Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
Well that was fun wasn\u2019t it? The England football team certainly went a lot further than this commentator expected and played some lovely football along the way; it wouldn\u2019t have happened under Sam Allardyce, is all I\u2019m saying\u2026.<\/p>\n
I think I expected a bit more from Belgium and a bit less from England before the tournament but that has changed. We\u2019ve changed our forecasting tactics after the Croatian loss and switched from wine to beer.<\/p>\n
Beer World Cup, from our stock\u2026 England 11 Belgium 1<\/p>\n
The upside of this is that we can refocus our attentions on more traditional summer pastimes\u2026Wimbledon Tennis, Tour de France, drinking ros\u00e9, birdwatching and sending the kids to visit Gran for a few days.<\/p>\n
Wimbledon Tennis has had quite a lot of upset this year. It started off with Murray opting to compete with Tim Henman for dullest TV commentator award rather than actually play any tennis; he even wore John Inverdale\u2019s grey jacket.<\/p>\n
Shock and upset hasn\u2019t stopped there either. We saw an enormous number of the top seeds go missing in action the first week, careless work by the groundsmen I\u2019d say.<\/p>\n
Novak Djokavic seems to be continuing his return from his \u2018Lost in Space\u2019 turn of bad form. Playing some fabulous and dreadful tennis all at the same time, I\u2019m fairly sure he scored all the points for both him and Nishikori in the first set of the quarter final on Wednesday.
\nMeanwhile, Roger Federer chose a really bad time to finally lose some sets, all in the same match is never a good strategy!<\/p>\n
We should perhaps mention Rafael Nadal, watching him this year I couldn\u2019t help but notice all his superstitious ticks and twitches. His routine of having two perfectly balanced towels behind him, adjusting his shirt, pinching his nose, and stroking his eyebrows now seems so perfectly timed that I am beginning to wonder if he has been replaced by a robot! I know they all get tested for performance enhancing drugs, but how do you test to see if he is a replicant? Perhaps we should ask Ridley Scott.<\/p>\n
Last bit of Wimbledon news, is that apparently a men\u2019s doubles match from last week has been reported for suspicious behaviour with regard to match fixing. Apparently in the hour before the game began there was a series of bets from accounts \u201cwith a history of wagering on suspicious matches\u201d. The Tennis Integrity Unit is investigating and does not comment on operational matters.<\/p>\n
Tour de France has been more eventful than the profile had suggested for the first week. Peter Sagan is beasting it, having two wins and two second places in the first five stages. Looks like the green jersey may just end up with his name on the back. On the GC front, clearly it\u2019s early days with all main protagonists still in the frame, within a minute of the lead.<\/p>\n
For those of you less interested in sport we can report that in the last week 30 species of bird have been spotted on Wandsworth Common including Pied Wagtails, Cormorants, Heron, Black Head Gulls and Collared Doves. The score for Tooting Common is a winning 32 species including Black Caps, Greenfinches and another Collared Dove. More unusually, a buzzard and a red kite have been spotted in the last month.<\/p>\n
In other news Trumpolina, the USA\u2019s toddler in chief, has been over this side of the pond. He started by upsetting people at the NATO summit in Brussels and then opted to visit the UK, where he didn\u2019t visit London so as to not to be confused with a large hot air balloon but will visit Scotland where he should be able to get 18 holes in!<\/p>\n
Drinking ros\u00e9 has been happening, we\u2019ve just got our top up shipment of Ch\u00e2teau de l\u2019Aumerade Cuv\u00e9e Marie Christine (\u00a314.99 or 6 bottles for \u00a378)<\/strong>. Classic, top quality C\u00f4tes de Provence ros\u00e9 that is our best-selling wine most years.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, over at Gran\u2019s, your parents are showing an amazing affinity for Fortnite and your eldest daughter does appear to be rather taken with Werther\u2019s Originals.<\/p>\n Tasting This Weekend<\/strong><\/p>\n Reserve de Gassac Blanc 2017 – \u00a311.29<\/strong><\/p>\n A cracking blend of Viognier, Chenin Blanc, Petit Manseng and Chardonnay from the chaps who own Mas de Daumas Gassac (occasionally referred to as \u2018Lafite in the Languedoc) but without the price tag of their top wines. Lovely warm, peachy citrus character with a nice weight and a long, gently spiced finish. Fabulous summer drinking, particularly with fragrantly spiced Thai treats, although Wayne is vehement about its positive influences on Syrian dishes.<\/p>\n Monte del Fr\u00e1 Bardolino 2017 – \u00a312.99<\/strong><\/p>\n Always lighter in style than Valpolicella and often overlooked, Bardolino is an absolute gem of a wine. Lovely aromas of soft cherry fruits with hints of brandy-snaps (kirsch?), too. One of our favourites this, with its palate showing cherry fresh fruits, soft tannins and a hint of soft spice on the finish, lightly chilled it\u2019s just the ticket for tuna steak if you don\u2019t mind the idea of red with some fish! As a final note, due to a diary malfunction we now have 3 spaces available<\/strong> for our Wine & Cheese Tasting next Thursday 19th July – \u00a320 per person, 8pm start<\/strong>. Save them from themselves \u2013 9 people shouldn\u2019t be eating 12 people\u2019s portions of cheese!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, Well that was fun wasn\u2019t it? The England football team certainly went a lot further than this commentator expected and played some lovely football along the way; it wouldn\u2019t have happened under Sam Allardyce, is all I\u2019m saying\u2026. I think I expected a bit more from Belgium and a bit less from […]<\/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-1023","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\/1023","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=1023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1023\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThese will both be open from 5pm today and all day Saturday so come and have a swirl.<\/p>\n