Fellow Wine\nLovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A question\nposed yesterday by one of my oldest friends (and I mean that both in terms of\nage and length of service) is one that has been confounding the greatest minds\nsince the dawn of time: \u2018So, why can\u2019t\nEnglish top level sportsmen perform under pressure?\u2019<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n In case there\nwas any doubt as to what he was referring to, I believe the pasting the England\ncricket team received on Tuesday was probably top of his list. Comments such as \u2018crumpling under the weight of expectation\u2019, \u2018putting ourselves under\nunnecessary pressure\u2019<\/em> and \u2018not being\nas good as we thought we were\u2019<\/em> were all good suggestions for our failure to\nachieve. The suggestion that we could\ntry cheating was met with stiff opposition and it was crudely pointed out that\nwe\u2019d probably bottle that too. The\nobservation that 5 of the World Cup squad were born outside of England was\nmerely used as an example as to how infectious the English condition can be \u2013\nimagine how different life wold be if Ben Stokes had stayed in NZ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we need a\nwin on Sunday, against the minnows that call themselves India followed by\nanother wine against the land of Mr Stokes\u2019s birth. Easy, two form teams gearing up for the final\nfour \u2013 what could go wrong? Paul, our\ncorrespondent from Lords on Tuesday, was keen to reiterate to us in his report\nthat England were \u2018utterly pants\u2019 that day; so, providing we avoid being pants,\neverything should be hunky dory!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keen to avoid\nany work\/cricket\/lengthy sporting discourse, Wayne spent the first chunk of\nthis week mingling and networking in Tuscany. \nIt was the AGM of the small buying group that we are members of and,\nthis year, it was being hosted by one of the Argentine wine producers. Whilst keen to travel to Mendoza, the \u2018fly on\nMonday, return on Wednesday\u2019 nature of the trip made it more sensible for the\nwinery to decamp to Europe. The irony of\ndrinking Malbec in the Italian sunshine whilst enjoying the asado was not lost\non him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, the\nabsence of any Italian wine at all did feel a little bit like an opportunity\nmissed. Apart from that, I\u2019m told that\nhe has seen things that he will never be able to unsee and the \u2018what goes on\ntour stays there\u2019 line has been used more than once. Suffice to say, any winery that has different\ncigar matches for their wines is definitely not one for the fainthearted. Apparently we need to ask him about \u2018the somersaults\u2019\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he was\nback in time for our tasting last night. \nWe had the pleasure of hosting Rachel from Domaine Treloar last night,\nor perhaps more accurately we provided a location for Rachel to host her\nfabulous wines. I think it would be fair\nto say that it was a brilliant evening and the wines were singing. The great news now is that Rachel will be\nback to do it all again on Thursday 17th<\/sup>\nOctober at 8pm \u2013 tickets are \u00a320<\/strong> but don\u2019t dally, I suspect some of the\nguests from last night might sign up to do it all over again!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile,\nour crusty friends have gone down to Glastonbury to re-discover\nthemselves. Admittedly the crusty\nappellation is probably no longer appropriate as they now all have posh jobs in\ndefence and science but, back in the day, they were definitely fence climbing,\nfriends of Swampy and New Model Army. \nAnyway, back in 1989 the Pyramid headliners were Suzanne Vega, Elvis Costello\nand Fela Kuti; 1999 brought us R.E.M., Manic Street Preachers and Skunk\nAnansie; 2009 was the turn of Neil Young, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street\nBand and Blur and now, in 2019 we have \u2018the\u2019 Stormzy, The Killers and The\nCure. Wayne wants to go back to 1989 and\nI quite fancy 2009 \u2013 what\u2019s your vote?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wherever this\nweekend happens to find you sheltering it will definitely be from the sun we\nare told, Saturday being sun day and Sunday being cloud and sun day. Both days will, however, be Scorchio! (Fast\nShow 1994-1997, just in case you weren\u2019t feeling old enough already) and as a\nresult we\u2019ll be opening some cooling refreshers tonight and tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dressed in\ncooling white linen we have the gently charming Ch\u00e2teau Mercian Yamanashi Koshu Sur Lie 2017 – \u00a317.50.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With a\nwinemaking history dating back to 1877 Chateau Mercian is now Japan’s leading\nwinery although we accept that Japan is not an enormous wine producer, its\nannual 22 million bottles is less than Moet & Chandon’s annual sales. Koshu is Japan’s very own grape variety,\nhaving been grown there for around a thousand years although DNA research at UC\nDavies has determined it to be a descendant of Europe’s vitis vinifera vine\nspecies. We found this to be light and\nfresh, a little floral and with a lovely dry finish. Excellent with some sashimi, or a seafood\npaella but just fabulous with some pan-fried mackerel in the sunshine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the\nredder amongst us we will be toasting the weather with a glass of chilled Rechamante 2016 –\n\u00a314.99.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Hailing from\nOrense, in Galicia, this is a cracking red. \nMade mainly from Menc\u00eda Grape variety, it is light, fresh and\nfruity. The fruits are a mixture of red\nand dark fruits to this taster but there is no doubting its juiciness. Dangerously easy to drink, only 12%, and\nbound to be a tasty partner to whatever you happen to be cooking this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s about\nit from us for this week \u2013 I\u2019ve attached details of the upcoming tastings and\nalso the details of the Wine School that starts again in October \u2013 have a read,\nsee if you fancy any of them, drop us a line \u2013 easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh and the solution,\nperhaps, to the \u2018why can\u2019t English top\nlevel sportsmen perform under pressure?\u2019<\/em> conundrum. Stop watching. Watch the women instead. 3-0 to England last night in the World Cup\nquarter finals and a penalty saved. If\nyou get the chance to see the third goal on highlights then it\u2019s definitely\nworth a watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Stay fresh! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, A question posed yesterday by one of my oldest friends (and I mean that both in terms of age and length of service) is one that has been confounding the greatest minds since the dawn of time: \u2018So, why can\u2019t English top level sportsmen perform under pressure?\u2019 In case there was any […]<\/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-1164","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\/1164","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=1164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1165,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164\/revisions\/1165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}