable everyday quaffing wines. 

If you haven’t earned that glass of wine…

… but actually consider a cold beer to be a suitable lifetime achievement award then you may be interested to know that we have taken on two more beers from our new local superstar , Rocky Head Brewery.  Steve, who creates the magic down there on Kimber Road, has an extremely efficient sales patter – I’ve brewed a couple of new beers, how many would you like?! – and we then tell him how many, and he drops them round, no messin’.

The two NKOTB (if you know what that is without looking it up you should be feeling as ashamed as I feel for writing it) are:

Rocky Head AAPA, which stands for Anglo American Pale Ale, is described as a hoppy, fruity pale ale brewed with the finest English malts and yeast and huge amounts of aromatic American leaf hops.

Rocky Head Hop Ditch is their take on a Belgium sour.  Masses of tropical hop flavours a just a refreshing kiss of acidity.

Both come bottle conditioned in 500ml format, both are £4.00, and both arrived in the shop last Saturday.  So they really are new.

I’m here today and tomorrow, tasting wine, writing tasting notes, signing people up to the Wine School, so why not swing on by and see me and remember, if you’re running the marathon, all that pasta-based carb loading can only be enhanced by a nice glass of wine!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

A momentous week for many reasons, the cricket season started, the snow melted, the Masters started at Augusta (who incidentally allowed their first two female members, one of whom is Condoleezza Rice) and the Dubai Police department launched their best ever recruitment tool…a Lamborghini Aventador as your jam jar. I bet its rubbish over speed bumps though!

Wine School

Want to taste 60 wines and learn the difference between Malbec and Merlot? Some past students have even discovered they like such outlandish things as Chardonnay and Riesling. Term starts Wednesday 1^st May at 8pm sharp.  Come along, you’ll meet friendly people as well as friendly wines!

Burgundy

The man from Faiveley swung by in his 2CV this week and dropped off some delicious kit. We have the perennial favourite Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire 2010 at £11.99 a glass full of freshness and tart red cherries; then, at the other end of the scale, some Mercurey 1er Cru ‘Clos du Roy’ 2009 at £24.99 which, like all the other 2009 red burgundies we’ve had, is just too delicious to make old bones!

Heatwave

I notice that in our email of this week in 2012 we were discussing drought, Manchester United being a rich club and Abu Qatada not being deported.

I can happily report that there is no drought.

We are expecting something of a heatwave this weekend but rest assured we have some rosé, some bubbly in the fridge and a delicious South African white for the keen gardeners amongst you.

Secateurs Chenin Blanc 2012 £12.29 is made by Adi Badenhorst, rich yet crisp with stonefruit flavours that’ll be just fab with that fish kebab you’re putting on the braai.

Soli Pinot Noir 2009 £11.29 is a wine many of you were astonished to find us stocking. “Bulgarian wine!” you said, “are you sure?” “Yes” we said, “it’s delicious, you’ll like it, just give it a try.” So try it you did, and suddenly it was all gone. Well Soli has returned, we still think it is astonishingly good value and as delicious as ever.

Don’t forget the matches to light the barby!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Some dates for your diary, past and future:

Sunday 31^st March – BST begins

Monday 1^st April – April Fool’s Day, all japes to be finished by midday (weather, take note)

Wednesday 10^th April – English Cricket Season starts (weather, as above)

Saturday 6^th April – Grand National, Colbert Station E/W

Monday 15^th April – schools go back, life returns to normal

Thursday 25^th April – Wine and Cheese Tasting, 8pm, 4 places left…

Wednesday 1^st May – 6 Week Wine Course commences, 8pm, spaces still available

Wednesday 4^th April 2012 – temp in London – 11c – fine

Monday 4^th April 2011 – temp in London – 12c – fine

Sunday 4^th April 2010 – temp in London –9c – chillier

Yesterday – 4c…

I think you all get the theme of this email.  It’s been snowing too much recently, it’s been too damn windy and frankly our small oil-fired radiator is having to work too hard.  If it wasn’t our own business we would take industrial action against our inhumane working conditions.  The Bordeaux we had on tasting last week became a study in tannins as the shop chilled down whilst the Eiswein was standing there in his shorts and flip-flops wandering what all the fuss was about.  Oh and I may well have started hallucinating…

In my list of dates above you may have noticed mention of the Wine School.  What with one thing and another we have failed to promote this as actively and incessantly as we usually do which is probably a relief in some ways but does mean that we have plenty of space left.

The 6 week adventure starts at 8pm on Wednesday 1^st May and continues on the 8^th, 15^th and 22^nd of the month.  We then take a week off for half term, and re-convene for the last two sessions that will take place on 5^th and 12^th June.

It’s a great experience, we limit the group to a maximum of 10, we taste about 60 wines over the duration of the course, we cover whites, reds, fizz, a bit of rose, a bit of sweet wine and some faulty wines.  We practice some blind tasting, we introduce you to the Noble Grape Varieties and a few less renowned, we feed you water biscuits and, if you’re lucky, breadsticks.

So for two hours each Wednesday you can escape the world and pretend that life is all about sensory pleasure and delicious wine.  All this for £150, who could ask for more?

Booking is easy – phone us (020 8944 5224), email us, pop by and sign up whilst tasting today’s tasting wines – all these methods work.  So join up today for a wine filled May! (sorry)

If you fancy a bit of a warm up prior to joining the course then for just £15 you can book a slot on our Cheese and Wine evening on Thursday 25^th April, 8pm.  Always popular, always well run, never chaotic – if you don’t believe me come and see for yourself!

Tasting this weekend

Wayne has been busy foraging around the Iberian Peninsula, but not in the bit that speaks Spanish but in the other bit that we have been trying to keep to ourselves.  Portugal has fantastic and beautifully approachable wines that suffer in the UK market purely because the grapes are hard to pronounce and for many years Mateus Rose was their most famous export.  Then Cliff Richard started making wine there, just outside Albufeira, which hardly enhanced its reputation, allegedly.

But now Wayne has been on the case and this weekend we will enjoy some of the fruits of his labours; I know little of these wines, so I’ll hand you over to our expert:

We’ll start off in the white corner with… Luis Pato Maria Gomes 2012, Bairrada, Portugal 12% – £11.19 Luis Pato is one of the wine trade’s treasures, outspoken, experimental and very talented. 2012 marked his 30^th vintage at the reins and he shows no signs of slowing down, having just made his first red wine from white grapes (don’t ask!). This wine is a fine example of his work, wonderfully fresh and aromatic in its grapey nose, then with a broad, smooth texture in the mouth with melony flavours and a beautifully pure finish.

Then we head off to the Alentejano region for a spot of red. This area is a hot bed of experimentation and they plant more well-known varieties as well as the unpronounceable ones. Our selection here is Ciconia, Alentejo, Portugal 13.5% £9.99 – which is a kind of stork that settles on the plains here. No stork in the wine though, it’s a blend of Touriga Nacional, Syrah and Aragonez. What does it taste like? Why not come in and try for yourself, we might even use your tasting note!

So that just about rounds it off for this week save for a few final observations.  We’ve just been reminded by one of you that Wales beat England in the Six Nations and why hadn’t we mentioned it in our email.  Now we have.

Apparently the Brits and Russians drink the most when flying – fairly sure David Boon might have something to say about that.  As would the chap who managed 4 quarter bottles of Champagne on the flight to Amsterdam.  As would Mike Tindall.  Oh hang about, the last two are English – point taken.

Jobs for the weekend: taste Portuguese wines, sign up for Wine Course, watch the Grand National.

Over and out.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

How…

• Much longer is this brilliant weather going to go on for?  I played golf last Sunday in the snow, the equivalent event last year was in shorts.
• On earth did we manage to draw the Test in New Zealand?
• Much longer are we going to bother having a national football team?
• Did Lewis Hamilton explain stopping in his old team’s pitstop to the people upstairs at Mercedes?
• Much good does David Milliband’s departure to New York do for the overall perception of the Labour party?
• Will they keep the pasties warm at Lower Sticker’s Annual Cornish Pasty competition (-6.7c today)?
• Much chocolate can two children eat on Sunday?  More than their mother?
• Many of you are still in the office?

Well now, it’s the longest free holiday of the year, ‘Evacuate London 2013’ is in full swing and we are on hand to fill your boots with fine wines to take the edge off the tailbacks and the tantrums that come as part of this exodus.  We will even have some wine open too, for the non-drivers.

For those of you not departing, here are our Easter opening hours:

Maundy Thursday       11am – 8pm

Good Friday                    11am – 3pm

Easter Saturday            10am – 8pm

Easter Sunday                CLOSED

Easter Monday               CLOSED

Tuesday                             Back to Normal, or as close as we ever manage…

So for those of you who are feeling thirsty, we will be opening the following:

Wairau River Pinot Gris 2010, Marlborough, New Zealand £14.99 – the nature of doing what we do often results in text messages from friends in various states of decay saying ‘do you sell so-and so?’, ‘this wine list is impenetrable, here’s a photo, tell me what to buy?’, ‘my mate works at this vineyard and reckons the wines are awesome’… This Pinot Gris falls into the last category.   I, in fact, have met the ‘mate’ in question, at an 18^th birthday party, in a pub, 20 odd years ago – not sure whether this is the best basis for buying the wine, but I digress.  We’ve all changed over the years and I now work in a small wine shop in Wimbledon, he is the Ops manager at a top Kiwi estate, and I now sell his wine.

And it is awesome.  A beautiful, ripe apple and blossom nose, a similar palate with a bit more weight and luscious fruit all capped off by an elegant, long finish.  As they say on the label ‘best savoured with spontaneity and deep belly laughs.’  Can’t remember the last time I read that on a French wine label.

‘Nez intense, arômes de fruits rouges, fine note boisée.  Bouche ronde et fruitée, finale persistente’  is in fact what it says on the next wine – Chateau La Rose du Pin 2009, Bordeaux, France £11.99 – bit of a treat for Wayne and I really this, 2009 Bordeaux, soft and approachable Merlot dominant blend, trust me, you won’t like it.

Speaking of things you won’t like, Hiedler Weissburgunder Eiswein 2007 , Kamptal, Austria £29.99 should probably be perched top of that list.  This doesn’t have a nose of tropical ripeness, the mouth is certainly not flooded with lush, beautifully rich, sweet fruits nor does it have any crisp clean acidity to finish it off.  Lousy, don’t bother.

Come and see us, taste some wine, discuss Easter eggs – it’s what we’re here for.

Happy holidays!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

So it turns out budget day is a lot like Red Nose Day only without the jokes, charity, or record breaking sums.

Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina have discovered “that for women, poor sleep is strongly associated with high levels of psychological distress, and greater feelings of hostility, depression and anger. In contrast, these feelings were not associated with the same degree of sleep disruption in men.” So gentlemen, that breakfast in bed on a Saturday morning could tactically be a good idea…just saying…

Poor old Alex is beside himself with the sad news that Girls Aloud are calling it a day after all these years.

Finally, on a slightly more obscure tack, news reaches us that Jedi Knights could soon be making Scotland ‘their intergalactic wedding hub’ . 

On the subject of weddings…

You’ve found a venue, started going to church intensively, invited a hundred fans, found a caterer who is not going to charge you more than Gordon does at Royal Hospital Road, agreed on a honeymoon that combines beach and culture (and a golf course?), got a wedding list at John Lewis, booked the fancy car, ordered button-holes, maybe even tried on a dress or two… but have you sorted out the drinks? 

And this is where we become your best chums ever.

A bit of email tennis confirming food choices, number of guests, pet hates etc and suddenly you are  standing in our shop living the adult version of ‘kiddie in a sweet shop’.  We pick out a couple of bottles of bubbly, two or three whites, a similar number of reds, and perhaps even a couple of sweet wines and you know what, let’s open them up and try them all!!   Genius, we should get married more often!?!

So if you are getting married, or you know someone who is, then come and talk to us and see if we can help.  Between us over the years, we have supplied the wine for dozens of weddings, so have a very clear idea of how the whole thing works – and you get a fab tasting to boot!

Tasting this weekend

This weekend we thought we’d start in the white corner with a wine from Germany. Riesling Trocken Reichsrat Von Buhl £14.99 is not one of your lederhosen wearing confected Liebfrau things that give us all the horrors. This is a grown up dry Riesling from Pfalz, where the Riesling has a little more weight, giving us a lively fleshiness to the palate.

In the red corner we’re going with Smoking Loon Cabernet Sauvignon £11.99 a classic Californian Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa. A medium-bodied with silky tannins and cinnamon tinged bramble fruit, but don’t take my word for it, taste it for yourself.

So there we have it, two wines for after the kids have been put to bed and the grown-ups can have a drink. Perfect for the “after eight thirty” club.

Nice weekend all,

Wayne & Alex

Fellow Wine Lovers,

 News

It’s been quite a week hasn’t it? Tough for Argentina, democratically losing the Falklands and your Archbishop in the same week has to be tough! On the bright side they gained a Pope so I guess that’s chalices of Malbec all round.

Sports

The cricket didn’t end as badly as feared and this week’s test has certainly got off to an interesting start. Arsenal demonstrated the perils of only showing up for the second half whilst Barcelona showed how to do it properly.

Horse Meet

Did anyone notice last week’s tip for the first race at Cheltenham (Champagne Fever) romped home at 5/1? We’re looking at Long Run in the Gold Cup if anybody is interested. Having written this last night we’ve now heard the Today show on Radio 4 tip it, so are a little less confident than we might have been. Go with your first instinct though!

Jokes

Red Nose Day all over your TV this evening so we’ll leave it to the experts.

 The Man Who Would Be King

A happy 80^th birthday to Michael Caine for yesterday, who once said “I am in so many movies that are on TV at 2:00 a.m. that people think I am dead.”

 Cheese

Next cheese and wine evening is Thursday 25^th April at 8pm with still a few places left come along and join the fun.

Wine School

We finished this term on Wednesday evening with a stunning selection of champagne and sparkling. The next term starts Wednesday May 1st and costs £150. If you would like to broaden your mind and palate buy tasting 60+ wines then sign up.

Californian Wine

A few of you have been asking us about Californian wine lately so we’ve been looking into it a bit more. Wayne was lucky enough to meet Russ Weis, General Manager at Silverado vineyards this week.

Silverado are situated, funnily enough, on the Silverado Trail directly across the road from Shafer Vineyards. Silverado were one of the first farms to plant Cabernet Sauvignon in the Stags Leap District, which is now synonymous with great quality Cabernet Sauvignon. Having tasted a few vintages on Tuesday it’s easy to see why, rich and elegant at the same time, the wine is a real treat.

As we write we are waiting for our delivery of 2008 Silverado Cabernet Sauvignon – £36.99, hopefully by the time you read this the man with the van will have been.

Wines this weekend

It being St. Patricks Day and all we thought we’d taste Martin Codax Albarino – £12.99 which clearly isn’t Guinness but is from Galicia, a part of Spain that has very strong Gaelic connections. Staying with Spanish thing we’ll go with El Bon Homme – £10.99 which is from Valencia with less of a Gaelic connection. That said we think St Patrick was probably a good bloke.

Early Close

This Friday and next we’ll be conducting tastings away from the shop so will close early at 7.30 pm. Now we know most of you have been through by then and are already tucking in but thought wise to let you know.

If you’d like us to conduct a tasting at your house you’ve just got to ask!

That’s it from us we’re going for a Long Run!

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Guess what – food is bad for you again.  Even more disappointing is the fact that it’s not lentils and celery that are the culprits but beloved bacon, sausages and ham.  Not quite sure where this leaves the Italians though.

Venison

But if we’re not going to eat bacon butties anymore how about we start working through our mountain of muntjac?  Apparently we need to halve the deer population if we are to avoid the ugly prospect of Bambi fighting with Fantastic Mr Fox over the contents of your dustbin and the best solution is to eat the blighters.  This year a whole new culinary adventure has begun for us all with venison burgers and horse bacon – next up Hot Dogs and Kit Kats?

Beetroot

Berlusconi gets jail time and probably won’t even spend a night behind bars, our preparation for this summer’s Ashes continues as expected, Man U and their beetroot-hued manager exit Europe, and Wayne informs me that Justin Bieber managed to alienate his entire cashflow earlier this week by turning up to his concert 2 hours late, at which point all of his fans had to go to bed.  If you want more detailed coverage of the concert, please email Wayne directly…

Last week we celebrated being Welsh and I think that anyone who tasted the Cambria Chardonnay on Saturday will acknowledge that this Welsh named wine from California knocks a lot of Burgundy straight into touch.

Roast Potatoes

Continuing with weekly celebrations, this Sunday sees the annual ‘cook Mum lunch and buy her flowers’ event – Mothering Sunday. 

Now, we can’t recommend one wine more than another to celebrate Mum being marvellous but historically something with bubbles in always puts a smile on the old girls boat race.  With this in mind we will be opening Mayerling Cremant D’Alsace Rose Brut NV £15.49 this weekend.  Pale salmon in colour with lovely fresh, bright strawberry and cream soda character on the nose and on the palate we have the same fruit balanced by a beautifully clean and fresh finish.  If you feed Mum enough of this she might not notice the burnt roasties and soggy broccoli!

Alongside the fizziness we will be opening some samples we have been sent and asking you to help us make buying decisions – we have four wines from Rioja, one from Argentina and two from South Africa.  To prove that this process works, those of you that savoured the Argentine samples 2 weeks ago will be pleased to see that four of the six wines we tasted are already happily ensconced on our shelves.  Perhaps it may not look like it, but we do listen to you and value the feedback.

Wine

It’s the start of a new month which means that the March Wine Club cases have been selected and are ready to be delivered.  If you’re wondering what we’re talking about imagine a mixed case of 6 bottles costing you just £50 delivered to your front door by our smiling couriers.  Each month is a different selection, they come with tasting notes and food recommendations and seem to be extremely popular.  There is no tie in, if you would like it you pay for it and we deliver, if you don’t fancy it one month then we ignore the pay and deliver bit and wait until the next month. 

We also do a six bottle selection for £100 if you feel like something a little fancier.

Both selections are attached, drop us a line if you’re interested in signing up.

So that’ll be us for this week, we’ve got Champagne Fever in the 1.30 on Tuesday at Cheltenham for obvious reasons – any further tips gladly received!

Careful what you eat.

Fellow Wine Lovers,

I’ve never said this before but what a victorious week it’s been to be Welsh!

In the rugby, we (because we’re all Welsh today) thumped the Italians in their own backyard 26-9.

In football, the Swans crossed the border and trounced the extremely dangerous Bradford in the League Cup Final 5-0. 

Yesterday David Brailsford, honorary Welshman, fluent welsh speaker and the man behind all of Britain’s cycling success, became Sir Dave.

And today, we round it off by celebrating St. David’s Day, anniversary of his famous victory over the nine foot nutter, Goliath.  Okay not strictly true, but when you learn that St David (thank you Wiki) lived his life according to the following, you do start to wish that perhaps there was a little more stone-slinging about him:

The Monastic Rule of David prescribed that monks had to pull the plough themselves without draught animals, must drink only water and eat only bread with salt and herbs, and spend the evenings in prayer, reading and writing. No personal possessions were allowed: even to say “my book” was considered an offence. He lived a simple life and practised asceticism, teaching his followers to refrain from eating meat and drinking beer.

Beer is verboten, but clearly wine is fine in his eyes, so if you want to have something today to go with your leek and daffodil pie then might I suggest Cambria ‘Katherine’s Vineyard’ Chardonnay 2007 (£22.99) or Cambria ‘Julia’s Vineyard’ Pinot Noir 2009 (£24.99).  Both come from Santa Maria Valley which is in Santa Barbara, California, both are extremely fine examples of top notch wine production and, of course most importantly, both are called Cambria.

Georgian Wines

Moving away from the valleys, many thanks to all of your who put your palates to the test with the two Georgian wines last weekend – for those of you that didn’t make it down you really don’t know what you missed out on.   Really.  However, despite all the helpful feedback, I have decided that we won’t be listing either of the wines now, or at any time in the foreseeable future.  I know, disappointing….

This weekend

There’s an old, and frankly little used, wine trade adage that states ‘Whilst Wayne is away, Alex will always put a posh bottle on tasting’.  In honour of such a tradition, and indeed to honour the valley dwellers, I shall be opening the Cambria Chardonnay this weekend.  To complement it on the red side, I will open the Espiritu de Argentina Shiraz 2011 (£9.99) that hails from Mendoza, Argentina (another country with welsh influences).  Argentina is commonly associated with Malbec so I thought a Shiraz would make a nice change, and, if we ignore the fact that we had some Argentine samples open last weekend, we haven’t formally tasted anything from here for almost a year!

Birthday

As you are all no doubt aware, it is my daughter’s birthday today.  You must be aware because it seems that every conversation for the last week has revolved around this, every person she has seen has been reminded and heavily laden hints have been dropped regarding preferred gifts.  Being are resilient/bad father I have failed to provide her with

a)      A present

b)      A party

c)       Any excuse

The trouble is she doesn’t drink wine and I don’t sell birthday cards, but do rest assured she will get everything she deserves!

So if you happen to bump into a little girl with an ‘I am 7’ badge on in the Pig & Whistle tonight, do me a favour – buy her a pint or better still, a hamster!

That’s all from me, Iechyd da – as my mate Morgan would say, look forward to seeing you all for a drop of Cambria Chardy.

Alex (& away Wayne)

Fellow Wine Lovers,

Step aside Ms Harry, sit down Sharkey, Peel – there’s a new game in town…

So, fresh back from a late night out carousing in the West End with newly crowned global legends One Direction, Wayne was barely able to contain his enthusiasm for their new medley arrangement of ‘One Way or Another’ and ‘Teenage Kicks’: 

Alex, you have to realise that all the raw power and energy that the Undertones and Blondie brought to their performances has been smoothed off and replaced with a lovely, squeaky clean feel, overladen with saccharine smiles and tightly choreographed dance routines…

Elsewhere, it’s not been the best week:  the voice of Roobarb and the housewives favourite Richard Briers passed on; the Pistorius case seems to be getting darker and foggier with each passing day; Arsenal continue their rich vein of form; Parisse being banned cannot bode well for Italy; and it’s still pigging cold!

However let’s try and focus on the positives: if you’re planning on flying to Madeira this weekend then the daily temperatures seem to be between 16 -18 degrees Celsius; the days are getting longer; it’s nearly March; there’s going to be a variety of wine open for tasting this weekend…

Wines we already stock:

It’s been absolutely ages since we tasted a Riesling so we thought we’d stick the Cave de Hunawihr Reserve 2011 (£12.99) on the table this weekend.  Nicely aromatic, with classic notes of lime and grapefruit interwoven with floral, jasmine character and perhaps a hint of kerosene too?  Dry, medium bodied, lively, zesty and very versatile – if it was human it would be the life and soul of the party yet as a wine, it often remains a wallflower.

It’s been absolutely ages since we tasted a Carmenère, so we thought we’d continue the theme of welcoming back old friends.  De Martino Reserva ‘Legado’ 2010 (£12.49) is the choice here – rich plum fruit, a bit of tannic structure and a good length finish riddled with spice and warmth.  If it was human… oh stop it…

Wines we don’t stock, but are thinking about stocking and thought a few of you might be interested in trying them before we buy them so that you can then give us appropriate feedback:

The thing is we need help.  Our knowledge of Georgian wine is at best patchy and full of holes (no comparisons with the Arsenal defence necessary here Alex) but we thought perhaps if we all tried them together we might come to some sort of group decision.

Georgia has been cultivating grapes since BC 6000 and as such is considered by many to be the birthplace and cradle of wine production, and we have a white and a red to show you.

The white is called Iago’s Wine Chardakhi 2009 (£16 ish) and is made from the local variety – Chinuri.  The wine is both fermented and aged in traditional amphora (Kvevri) from vines over 50 years old.  The back label tells us that it has hints of wild peppermint and wild pear – to find out more pop in and take a gulp.

The red is named Pheasants Tears 2009 (£16.50 ish) and is made from the Saperavi grape.  With our newly discovered knowledge I can confirm that this wine is also produced using Qvevri (spelt with a Q this time) and these vessels are lined with beeswax and buried in the earth, in the traditional method.  Pomegranate, almond and tannins are all mentioned in the flavour profile, so we’ll see.

They’re both fully organic and hairy toed, I reckon they’re going to be really exciting and certainly eye –opening, so try something different this weekend!

Having taken John Peel’s name in vein at the beginning it is probably only fair I give the last words, allegedly uttered after his fiftieth birthday:

Think my chances of making the Liverpool side are gone now.  Might still be able to get a game at one of those London clubs though…

Yours, ever so sincerely,

Alex & Wayne

Fellow Wine Lovers,

It’s all over, red rover.  Pink champagne waltzed out the door, as did Armagnac and, possibly significantly, but I’m not sure why, cider was also a popular tipple on Valentine’s Day.  Best joke of the day, which came courtesy of Twitter:

–          Men discover quality florist that also sells fuel and pasties.

As we stride boldly towards the 50^th day of 2013, it’s hard not to reflect on how much the world has changed over the last few years. 

We have papers filled with horsemeat, the only real conclusion being that it’s highly likely that most meat eaters will have ingested Shergar at some point; we have more pap-pictures of our future Queen in a state of undress; we have a retiring Pope; we have Paxman accused of bullying; and we have Oscar Pistorious – what strange times we do live in.

But here at PV our glass is always just over half full, so we embrace the fact that we might at some point have eaten a champion racehorse – how often can you say you’ve eaten a celebrity?

Speaking of glasses and their contents, this weekend we will taste a pair of wines that we have had on the shelves for ages, which we sell quite a lot of and yet strangely have never opened them on a weekend.  The two wines are from the same producer, Bergerie de la Bastide, which is in the Pays d’Oc region of France.  Great value (these are £7.49) and great tasting wines continue to pour from this area and hopefully you’ll agree. 

In the white the principle grape is Vermentino (30%) with the balance made up of Grenache Blanc, Sauvignon and Ugni Blanc.  There are dried herbs, white flowers, fennel, juniper, green olives and a nice tang of citrus on the finish to stop it running away with itself.

The red is 40% Grenache Noir, 30% Cinsault and 30% Merlot.  Loads of cranberries, redcurrants, and red cherries but reassuringly light, clean and fresh on the palate.  Exactly what you’d expect in your carafe at the bistro.

On a different note, we’ve just spent the whole of Thursday attempting to use our Microsoft Office 2010 which decided that our licence had been exceeded or something, so if anyone is an expert on the inner emotions of Microsoft software and has a good idea as to how we can seduce the system into working for us again, we’d love to hear from you!  Although, of course, if you’re getting this email it would imply we have cured the problem – perhaps.

That’s it from us – it’s half term next week, so the roads will be strangely quiet and the museums and cinemas will be teeming and more importantly we’ll be open every day offering our support and a safe haven on the journey back from the tube.

Toodle pip!

Alex & Wayne