Fellow Wine Lovers.<\/p>\n
They\u2019re stealing away our childhood memories, dad.<\/p>\n
A horrible year continued its malevolent course over the Christmas period as George, Carrie and, suddenly Debbie too, all left us behind.\u00a0 It\u2019s high time we move on from \u2018bad 2016\u2019<\/em> and looked to remember the happier events that happened in \u2018good 2016\u2019\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n January<\/strong> \u2013 we started the year singing I wish that I knew what I know now, when I was younger, <\/em>as we encouraged you to join our Wine School and get involved with our annual 6 for 5 deal.\u00a0 Updated healthy drinking guidelines were published \u2013 confirming once again that riding a bike or driving a car are still more likely to knock you off your perch.\u00a0 Then it was Burns night, an end to abstention and whisky galore.\u00a0 And Black Tower was rebranded and relaunched, with an initial focus on the northeast\u2026<\/p>\n February<\/strong> \u2013 the Six Nations came back to town as did Valentines day, half term and Lent \u2013 all things that are mutually exclusive to each other.\u00a0 And the end of the month brought us the headline: Donald Trump cements frontrunner status after big win in Nevada (The Guardian)<\/em> \u2013 oh my, how little we knew…<\/p>\n March<\/strong> \u2013 Wayne practises jokes on Rufus the dog (If I\u2019ve got three eyes, four ears, two mouths and a sprouting beauty spot, how do I look?\u00a0 Ruff, he replied) as the start of the month seems a bit slow.\u00a0 Mother\u2019s Day was well celebrated, Maria Sharapova got busted and sparkling wine sales in the UK topped \u00a31 billion \u2013 I think we all helped here, certainly if Mimi sales count in this!\u00a0 The Chancellor then increased duty on wine to \u00a32.52 a bottle whilst a week later Tesco sold bottles of Champagne for \u00a37.50.\u00a0 And the sun shone\u2026<\/p>\n April<\/strong> \u2013 in the first instant we had people believing Wayne was about to become a Country and Western singer covering Shania Twain songs – frankly, for some of us, that was the highlight of the year!\u00a0 We then bought some rum from Panama, as it was in the news (Panama, that is) and some Gin from Peckham, because it\u2019s so nice (the Gin, that is).\u00a0 Thinking of Gin, the Queen hit 90 this month.\u00a0 We bought a pallet of Provence Ros\u00e9, just as it started to rain\u2026<\/p>\n May<\/strong> \u2013 the first vote of the year.\u00a0 With what was to happen later in the year we really should have seen Ankit, leader of One Love and the alleged Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir, who wanted to clear air pollution whilst simultaneously legalising pot as our new Mayor.\u00a0 Sadiq from Tooting in fact won, and there was no controversy or gnashing of teeth.\u00a0 Wayne came back from cycling and Alex went to play golf.\u00a0 In the midst of this they tasted lots of different wines\u00a0 – Wayne\u2019s tasting note, for the Handcrafted Gruner Veltliner (\u00a313.99) reaching new peaks of lyricism – \u2018that\u2019s right dangerous that, you\u2019d need at least a six box for the weekend!\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 You can take the boy out of Essex…. And early promise of sunshine remained elusive as Alex watched cricket wearing a beanie and two coats, sitting on the bonnet of the car to steal the engine warmth on 21st<\/sup> May\u2026<\/p>\n June<\/strong> \u2013 Europe played football whilst England watched, street parties celebrated the Queen, 52% of the country was victorious in a plebiscite, I forget what it was about but suffice to say it was quickly forgotten\u2026<\/p>\n July<\/strong> \u2013 Jags and SUV\u2019s swamped SW19 as the tennis rolled into town.\u00a0 Or were the Jags and SUV\u2019s already here?\u00a0 Anyway, Murray won and collective gloom was alleviated as the sun shone and our favourite jolly Scotsman joked \u2018it\u2019s not that bad is it?!\u2019\u00a0 And then the Jags left and the SUV\u2019s left and the summer solstice took the last train to the coast and Wayne wondered if it was something he had said\u2026<\/p>\n August<\/strong> \u2013 Wayne swept the shop and put the signs out everyday, like a character in a novel, waiting for a customer to waft in, the Olympics went off very well for Team GB, Leigh-on-Sea was voted happiest place to live by Rightmove and we wallowed in a heatwave\u2026<\/p>\n September<\/strong> \u2013 stand by your beds, schools are back and life is back.\u00a0 We advertised our Christmas Fizz tasting for December and it sold out almost overnight.\u00a0 Pitt and Jolie split whilst Trump makes comments about women that most now surely make him completely unelectable and our last Wine School for this year started\u2026<\/p>\n October<\/strong> \u2013 Cod speak in regional accents.\u00a0 Not sure what papers Wayne\u00a0 reads, but his was one of his discoveries this month.\u00a0 Trivial?\u00a0 Not if you\u2019re the one receiving the research grant.\u00a0 The Pound slumped and wine got more expensive handily just at the time all retailers are putting in their big Christmas orders.\u00a0 The clocks went back and Sloe Gin and King\u2019s Ginger strode back into the limelight, brandishing hipflasks\u2026<\/p>\n November<\/strong> \u2013 we had Black Friday.\u00a0 We had our first (very successful) Whisky tasting.\u00a0 Boris talked of making Titanic efforts and Trump got in\u2026<\/p>\n December<\/strong> \u2013 this is us, this is where we are, still, just about.\u00a0 We celebrated our 6th<\/sup> Birthday we drank Champagne and we closed at 5pm on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 You came and saw us, drank Champagne perhaps and kept us busy \u2013 thank you!<\/p>\n So that\u2019s it.\u00a0 A year referenced solely through our emails \u2013 I\u2019m sure other things happened but if they didn\u2019t make into the \u2018Fellow Wine Lovers\u2019 blog then they cannot have been too important\u2026<\/p>\n Thank you for all your support through the year, especially those of you who raised Wayne\u2019s sombrero to check he was still breathing in August \u2013 here\u2019s to a wonderful New Year full of nice surprises and joy!<\/p>\n Carpe Diem, as a Cod might say in his best Brummie\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers. They\u2019re stealing away our childhood memories, dad. A horrible year continued its malevolent course over the Christmas period as George, Carrie and, suddenly Debbie too, all left us behind.\u00a0 It\u2019s high time we move on from \u2018bad 2016\u2019 and looked to remember the happier events that happened in \u2018good 2016\u2019\u2026 January \u2013 […]<\/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-810","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\/810","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=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}