Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have witnessed, over a good number of weeks, a lot of running happening. People passing the shop with a backpack on, clearly having run back from the office whilst others are settling in for a long run with a CamelBak on, the tube dripping down their arm as they pass. All this rather points to Sunday and the 2024 London Marathon. First run in 1981, the London Marathon has had over a million people run past the Cutty Sark, over Tower Bridge and raise their arms on The Mall!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year chasing the spoils, we have the Women\u2019s World Record holder, Tigist Assefa, the Olympic champion, Peres Jepchirchir, and Ruth Chepngetich the fourth fastest woman of all time. I\u2019ve not seen the start list for Elite men but I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be seeing a stellar line up as usual although probably without He Jie\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have just read that the average man takes 55,374 paces and the average women 62,926. We\u2019re not sure that tells the full story though, before you run a marathon you have to do a fair amount of training, with a long run each week that seems to get ever longer. That\u2019s a lot of extra steps we\u2019re adding there. Some of our longer standing readers may recall that we both ran the 2014 edition of the London Marathon we didn\u2019t run much together in training but did one time run from here up to and around Hyde Park and back, and another time three laps of Richmond Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lots of steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, Wayne completed it in 4.27 and Alex in 4.40 having queued for 7 minutes for a comfort break at Tower Bridge. We raised over \u00a33,000 for The Children\u2019s Trust and each expended over 5000 calories. We enjoyed our pizza that evening, the stairs to the cellar on Monday morning? Not so much. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, where am I going with all of this? Reader, I wish I knew. If you\u2019re running the marathon this week enjoy it, all the hard work is done. Enjoy all the northern soul blasting out of the pubs you pass, the drummers, the cheers, the tears and the amazing sense of achievement that follows. You got this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In other news, certainly for the older folk amongst us, it\u2019s been known as a Snickers since 1990.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As unlikely as misinformation from us might be, I find I have to apologise for being a little bit early with my discussions on Record Store Day last week. Actually, it is happening this week, no, honestly, it really is. I am staying with my choices though. To remind you, I went for X-Ray Spex album \u2018Germ Free Adolescents\u2019 and Horace Andy with Sly and Robbie \u2018Livin it Up\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In UEFA news, Manchester City and Arsenal are both popping their passports back in the drawer for this season whilst West Ham and Liverpool get their Thursday evenings back. In the cricket, Essex top the Counties table but it is really rather early in the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, in proper sports, we say \u2018chapeau\u2019 to Stephen Williams who became the first British winner of La Fleche Wallonne. It was a really tough race with awful weather and even snow for much of it. \u2018Chapeau\u2019 also to Kasia Niewiadoma, who won the women\u2019s edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This weekend sees the last of the Ardennes Classics with Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge on Sunday where it\u2019s difficult to see past Tadej Poga\u010dar in the men\u2019s race, the parcours suits him better than high flying Matthieu van der Poel, though Tom Pidcock seems to be in fine fettle too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the women\u2019s race will Demi Vollering defend her title from last year? She certainly has the form but I\u2019m hoping for a win for Pfeiffer Georgi who\u2019s been so close in the last few. As always, watch out for seasoned campaigner Marianne Vos, she\u2019s not known as the GOAT without reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To paraphrase a Fast Show character, this week we shall be mostly tasting Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ll start off with C\u00e0 dei Frati \u2018I Frati\u2019 Lugana 2022 (\u00a326.49)<\/strong>. A random conversation with a customer about a fabulous wine he\u2019d had at a client dinner reminded us of this wine. We re-tasted it, remembered why we loved it and puzzled over why we had forgotten about it. Why not come and see for yourself? <\/p>\n\n\n\n We\u2019ll move onto Cantine Povero \u2018Dianae\u2019 Barbera d\u2019Asti 2022 (\u00a315.99)<\/strong> a rather fabulous red from the Piemonte. It\u2019s a natural wine without the weird bits, being made without the addition of extra sulphites. Bang on with a spot of duck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lastly, having mentioned it last week, we couldn\u2019t leave without sharing a bit of Lettuce\u2019s book with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI had become increasingly concerned that Britain\u2019s judiciary had become a self-perpetuating oligarchy, Here was a group of similarly minded people from similar backgrounds who had a particular worldview and were resolute in protecting their own interests.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n How\u2019s that for self-awareness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cheers!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, We have witnessed, over a good number of weeks, a lot of running happening. People passing the shop with a backpack on, clearly having run back from the office whilst others are settling in for a long run with a CamelBak on, the tube dripping down their arm as they pass. All […]<\/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-1819","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\/1819","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=1819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1820,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1819\/revisions\/1820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}