Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
Well, that knocks Brexit into a cocked hat!\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 POTUS – Possibility of Trump Upsetting Someone?\u00a0 The world has gone to hell in a handcart this year and frankly we should have realised that Donny T would end up in the egg shaped office as soon as the poll of polls told us he definitely wouldn\u2019t and with the odds at 9\/2 just before the voting started, how did we not see the writing on the wall.<\/p>\n
Speaking of walls and of odds, here are a couple of current bets being offered on Paddy Power:<\/p>\n
And to win the 2020 Presidential Election:<\/p>\n
Plenty of opportunities to lose some money there \u2013 trying to imagine what Kim Kardashian\u2019s manifesto might be\u2026. extremely wealthy with no political experience and an ability to annoy people, surely that should make her unelectable?\u00a0 Oh, hang about\u2026.<\/p>\n
So, anyway, as you can imagine, we\u2019ve been a bit distracted by the if\u2019s, what\u2019s and maybe\u2019s of the events in America this week so haven\u2019t formed a sensible opinion on Toblerone-gate, given thought to Prince Harry\u2019s love life or critiqued the new John Lewis Christmas advert \u2013 apologies.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, back in Wimbledon Park…<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve been tasting, tasting, tasting.\u00a0 A whole load of wine has been sniffed, swirled and spat (in our case) or swallowed (in your case) this week.<\/p>\n Wednesday night saw Week 6, the final week, of our Wine School<\/strong>, which saw us opening 10 bottles of bubbles, including Prosecco, Cava, English Sparkling and, of course, Champagne.\u00a0 Star of the night was the 2002 Cuv\u00e9e Alain Thi\u00e9not – \u00a375<\/strong> showing fabulous caramel, brandy snap and toffee apple character with a deliciously soft mousse.\u00a0 Once the hubbub had died down over the price, we had explained the scarcity of this excellent vintage and the fact that most other houses start north of \u00a3100, its #1 status was confirmed.\u00a0 A close second, and perhaps more wallet friendly, was Leveret IQ3 NV – \u00a320.99<\/strong>, showing lots of luscious lees character, a real apple strudel and cream character with an elegant and long finish.\u00a0 And at the end of the night we released 10 newly qualified wine drinkers into the cold night air, free to indulge their palates and explore the nether regions of the wine list!<\/p>\n Last night was Wine & Cheese<\/strong>.\u00a0 You\u2019d have thought that, having hosted over 40 of these evenings, we\u2019d be like a well-oiled machine and have all the answers and the perfect matches.\u00a0 Sadly this is still not true, whilst occasionally well-oiled, we definitely do not have all the answers but I think that is half the fun.\u00a0 Wine was excellent, cheese was very tasty and a very good time was had by all.\u00a0 Who knew that dry Amontillado sherry would be such a fabulous cheese match?<\/p>\n All our tastings are now full up until the end of the year but if you fancy learning more about wine in the New Year, why not join our next wine school.<\/p>\n Who is this course aimed at?<\/strong><\/p>\n You!\u00a0 We assume you have tasted wine and enjoyed it enough to come along and explore further. Our course is aimed at the enthusiastic beginner.<\/p>\n What\u2019s our goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n Our course is designed to give you an excellent opening to the world of wine. Based entirely around what you taste, the course will give you the confidence to trust your palate, understand the characteristics of the main grape varieties and to explore new styles and varieties.\u00a0 We keep the size of the group small, between 8-12 people, to allow for discussion.<\/p>\n What will we cover?<\/strong><\/p>\n We cover all the classic grape varieties with styles from both the Old and New World.\u00a0 Some of the wines are shown “blind”, so that you learn to trust your judgement based on the taste of the wine rather than what it says on the label.\u00a0 We will show you how to evaluate and assess quality, discuss wine production methods as well as the wine\u2019s acidity, tannins and flavour. On our journey we shall cover ageing potential, wine and food matching, wine storage conditions and, importantly, wine faults.<\/p>\n Weeks 1-3 <\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ll show you how to taste wine and cover the main white varieties along with a couple off-the-beaten-track selections.<\/p>\n Weeks 4 & 5 <\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ll cover the classic red varieties as well as a few lesser known varieties.<\/p>\n Week 6 <\/strong><\/p>\n This week is all about bubbles. Sparkling wines from around the world, alongside several styles of Champagne.<\/p>\n You will taste 8 to 10 wines each week and we will even manage to sneak in a little pudding wine and perhaps a ros\u00e9 somewhere amongst that lot!<\/p>\n What venue?<\/strong><\/p>\n The course takes place in the shop after we close. We put out the tasting table, pull up some chairs and get stuck in.\u00a0 Our courses are relaxed and about enjoying wine and sharing knowledge.<\/p>\n When?<\/strong><\/p>\n Wednesday evenings from 8 till about 9.45 for six weeks, over a period of seven weeks whilst we deal with half term, starting Wednesday 25th<\/sup> January until Wednesday 8th<\/sup> March.<\/p>\n What do I bring?<\/strong><\/p>\n Just yourself! We\u2019ll provide everything you need\u2026 notes, pens, paper, water biscuits and wine.<\/p>\n Cost – \u00a3150.00<\/strong><\/p>\n Meanwhile, back in the here and now\u2026<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n If you can\u2019t wait until January to taste wine, we\u2019ll open some tonight for you instead!<\/p>\n A couple of party wines this week: from Chile we have Oyster Shack Chardonnay 2014 – \u00a37.49 <\/strong>and from Romania we have Calusari Pinot Noir 2015 – \u00a38.69<\/strong>.\u00a0 Probably useful to point out here that if you are having a party we can lend you glasses, supply ice, deliver and also provide you with a discount of 10% of twelve bottles or more!<\/p>\n That\u2019s all from us this week and we\u2019ll finish with a quote, which could be attributed to Wayne, commenting on Alex\u2019s working practices, but is actually one made by a previous employee of DT:<\/p>\n “I cannot imagine him doing a job where he doesn’t just pick and choose what he wants to do, where if he feels like coming in he comes in, and if he feels like going to a meeting he goes to a meeting.”<\/em><\/p>\n God bless America.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, Well, that knocks Brexit into a cocked hat!\u00a0 Who knew?\u00a0 POTUS – Possibility of Trump Upsetting Someone?\u00a0 The world has gone to hell in a handcart this year and frankly we should have realised that Donny T would end up in the egg shaped office as soon as the poll of polls […]<\/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-793","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\/793","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=793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":794,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/793\/revisions\/794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}