{"id":1446,"date":"2021-08-06T12:51:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-06T11:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1446"},"modified":"2021-08-06T12:51:18","modified_gmt":"2021-08-06T11:51:18","slug":"normality-cheese-wine-coffee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1446","title":{"rendered":"Normality, Cheese, Wine &#038; Coffee"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hasn\u2019t August been great so far!&nbsp; Wall to wall sunshine, back to back barbecues and ear to ear smiles all round \u2013 certainly photos we see from people holidaying abroad tell this tale.&nbsp; Here though, it\u2019s all a bit ordinary, isn\u2019t it?&nbsp; Dull weather doesn\u2019t make the staycation feel like the best decision I\u2019ve made recently and even the quieter roads and short queues at the bar don\u2019t quite stop me from thinking about tapas and the bars of Benahav\u00eds\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But we\u2019re here, so let\u2019s make the best of it.&nbsp; We\u2019ve allowed ourselves to turn the telly on over breakfast (normally verboten) to watch the latest medal winning performance in a sport that until now we hadn\u2019t come across \u2013 speed climbing for example \u2013 and we\u2019ve loved it.&nbsp; We\u2019ve watched the cricket, admittedly from behind the sofa on Wednesday but yesterday we felt a bit more confident.&nbsp; We even watched the tedious Lions rugby last weekend which felt like an Olympic discipline as gruelling as the marathon swim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Conforming to his reputation as a gentleman, aesthete, scholar and gourmet, Wayne always prepares himself a rather splendid luncheon to accompany his prescribed glass of early afternoon red.&nbsp; Often this luncheon will include\/entirely consist of cheese and will always be accompanied by some highbrow periodical that apparently helps him solve The Times crosswords.&nbsp; On Wednesday, on his way to Saucer and Cup for his post prandial caffeine fix, he thrust that day\u2019s literary offering under my nose and, with a smile, said \u2018You\u2019ll like this!\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My eyes fell upon a Cardiovascular Research review paper by Gabriele Riccardi, Annalisa Giosu\u00e8, Ilaria Calabrese and Olga Vaccaro at the University of Naples Federico II &#8211; <em>Dietary recommendations for prevention of atherosclerosis &#8211; July 2021.<\/em>&nbsp; Now, we all want our hearts to keep on beating for as long as possible but it appears that Mr W. has been checking out what we should and shouldn\u2019t be eating and drinking.&nbsp; He read this paper so that we didn\u2019t have to and has these keynotes to offer us:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>a 2020 meta-analysis of studies found an 18 percent reduction in the incidence of myocardial infarction (heart attack) in subjects who habitually consumed cheese<\/li><li>consumption of three cups of coffee per day is associated with a 10 to 16 percent reduction in risk of heart disease incidence and mortality<\/li><li>two glasses of wine per day is associated with a maximal risk reduction of 32 percent of cardiovascular disease<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There was also some good news relating to chocolate but since that doesn\u2019t usually appear on his lunch table, he didn\u2019t divulge the full details.&nbsp; Plus, we are led to believe that whilst a UK \u2018unit\u2019 of 8g of alcohol, an Italian \u2018unit\u2019 is 12g.&nbsp; Feels like a win, trebles all round!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other news we read a headline on the Beeb website that asked the question <em>\u2018Is Covid over?\u2019<\/em> and, to be honest, we didn\u2019t bother reading further as this seemed like a bit if a non-article, sent to wind us up.&nbsp; Australia got their way as we saw the postponement of the Rugby League World Cup until next year; this writer can foresee the postponement of the Ashes this winter too, particularly as only 15% of their population have been jabbed currently (and, of course unrelated, we will be without Ben Stokes and Jofra Archer).&nbsp; Grant Shapps shuffled his red, amber and green cards and decided that France was no longer as naughty as previously thought, Mexico is extremely naughty yet somehow Spain is ok and the likes of Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Malta, Norway, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia get the full green light \u2013 start packing your bags!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last weekend saw the cautious return to a bit of wine tasting action in the shop.&nbsp; Wayne opened some Albari\u00f1o, the heavens opened, the tube station shut and not many people got to try the wine.&nbsp; Unperturbed and with an optimistic nod towards a return to normality, we will be opening a couple of bottles this weekend and, since it\u2019s been such a long time, this is a great opportunity to open some new listings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In white we have <strong>Manos Negras Torront\u00e9s 2019 &#8211; \u00a314.99<\/strong> from the high altitude desert of the Calchaqu\u00edes Valleys in Salta, Argentina.&nbsp; We always enjoy the aromatic fresh floral nose that you get with Torront\u00e9s, urging you to taste the wine, which never disappoints giving similar tropical fruit flavours attached to a long, crisp and fresh finish.&nbsp; Great with a Thai green curry\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For red, we\u2019ve gone to Italy for our inspiration.&nbsp; That T-bone you are planning to barbecue this weekend would be simply splendid with <strong>Fattoria di Calappiano Vinciano 2019 &#8211; \u00a314.99<\/strong>.&nbsp; The estate was founded circa 1500 by the famous Florentine family, the Medici who probably spent a bit of money on it at the time!&nbsp; Anyway, the estate is still flying and this Chianti is a lovely juicy Sangiovese with lush red fruits, herby hints and a touch of wood-smoke on the finish \u2013 it really won\u2019t take very long to finish the bottle!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s it from us for now \u2013 please pop by and say hello, have a taste and raise a glass to normality (we hope!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fellow Wine Lovers, Hasn\u2019t August been great so far!&nbsp; Wall to wall sunshine, back to back barbecues and ear to ear smiles all round \u2013 certainly photos we see from people holidaying abroad tell this tale.&nbsp; Here though, it\u2019s all a bit ordinary, isn\u2019t it?&nbsp; Dull weather doesn\u2019t make the staycation feel like the best [&hellip;]<\/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-1446","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\/1446","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=1446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1447,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1446\/revisions\/1447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}