Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
How are you, is half-term treating you well? If you\u2019re away, don\u2019t worry the garden is nicely watered, but your lawn needs a trim. The hedge has gone a bit mental too, so you might need to get the trimmers out. But it\u2019s not really my purpose to talk about gardening, I know little about it, and prefer to sit on a patio with a barbecue warming up if I\u2019m honest.<\/p>\n
I thought instead we\u2019d talk about things that weren\u2019t really as they appeared this week. We could start with the magical resurrection of murdered journalist Arkady Babchenko. In a plot more Austin Powers than James Bond, he was allegedly shot on his doorstep whilst popping out for bread. Reports suggested that he had died in the ambulance on the way to hospital. So you can imagine the world\u2019s surprise when he strolled into a press conference the following day. Who on earth thought that was a good idea? Surely someone could see that everyone would just look a bit ridiculous.<\/p>\n
Did anyone see last weekend\u2019s Monaco Grand Prix? It was won by Daniel Ricciardo, who led from start to finish, after smashing the track record in qualifying. Sadly, that was where the excitement ended, the day before the race, in qualifying. Ricciardo drove for 50 laps with an engine issue, and nobody passed him. Lewis Hamilton, who came third, wondered if the audience had woken up yet when interviewed at the end. His description as boring was bang on. It\u2019s supposed to be a race, and that certainly wasn\u2019t what we had last weekend, I don\u2019t want to take anything away from Ricciardo, there was a certain elegance in his drive despite the engine issues. I love the Monte Carlo GP, I remember only 6 drivers finishing in 1979, I even met James Hunt and drove my white Fiesta around the course in 1983. I just can\u2019t help but think if this had been the first one, we\u2019d never have made it to the 76th race. Something needs to be done to turn it into a race again. Rant over.<\/p>\n
Whilst we\u2019re on the subject of cars, our golfing correspondent in Spain suggest you could do yourself a service by using a car hire company that doesn\u2019t contain a precious metal in name. SilverSUV should be fine, or Platinumpeoplecarrier could be great, but the other one\u2026.not so.<\/p>\n
We saw a report this week criticising (again!) the lack of female appointments to FTSE company boards. It seems too many people are still stuck in the 1950\u2019s as some of the excuses were incredible. Our favourite was: “There aren’t that many women with the right credentials and depth of experience to sit on the board – the issues covered are extremely complex”. On the same day and keen to show they are embracing diversity in the present day, the Bank of England interviewed four women and one man for a place on the Monetary Policy Committee and then chose the man. Doh!<\/p>\n
In wine news two significant regions have been suffering from the heavy rain this week. Bordeaux had some heavy, but localised hail, causing damage not just to vines but also the city itself this time. Meanwhile, further south in Portugal\u2019s Douro region, 80 mm of rain fell in three hours. That\u2019s about double the 30 year average for the whole of May and is bound to damage the flowering vines, talk is of 80% damage in a number of significant vineyards.<\/p>\n
In Greece, global demand for Santorini\u2019s Assyrtiko grape is such that prices on the island are up 288% over the last couple of years, so local winemakers are seeking EU permission to plant on Thirassia, Santorini\u2019s sub-island just across the caldera.<\/p>\n
Alex suggested I might like to find a red Chardonnay whilst he was swinging sticks on the Costa, and whilst I\u2019m sure he had his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, I have found a rather delicious oddity. Made from the fairly rare Piquepoul Noir, one of the scarcer grape varieties allowed in the blend of a Chateauneuf-du-Pape, I have a small parcel of Piquepoul Ros\u00e9 (\u00a312.99)<\/strong>. Crisp, pale, dry and really rather delicious should you think it\u2019s that time of year.<\/p>\n Tasting This Weekend<\/strong> Chipping onto the green in the red polo shirt I\u2019m going to suggest Lopez de Haro Crianza 2015 (\u00a310.99)<\/strong> which is from Rioja. A delicious Rioja that would be a great partner with all manner meats, barbecued or otherwise. We have it in magnums too (\u00a322)<\/strong> if you have a thirst on visitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, How are you, is half-term treating you well? If you\u2019re away, don\u2019t worry the garden is nicely watered, but your lawn needs a trim. The hedge has gone a bit mental too, so you might need to get the trimmers out. But it\u2019s not really my purpose to talk about gardening, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1004\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWe shall join his lordship in Spain I think. Down the middle of the fairway on the Costa Blanca will be Val do Xuliana Albari\u00f1o 2017 (\u00a313.69)<\/strong> a crisp, orchard fruited and gently mineral dazzler from Rais Baixas in the northwest.<\/p>\n