{"id":839,"date":"2017-03-17T16:59:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T15:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=839"},"modified":"2017-03-17T16:59:57","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T15:59:57","slug":"what-can-i-suggest-for-those-of-you-wanting-something-vinous-that-is-nebulously-hibernian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/?p=839","title":{"rendered":"What can I suggest for those of you wanting something vinous, that is nebulously Hibernian?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n<p>For us it\u2019s all about Ireland this week \u2013 Cheltenham, St Patrick&#8217;s Day, and the Ireland v England rugby on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>But our Irish week actually started last Saturday, when one of our customers popped in with a \u2018strange request\u2019.\u00a0 We get a lot of strange requests, I think it\u2019s something to do with being open in the evening once the hairdressers are shut, but most requests are nowhere near as strange as the quester believes, so eyelids, usually, remain unbatted.<\/p>\n<p>This was different.\u00a0 Jennifer, whose name I may or may not have changed to protect her anonymity, informed me that she was going to be celebrating St Patrick\u2019s day with some pals this week and thus, what Irish Wines did I have?\u00a0 Irish Wine?\u00a0 Not so sure Ireland\u2019s the place I\u2019d go looking for wine.\u00a0 In fact, we\u2019ve just recently had it confirmed by our Irish representatives in the Northern reaches of London that, after a tasting at the Irish Embassy, we\u2019re not missing much or indeed anything at all.<\/p>\n<p>So I said to Jennifer, because that\u2019s definitely not her name, that I had a fabulous bottle of <strong>Jack Ryan Beggars Bush 12 Year Old Single Malt Whiskey for \u00a351.99 <\/strong>but if she wanted wine, I couldn\u2019t help.\u00a0 I think she had suspected this might be the case so she said that she was happy to take something else vinous, providing it had a loose connection to the Emerald Isle \u2013 and that she would pop back in a few days to see if I had had any thoughts.<\/p>\n<p>I like a challenge, particularly one involving slightly tenuous wordplay, so I set about my task with gusto.<\/p>\n<p>Difficult.<\/p>\n<p>I can report that there are not enough wines out there (or at least in here) that fit within any of these criteria:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Made by someone called Patrick<\/li>\n<li>With Celtic crosses on their labels<\/li>\n<li>Or Harps or Shamrocks<\/li>\n<li>With Emerald mentioned in their title<\/li>\n<li>Or Serpents<\/li>\n<li>Or March 17<sup>th<\/sup><\/li>\n<li>Or a Leprechaun, God be thanked<\/li>\n<li>Associated to U2, Boyzone or B*Witched, again, God be thanked<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So what can I suggest for those of you wanting something vinous that is nebulously Hibernian?<\/p>\n<p>Any wine from Galicia \u2013 there is plenty of evidence or myth, depending on your viewpoint, that there is a shared genealogy between Ireland and Galicia \u2013 I won\u2019t get into a debate here but suffice to say there are Celtic crosses galore in Northwest Spain.<\/p>\n<p>If you cross the border into Portugal, you\u2019ll encounter the zesty, clean wines of Minho &#8211;\u00a0 Vinho Verde to be exact, which\u00a0 I suspect we can all Google translate as \u2018green wine\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019ll be others I\u2019m sure but a here\u2019s a selection of what I have on the shelf:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Leira Seca 2016 &#8211; \u00a311.49 \u2013 Vinh O\u2019Verde, Minho<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Val do Xuliana Albari\u00f1o 2015 &#8211; \u00a312.49 \u2013 R\u00edas Baixas, Galicia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Bioca Godello 2016 &#8211; \u00a313.49 \u2013 Valdeorras, Galicia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Sameir\u00e1s Blanco 2015 &#8211; \u00a316.49 \u2013 Ribeiro, Galicia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Alodio 2015 &#8211; \u00a312.99 \u2013 Ribeira Sacra, Galicia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Casal de Paula 2015 &#8211; \u00a314.79 \u2013 Ribeira, Galicia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>And here is the even more tenuous selection, which arguably we had more fun with:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Pouilly Fume \u2018La Charnoie\u2019 2014 &#8211; \u00a318.99 \u2013 <\/strong>made by a gent named Patrick<\/p>\n<p><strong>Puligny-Montrachet 2014 &#8211; \u00a335.99 \u2013 <\/strong>made by a gent named Patrick but a different one<\/p>\n<p><strong>Powers Merlot 2012 &#8211; \u00a313.29 \u2013 <\/strong>from Washington State in the USA but surely there\u2019s a certain Irish Whiskey by this name&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Emili O\u2019Moro 2014 &#8211; \u00a317.99 \u2013 <\/strong>from Ribera del Duero, really called Emilio Moro but it\u2019s the first wine I have sold this week with an \u2018Irish\u2019 connection<\/p>\n<p><strong>Riecine 2011 &#8211; \u00a348 \u2013 <\/strong>because it\u2019s made by Sean O\u2019Callaghan.\u00a0 And it\u2019s delicious.\u00a0 Even if he is actually an Englishman&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully that helps a little or a lot, depending on your requirements.\u00a0 For those of you ambivalent towards these events, perhaps I can entice you to pop in for a taste anyway?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re going to open two wines from Galicia, mentioned above:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bioca Godello &#8211; \u00a313.49<\/strong> \u2013 Godello is the grape here, grown at high altitude which helps give it real purity of flavour.\u00a0 Lifted orange character on the nose and a vibrant, crisp, citrus focused palate with some background smatterings of minerals.\u00a0 A very decent length finish and unerringly more-ish \u2013 if you want more though, you\u2019ll have to buy a bottle!<\/p>\n<p><strong>Casal de Paula &#8211; \u00a314.79<\/strong> \u2013 A piment\u00f3n spiciness on the nose with some savoury red and black fruits in there too leading onto a delicious palate of sour cherries and tart red fruits.\u00a0 Fine tannins with great freshness, typical of the region, and a real delicious drop.<\/p>\n<p>So I think that\u2019s about it from us \u2013 last day of Cheltenham today with Ireland leading 14 \u2013 7, having had six winners yesterday but I think we\u2019ll let them have the bragging rights providing we do the reversal on them in Dublin at the Aviva tomorrow!<\/p>\n<p>As someone notably said back in 1996:\u00a0 Good things come to those who wait! (anyone remember who?)<\/p>\n<p>Sl\u00e1inte!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fellow Wine Lovers, For us it\u2019s all about Ireland this week \u2013 Cheltenham, St Patrick&#8217;s Day, and the Ireland v England rugby on Saturday. But our Irish week actually started last Saturday, when one of our customers popped in with a \u2018strange request\u2019.\u00a0 We get a lot of strange requests, I think it\u2019s something to [&hellip;]<\/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-839","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\/839","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=839"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":840,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839\/revisions\/840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}