Fellow Wine Lovers, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\nweek we feel we have discovered the mistress of the understatement: Susannah\nGill, a lady from London who has just broken the women\u2019s record for the World\nMarathon Challenge. She ran seven marathons in seven days, enjoying the\nchill of -35\u02daC in Antarctica and toasting her toes in 35\u02daC in Cape Town, before\nfinishing the feat in Miami. Her average time was 3hrs 28mins per\nmarathon and afterwards, Gill admitted the challenge of running\nsuccessive marathons in Antarctica, Cape Town, Perth, Dubai, Madrid, Santiago\nand Miami in the space of a week, while having very little sleep, \u201chad been\ntough\u201d. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nother news this week, Brexit seems to continue to dominate the front pages,\ndespite Liam Neeson\u2019s best efforts. We saw that deals had been signed with the\nUS and Chile on the wine front, ensuring no disruption of supply. Meanwhile,\nTheresa May got some more points on her Eurostar loyalty card, popping over to\nsee her old mates for a quick chinwag in Brussels. The real news in Europe,\naside from all the clickbait stories surrounding Brexit, is that France has\nrecalled their ambassador to Rome after the Italian Deputy Prime Minister met\nleaders of the Gilet Jaunes. Finally, we were amazed at Donald Tusk\u2019s\nsuggestion that there may be a special place in hell; we\u2019d always thought it\nwas amongst the small print on the terms and conditions you click for new\nsoftware. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\ndon\u2019t know about you but if the rest of the games in the Six Nations are as\nexciting as last weekend, we are in for a treat. If France turn up for both\nhalves on Sunday it should be quite a game; on Saturday, Scotland will host an\nIrish team keen to make a point and a much changed Welsh side travel to Rome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On\nthe football front, Tottenham have had another knockback on their stadium which\nis great news for Arsenal as they will get a game at Wembley this year after\nall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Often\nat this time of year we turn some of our attention to the horses, it is barely\na month till Cheltenham, a festival which holds a special place in our hearts.\nDisaster struck this week though, as up to 100 stables are on lockdown\nfollowing an outbreak of equine flu. So if you see horses on the common, stay\naway from their sneezes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ve\nbeen spotted on the tube by several of you so we\u2019ll come clean and tell you\nthat we\u2019ve been out and about on the town tasting again this week. We like to\nthink of it as working, I\u2019m sure you all have a view. Tuesday saw us on a trip\nto Vintners Hall. It\u2019s always a joy to go along to \u2018Head Office\u2019 as it\nwere. We tasted a selection of tasty morsels, a couple of the new vintages of\nold favourites too. Thursday saw us in the function space at Oxo Tower where we\nmanaged to whizz round in superfast time despite bumping into a few old chums.\nWe tasted a Sauvignon Blanc IN A CAN! Can you believe it? The wine trade,\nfull of stuffy old geezers with red trousers and Beaumes de Venise aftershave,\nhas put Sauvignon Blanc in a can! I have to say it tasted fine, and we wondered\nif it might be just the thing for a picnic, come summer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n If\nthe raucous, and occasionally ribald, Italian tasting we hosted last night is\nanything to go by, most of us are well over being abstemious and Dry January is\njust a distant memory of misadventure and misery. Just in time too because we\nhave the celebration of Saint Valentine to contend with next week and, frankly,\nthere is nothing better to help you get through that mountain of cards from\nsecret admirers than a long stiff drink!<\/p>\n\n\n\n With\nthis in mind we\u2019ll have a couple of wines open this weekend with very loose\nconnections to February 14th<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nthe white corner we\u2019ll have a pink fizz which, whilst clearly not white, is\noften a winning choice on Valentine\u2019s Day \u2013 Domaine du Landrau Cremant de\nLoire Ros\u00e9 – \u00a315.99 <\/strong>which, as we all know but I\u2019ll remind you, is a blend\nof Grolleau and Cabernet Franc. Delicious, with a fine mousse, crisp\nfresh raspberry tinged fruit and a lovely mouthfeel, this is a perfect aperitif\nand awesome with an indulgent pile of smoked salmon!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We\nlooked around for a suitably naff red to link with Valentine but it seems we\nhave no wines with hearts and suchlike on them and Meerlust just felt a tad\ninappropriate. So the red representative this week is a wine from\nValencia, made using grapes from forty year old Monastrell vines, which are\nthen blended with a dollop of Cabernet Sauvignon. It\u2019s a mouthful of\ndamsons and cherries and is a fab all-rounder from a food point of view. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Its\nname? El Bon Homme 2016 – \u00a313.99<\/strong> \u2013 for the good bloke in your\nlife!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In\nthe eto we have Cambria Benchbreak Pinot Noir (\u00a327.49)<\/strong> from Santa Maria\nValley in California \u2013 it\u2019s been in there all week so we can see how it has got\non under the rubber seal\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And\nnow we must off \u2013 have a bon weekend avec your bon homme or bonne femme and\nbatten down those hatches!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, This week we feel we have discovered the mistress of the understatement: Susannah Gill, a lady from London who has just broken the women\u2019s record for the World Marathon Challenge. She ran seven marathons in seven days, enjoying the chill of -35\u02daC in Antarctica and toasting her toes in 35\u02daC in Cape […]<\/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-1104","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\/1104","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=1104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1105,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1104\/revisions\/1105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}