Fellow Wine\nLovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It all started\nin 2010 and the Iceland volcanic eruption \u2013 Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull to give its\ncorrect name – I was about to say easier to spell than say but now I\u2019m not so\nsure about that\u2026 Anyway, all that way back in 2010, I was fortunate enough to\nbe on the Island of Madeira whilst all flights were grounded and got an extra 5\ndays holiday courtesy of someone else\u2019s insurance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well, they say\nthat elephants never forget but our proboscis faced friends have nothing\ncompared to my business partner. Since\nmy extended \u2018break\u2019 almost a decade back he has endeavoured to get his own\nextended holiday \u2013 for example last year he purposefully booked his holiday to\nstraddle 29th<\/sup> March, hoping that Brexit might cause mayhem at the\nairports and as a sad consequence he might just have to stay in Goa a trifle\nlonger. This year he was visibly\ndisappointed when both Ciara and Dennis arrived too early to leave him grounded\nin the foreign sun however I won\u2019t be at all surprised to receive an apologetic\nemail saying that unfortunately he\u2019s been quarantined for 14 days and it would\nbe for the best if he stayed put. On a\ncontinent that thus far has had just two cases of the virus\u2026. hmmmm!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, at least\nthe pandemic news has seen Trump and Johnson booted off the headline acts, although\nDonny did manage to state that the US is \u201crapidly developing a vaccine. The\nvaccine is coming along well.\u201d Which is\nprobably true but wouldn\u2019t be available for a year following clinical trials \u2013\nwhich is perhaps why he is allowing Mike Pence to lead the government response –\nit\u2019s an election year, he needs to be associated with more immediate successes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, with the\nmedia whipped threat of a global pandemic, coupled with properly awful weather\nconditions in large parts of the UK, I\u2019m wondering where does the lightness of\nmood come from this week? Never been a\nfan of felines, so cat videos hold no joy; as mentioned, my senior colleague,\nwho is usually good for a laugh, has left the building; in fact if it wasn\u2019t\nfor the idiocy on twitter regarding Yorkshire Tea and its political\nassociations and the Rees-Mogg follow up with Walkers and Pringles, I think my\nweek would have been one long grey and dreary affair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Would you rather\nfight one horse sized duck or 100 duck sized horses? This dilemma has been doing the rounds since\n2003 at least and has been discussed in the pub, on long journeys and even in\nthe later rounds of job interviews. \nWell, not for the first time, China is planning its own version of duck\nfighting. Widely reported yesterday (and\nalso in July 2000 so this could be a spoof) China is training 100,000 elite\nducks, not to engage in equine warfare but in fact to eat the billions of\nlocusts approaching their eastern border. \nA duck apparently can eat 200 locusts a day, so this \u2018eleat \u2018unit would\nsee off 20 million a day, by all accounts. However, judging by estimated number\nof locusts in the air it would take just 27 years for the swarm to be\nextinguished. Now, if we had horse sized\nducks\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly, we have just read that Zhang Long,\na professor from China Agricultural University, has rejected the Ningbo Evening\nNews report that China was going to dispatch ducks to Pakistan \u2013 no comment on\nthe hybrid version though!!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And then we read\nthat France has become the fourth largest export market for Prosecco, now who\u2019d\nhave thunk that? We had been led to\nbelieve that the French were pretty well served on the fizz front \u2013 many of the\nregions produce a Cremant of some sort or another and there is an area just\nnorth of Burgundy that certainly has been building quite a reputation of late\nfor its sparkling wines made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir no less \u2013 worth\nlooking out for I\u2019m told. Anyway,\nProsecco seems to be sliding in very much at the lower end, as it did in the\nUK, thus cannibalising a market eager to drink fizz but without a fizz\nbudget. Ideal. But you know who it will actually hit the\nhardest? Those champagne producers who\nrelease their insipid, tart and flavourless version of the noble wine onto the\nmarket at a \u00a310 price point \u2013 if it kills this market it can only be good for\nall of us! Forza Glera!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n We won\u2019t be\ntasting Prosecco this weekend, we\u2019ll leave that for the French but we will, in\na nod towards our wayward traveller, taste a couple of South African wines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The newly listed\nwhite is the Barton Vineyards Sauvignon\nBlanc 2017 – \u00a312.79<\/strong> from Walker Bay, this is all about green pepper,\ngooseberries, and grapefruit, underlined with a crisp minerality and a medium-\nbodied citrus finish. We like all the\nwines from Barton and it seems you do too, so let\u2019s welcome this one with open\narms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tom Doran, he of\nDoran Vineyards, has just had an operation on his knee and so is out of action\nfor a few weeks, so we thought we might give his sales a boost again this week,\nwhilst he\u2019s laid up. Another reasonably\nnew listing is Doran Vineyards Pinotage\n2018 – \u00a313.99<\/strong> from the Western Cape, this has excellent raspberry and\nblackberry fruits at its heart and is dangerously drinkable. Not my best tasting note I concede but I\nbelieve it gets the point across. Get\nwell soon Tom; we\u2019re likely to need more stock! <\/p>\n\n\n\n One important piece of admin before I go:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Next Friday, 6th<\/sup> March, is our\nannual close-early-and-go-and-run-the-bar-at-the-KCS-quiz-night. So, we must apologise because we will be\nclosing at 5pm that day.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n So, that\u2019s it\nfor this week, apologies for the tardiness but I was interrupted for a bit by a\nshoplifter who needed thwarting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, It all started in 2010 and the Iceland volcanic eruption \u2013 Eyjafjallaj\u00f6kull to give its correct name – I was about to say easier to spell than say but now I\u2019m not so sure about that\u2026 Anyway, all that way back in 2010, I was fortunate enough to be on the Island […]<\/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-1252","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\/1252","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=1252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1252\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}