{"id":2098,"date":"2026-06-05T11:46:26","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2098"},"modified":"2026-06-05T11:46:26","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:46:26","slug":"stalins-wine-cricket-and-the-fifa-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2098","title":{"rendered":"Stalin’s Wine, Cricket and the FIFA World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firstly, our apologies. As we mentioned last week we will close at 4pm today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here we are at the beginning of June and we\u2019re getting into the swing of summer. We\u2019ve had some rather fabulous thunder and lightning, a good dowsing of rain just in time to keep the grass green and top up the water butts. I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m ready for the heat to return now thanks very much; I\u2019ve been caught in the rain enough for a week or two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have test cricket at Lord\u2019s. England being the generous hosts as always were put into bat first and quickly raced to 34 for 4. Worse news than that, the statistics guys mentioned that of the first fourteen overs only six balls were projected to hit the wicket and still cost us two wickets. Despite much help from the weather and light gods we didn\u2019t manage to last beyond the first day, all out for 140. Over to the bowlers, who absolutely delivered with New Zealand at 82 for 8 at the close. Saturday tickets starting to look cheap I imagine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just under a week to go before the FIFA World Cup kicks off on Thursday with Mexico hosting South Africa. It then continues almost forever with the interesting, knock out part of it clashing with the Tour de France so this correspondent may miss some of the games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve talked on and off over the last few months about the challenges facing the hospitality industry. We\u2019ve all seen the talk of closures and the pubs and restaurants closing under the strain. We suspect it\u2019s the combination of all the rises at once that is causing many of the problems and now Tom Kerridge and several other chefs have launched a petition to cut VAT for the sector to 10%. This would bring it in line with much of Europe and give the industry a bit of breathing space.  As people who enjoy a pint in the pub and like to go for the odd restaurant dinner, we think it is a noble cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you would like to sign the petition here is the link: VAT’s the problem<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News reaches us from Georgia that the government is planning to auction Josef Stalin\u2019s wine collection of around 40,000 bottles of rare Georgian and French wines, some of them cherry picked from the Imperial Romanov collection after the revolution. The collection, housed in a cellar in the capital Tbilisi, was opened to the public for the first time this week. According to Reuters, some of the wines date back to the early 19th century. One wine collector from the US described seeing the wines as being \u201clike Indiana Jones opening up a cave: it could be nothing, it could be something.\u201d <\/em>Interesting as historical items, but I\u2019m not sure I\u2019m opening a hundred year old Saperavi with my plov!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tasting This Weekend<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ll start off the white in the white corner with a delicious Spanish white – Arousana Follas Novas Albari\u00f1o 2025, Rias Baixas, Spain – \u00a318.99<\/strong> \u2013 from Val do Saln\u00e9s considered the birthplace of Albari\u00f1o and made using fruit from 30 year old vines.  White peach and orange blossom on the nose and a crisp, dry palate showing stone fruit and mineral characteristics. I\u2019d seek out some seafood at the farmers market to go with this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we\u2019ll jump in our red sports car through the mountains and along the south coast of France before heading up the Rh\u00f4ne valley for a taste of C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne Villages \u2018Les Coteaux\u2019 2023, Rh\u00f4ne, France – \u00a314.99. <\/strong>Common practice in the C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne is to bottle the best cuv\u00e9es as a single named Village wine and the rest as basic Rh\u00f4ne Villages.  The philosophy here, on the other hand, is to start with the intention of making the very best C\u00f4tes du Rh\u00f4ne Villages possible.  They source wine from the vineyards of named villages and enrich them with a small proportion of barrel-aged wine from Sablet, S\u00e9guret and Cairanne.  The results are fabulous, as you can taste here, with well-balanced brambly fruit and soft tannin that is bang on the money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rumours involving using the Large Hadron Collider to help find Farage\u2019s moral compass appear to be wide of the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With that we\u2019re off!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fellow Wine Lovers, Firstly, our apologies. As we mentioned last week we will close at 4pm today. Here we are at the beginning of June and we\u2019re getting into the swing of summer. We\u2019ve had some rather fabulous thunder and lightning, a good dowsing of rain just in time to keep the grass green and […]<\/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-2098","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\/2098","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=2098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2099,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2098\/revisions\/2099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}