{"id":596,"date":"2015-05-23T13:58:56","date_gmt":"2015-05-23T12:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=596"},"modified":"2015-05-23T14:00:49","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T13:00:49","slug":"596","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=596","title":{"rendered":"Weekend tasting of Godello, Wine School & other wines."},"content":{"rendered":"

Fellow Wine Lovers,
\nTwo genuine quotes and two made up quotes to start us off this week:
\n\u2018I think the top contenders are also guilty because they let us win the title so early.\u2019<\/em>
\nJose Mourinho after Chelsea lose 3-0 to West Brom
\n\u2018But I’m not a man like that. I’m not the kind of guy to cheat people of their money or let the fans down … that’s not what I do.\u2019<\/em>
\nJustin Gatlin, twice banned drug cheat, on leaving Beijing earlier this week
\n\u2018The food was brilliant but I think the restaurant has to take some blame for me choosing the wrong wine\u2019<\/em>
\nAnonymous customer from Wellington Road, after a meal at a Michelin 2 star
\n\u2018We don\u2019t like to cheat our customers, we definitely don\u2019t put a higher margin on Rioja, Chablis and Pinot Grigio because they\u2019re the most popular and a lot of our customers always choose wines they recognise, that\u2019s not what we do, we\u2019re not here to cheat people of their money….\u2019<\/em>
\nMichelin 2 star discussing their \u00a3150 Table d\u2019H\u00f4te menu (not including wine)
\nSo, what can we learn from these quotes? Nothing terribly new I think. Jose is still bonkers and still looking to assign blame somewhere, even though he has already won the title. Justin on the other hand has some serious delusions, possibly as a result of prolonged exposure to mind altering amphetamines and testosterone!
\nAs for the other two quotes we can learn one thing: wine lists are impenetrable to a large number of us, with too many pages and lots of names we don\u2019t recognise from places that we haven\u2019t heard of. But then on the front page, in BIG LETTERS, we have the old rogues like Chablis and Rioja which leads us to breathe a sigh of relief and beckon to the waiter – \u2018a bottle of Chablis and a bottle of sparkling water please\u2019 \u2013 comforted by the feeling of familiarity and safety.
\nBut what\u2019s in the rest of the list? Treasures to be unearthed, new friends to be made, flavours to be discovered. Riesling from Clare Valley; Cabernet Franc from the Loire; Godello from Galicia; Negroamaro from Puglia \u2013 all very exciting and delicious, but how do you know this?
\nA number of years ago, a number customers came to us with this problem \u2013 they would regularly dine out for work and felt they needed to be a bit more exciting in their wine choices to show their clients that they weren\u2019t unimaginative, path of least resistance, crowd followers. So, to help them break these bonds, we wrote them some notes about \u2018other\u2019 grapes. These notes were sipped, savoured and swallowed voraciously – and then they wanted more. \u2018What about sweet wine?\u2019 they clamoured; \u2018tell us about Ros\u00e9\u2019 and \u2018how do I know if a wine is faulty?\u2019 followed closely behind.
\nAnd before we knew it, we had 10 people sitting around a table, swirling, sipping and occasionally spitting as we walked them through all their vinous needs. The Wine School had been born.
\nThat was 6 years ago and it is still going from strength to strength. We cannot claim to have trained any top Sommeliers or budding winemakers but we have broadened many a horizon and introduced many a new grape variety to an awful lot of happy people.
\nNow it\u2019s your turn. Our next Wine School starts<\/strong> in just over 10 days time \u2013 Wednesday June 3rd<\/strong> to be precise \u2013 and continues on consecutive Wednesdays for a period of 6 weeks. We will teach you how to taste and then we will go off and explore wines from all over the world and of all hues. It\u2019s a 6 week, 60 wine extravaganza of fun and education and at the end of it you can be sure that you\u2019ll never be in the same boat as the unfortunate chap from Wellington Road!
\nFull details attached, it costs \u00a3150 per person all in, so sign up asap before you go away for half term and forget about it!!
\nCock tales<\/strong>
\nNow we don\u2019t normally have any issue with this charity dedicated to establishing and protecting the rights of all animals. They often have strong arguments for the prevention of animal cruelty which we find hard to disagree with. However they do occasionally drop the ball.
\nApparently they have petitioned Britain\u2019s oldest pub to change its name. It has had many names over the years, but since 1872 this pub in St Albans has been happily trading as Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, relating to its history of, yep you\u2019ve guessed it, cockfighting.
\nThey are suggesting the pub change its name \u2018in recognition of society\u2019s growing compassion for animals and in celebration of intelligent, sensitive chickens.\u2019<\/em>
\nFirst world problems, as Wayne is often heard to mutter….
\nLe Weekend<\/strong>
\nTous le monde is going to allez away from Londres, sans doute. However if you aren\u2019t joining the long grey smoggy snake down the A303 then come and see us in the shop, taste some wine and perhaps even buy some, sign up to our wine school and revel in the fact that London is half empty.
\nWe\u2019ll be tasting some hispaniels this weekend – Bioca Godello 2013 (\u00a312.99)<\/strong> in the white corner representing Galicia and for red we have Joan Gin\u00e9 2009 (\u00a322.19)<\/strong> flying the flag for Priorat. They\u2019re both awesome, neither of them appear on the front page of any winelist and we would very much love you to love them as much as we do!
\nThat\u2019s it from us I reckon, have a lovely weekend wherever it may lead you and don\u2019t forget that since it\u2019s a bank holiday we\u2019ll be shut on Monday!
\n\u00a1Hasta luego!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fellow Wine Lovers, Two genuine quotes and two made up quotes to start us off this week: \u2018I think the top contenders are also guilty because they let us win the title so early.\u2019 Jose Mourinho after Chelsea lose 3-0 to West Brom \u2018But I’m not a man like that. I’m not the kind of […]<\/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-596","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\/596","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=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":599,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions\/599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}