Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
This cold snap has certainly caught us all out. Wayne had to get his gloves out having watched his fingers turn blue on the ride home Monday night; Alex has got his running hat out of the winter drawer and we\u2019ve had several disappointing reports from the continent too!<\/p>\n
Champagne was struck by a sudden frost this week, which is not so unusual in itself but the mild weather in March has caused the vines to be a bit ahead of themselves. Our chum Benoit Tarlant, whose delicious Champagne Tarlant Zero (\u00a339.99) we stock, was sadly quoted this week as having \u201ca potential 70% loss of the house\u2019s 2017 vintage, with almost its entire Chardonnay crop having been wiped out.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Even as we write this, Vignerons across Bordeaux are assessing the damage to their vineyards after this week\u2019s cold snap, too. Ex-pat winemaker Gavin Quinney, in typically erudite fashion, described it as \u201cSqueaky bum time\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n But should it be catching us all out? I notice that this very same week last year, we wrote:<\/p>\n \u201cFellow Wine Lovers,<\/em><\/p>\n Unfortunately, you can lay the blame squarely at our door this week.\u00a0 Confident that the rain on Monday was the last dampness we\u2019d see until September, we decided to write this message on our blackboard outside:<\/em><\/p>\n BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND \u2013 Is this the official start of the Ros\u00e9 season?\u00a0 I think it probably should be!<\/em><\/p>\n And I think you all know what happened next \u2013 hail, snowstorms and stair-rod rain, blue skies interspersed with darker-than-night grey clouds, stiff breezes, all rounded off by a rumbling thunderstorm on Wednesday evening.\u00a0 Well, at least the storm cleared the humidity…!<\/em><\/p>\n Living in the UK has made us stoic when faced with poor weather and it has been a pleasure to be selling plenty of Provence Ros\u00e9 all week in spite of the climate \u2013 it\u2019s the stiff upper lip, it\u2019s the blitz the spirit, it\u2019s the \u2018this could be as good as summer gets so let\u2019s pretend we\u2019re on the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur\u2019.<\/em><\/p>\n 18 Celsius and bright sunshine in Cannes, as I write.<\/em><\/p>\n So, do we all forget, do we have enormously short term memories, or do we all just prefer to stroll on the sunny side of the street?<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Mayor of London Sadiq has pulled the plug on the controversial Garden Bridge – \u00a0only \u00a346 million of public money has been wasted or about 23 state of the art MRI scanners, if you prefer!<\/p>\n Otherwise, there\u2019s campaigning for a general election with all sorts of claims being made by all parties. I\u2019m beginning to wonder about Mark Twain\u2019s words\u2026 \u201cIf voting made any difference, they wouldn\u2019t let us do it\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Bank Holiday Monday <\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ll be closed, as usual\u2026<\/p>\n New Beer<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n Frankie, from Park Brewery in Kingston, swung by with a delivery this week. She and Josh have a new seasonal brew on the go\u2026<\/p>\n Reasons To Be Cheerful<\/strong> (\u00a32.89)<\/strong> is a new IPA dry hopped with Amarillo and an Aussie interloper Vic Secret. This brings an orangey, citrus sweetness to the front palate with a nice bitterness keeping it tidy and fresh in the finish. You may have noticed it is named after a song by Ian Dury, who has a bench dedicated to his honour at Poet\u2019s Corner in Richmond Park. Brilliant name for a beer!<\/p>\n Tasting this Weekend<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n In the white corner we\u2019ll be visiting Beiro Atlantico in Portugal, for this is the home of Luis Pato\u2019s Maria Gomes 2015 (\u00a311.99)<\/strong>. A white that is wonderfully fresh and aromatic in its grapey nose, then with a broad, smooth texture in the mouth with melony flavours and a beautifully pure finish. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s just 12.5% too!<\/p>\n Red wise, we\u2019ll be journeying to the Riebeek Valley in Swartland for a glass or two of Post Tree Pinotage 2013 (\u00a39.99)<\/strong>. It displays bags of juicy red berry fruits, rounded tannins and a nice elegant finish. We\u2019d suggest this as a marvellous partner to some spicy roast chicken, give the chicken a rub with either some Jerk Seasoning or Ras El Hanout and roast in the usual fashion. Yum!<\/p>\n That\u2019s it from us this week, enjoy the long weekend!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, This cold snap has certainly caught us all out. Wayne had to get his gloves out having watched his fingers turn blue on the ride home Monday night; Alex has got his running hat out of the winter drawer and we\u2019ve had several disappointing reports from the continent too! Champagne was struck […]<\/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-854","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\/854","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=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}