Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, here\u2019s a question that came to me as I watched the umpteenth flight safety demonstration and we awaited take off \u2013 what\u2019s the point of seatbelts on airplanes? Having been flying for over four decades, it suddenly struck me that, in all those years, the design of the seatbelt hasn\u2019t changed one jot, which is odd considering all the other innovations that have come and gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, when I got back, I asked Wayne.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was extremely informative on the matter, with his usual salad of conspiracy theory garnished with a dollop of scepticism. We agreed that, if one was plummeting towards the ground from 30,000 feet at more than 500 mph, the likelihood of walking away from the debris was pretty low, with or without a seatbelt. \u2018They don\u2019t expect you to survive because if they did, they\u2019d spend a lot more time telling you exactly how get in the brace position\u2019 <\/em>was his theory, which may or may not reek of conspiracy. However, the main reason for no change in the belt design is simply down to the fact that there isn\u2019t need for a change. The current design is cheap, meets all the criteria required to pass safety regulations and is primarily designed to keep us all in one place during turbulence, which is an up\/down movement rather than a forward\/back movement that would require something more like a car seat belt. We could tell you more but space sadly doesn\u2019t allow it today but if you are keen to learn, just ask Wayne next time you\u2019re in the shop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, having watched the umpteenth flight safety demonstration and fastened my seatbelt unquestioningly, we proceeded northwards and landed at Heathrow at midnight. For those of you who don\u2019t know this, Heathrow is the principal London hub, the base of our national carrier and by all accounts the second busiest airport in the world. So it makes sense really that the last Heathrow Express service leaves Terminal 5 at 23.57 and the last tube to Earls Court has left 15 minutes earlier. Welcome to London everyone, your \u00a3100 taxi awaits\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Enough with the questions and enough with the moaning \u2013 I\u2019ve had a lovely refreshing break and am now ready for the big push towards Christmas, which as I\u2019m sure you are all aware, is less than four months away. As you can imagine, given the heat and the fact that I was on holiday, my esteemed colleague decided, having swept the shop a gazillion times and double checked the Open sign was the right way round, that he should go shopping for some Posh Claret for Christmas. Some of the fruits of his labours are already in the shop and I was delighted to see bottles of Chateau La Serre Saint- \u00c9milion Grand Cru 2005, Chateau Langoa Barton Saint-Julien 2008<\/strong> and Chateau Du Tertre Margaux 2010<\/strong> gleaming on the shelves, eager to be opened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s not just Fine Wine Wayne, he can buy wine at all levels and has also had a bit of a penchant for wines that speak German. As a consequence we have welcomed two wines from the young chaps at Weingut Hanewald-Schwerdt in the Pfalz region, a region in the west of the country that we have long admired, just above Alsace on the map. Thomas Hanewald and Stephan Schwerdt are members of \u2018Generation Riesling\u2019 a body made up of the best young winemaking talent in Germany – their focus is on dry wines, primarily made from Riesling and Pinot Noir that express their vintage and vineyard. Of course, being obtuse as we are, the white we chose to list was their Gew\u00fcrztraminer\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hanewald-Schwerdt Gew\u00fcrztraminer 2020 – \u00a313.99<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A lovely off-dry, aromatic wine with delicate aromas of mango, lychee and rose. On the palate the off-dry character comes through with that same tropical fruit in evidence but now with some spice. There is a warm, rosewood character and importantly some fine acidity on the finish. Chill it and enjoy it as an easy lunchtime ap\u00e9ritif this weekend – fab with some amuse-bouche veggie samosas!<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the red, we did follow their advice and bought their Pinot Noir\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hanewald-Schwerdt Sp\u00e4tburgunder 2019 – \u00a315.99<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Bright strawberry and cherry notes lead the way with some delicious savoury character and good minerality. Intense and medium bodied this is designed to be drunk easily (hooray) and can be enjoyed on its own (hooray again) but if you don\u2019t subscribe to the \u2018eating is cheating\u2019 mantra, then it would be very happy with some pigeon or duck!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Happily, both wines will be on tasting today and tomorrow, so you can come and see for yourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is almost it from us this week, save for a small bit of admin \u2013 as most of you are away and as it is the late summer bank holiday this weekend we will be closing at 6pm on Saturday 27th<\/sup> August and will be closed on Monday too, as is the norm for bank hols <\/strong>(the next bank hols being at Christmas, which as you all now know, is less than 4 months away!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n And now I\u2019ll leave you with one last question – what\u2019s the point of wing mirrors on Ubers? I\u2019ll let you ponder on that\u2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, Now, here\u2019s a question that came to me as I watched the umpteenth flight safety demonstration and we awaited take off \u2013 what\u2019s the point of seatbelts on airplanes? Having been flying for over four decades, it suddenly struck me that, in all those years, the design of the seatbelt hasn\u2019t changed […]<\/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-1590","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\/1590","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=1590"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1591,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1590\/revisions\/1591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}