Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
Whoop, whoop!\u00a0 Guess who has just scored 6 days of extra leave this year?\u00a0 I reckon I can finish work on the evening of Wednesday 20th<\/sup> December and not come back into work until 3rd<\/sup> January \u2013 how good is that?\u00a0 Plus I get to avoid the busy time in the shop and all the aches and pains \u2013 score!<\/p>\n This all came about on Wednesday this week and I can\u2019t thank Wayne enough\u2026\u00a0 As is our wont, the working day doesn\u2019t really start until one of us been across the road to Saucer and Cup for a couple of coffees.\u00a0 It was Wayne\u2019s turn on Wednesday, and once we had got through all the usual jokes related to how we would like our coffee today (sprinkles, peppermint mocha, cinnamon dolce, grappa, hahaha) he left premises.\u00a0 As he left, another of his daily rituals*took place, as he slowly unfurled one of Switzerland\u2019s finest smokes, a Villiger Export Cigar, the stogie of choice for south London geezers for decades now.\u00a0 Right-ho, I thought to myself, cold coffee for me today, that\u2019ll take him at least 20 minutes to finish\u2026.\u00a0 *made up for the purposes of this email<\/em><\/p>\n So what was I to do with these 20 minutes of caffeine free imprisonment?\u00a0 Well, what would you do?\u00a0 Yep, I went online \u2013 and it was here that I came across an article that was going to change my holiday landscape forever\u2026<\/p>\n Let me introduce you to Piala Inc, a marketing firm in Tokyo.\u00a0 Following a message from one of the staff that non-smokers were working harder than their gasper fuelled colleagues.\u00a0 Piala Inc is on the 29th<\/sup> floor and smokers have to descend to basement level to spark up \u2013 average length of time away from their desk?\u00a0 15 minutes.\u00a0 The CEO, having done some quick maths on the back of a fag packet, came up with the 6 days extra paid leave solution for the non-smoking staff.<\/p>\n Genius \u2013 and 25% of the staff have already signed up for it – I reckon I might push for 10 days and go skiing too!<\/p>\n Speaking of holidays, Carles Puigdemont has decided that the beaches of Tarragona hold no half term holiday appeal for him as he takes his family on the trip of a lifetime to Itegem in Belgium.\u00a0 Apparently he can, technically, seek asylum in Belgium although success is far from guaranteed.\u00a0 Quote of the week must be from Belgium\u2019s deputy prime minister, Kris Peeters, stating \u201cif you declare independence, you usually stay with your people\u201d.\u00a0 Ouch.<\/p>\n And speaking of ouch, the Spanish players at Real Madrid were clearly distracted by the activities of their Catalan neighbours as they leaked goals in the Champions League, to Tottenham, at Wembley.\u00a0 No-one does that\u2026<\/p>\n Also in sport, Marland Yarde has been given his marching orders by Quins and immediately signed for Sale \u2013 if he was finding it difficult to get to training in London, where he lives, what chance making it to Manchester?\u00a0 Perhaps he should have a word with his fellow alma mater alumnus , Danny Cipriani, who\u2019s bound to be able put him back on the straight and narrow!\u00a0 Oh, and whilst talking of rogues and reprobates, the cricket starts down under on Saturday, without our #1 rogue, Mr Stokes\u00a0 – 5 nil here we come.<\/p>\n Anyway forget about all that, it\u2019s November now, which is the last buffer between us and Christmas.\u00a0 We are slowly slipping wines and champagnes in through the door and have listed a couple of new wines this week which we are quite excited about.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got a new Pinot Noir from Chile (Casa Silva Cool Coast Pinot Noir 2015 – \u00a317.99)<\/strong>; we\u2019ve got a new Malbec from Cahors in France (<\/strong>Chateau Vincens \u2018Origine\u2019 2014 – \u00a317.99)<\/strong>, that Wayne tasted in June and I haven\u2019t let him buy until the heating went on; and a very tasty Minervois from, um, AOC Minervois (Chateau de Parazza 2015 – \u00a313.99) <\/strong>which we also have in magnum, for \u00a327.99<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll open the Minervois this evening\u00a0 – a\u00a0 blend of 40% Syrah, 40% Grenache Noir and 20% Mourv\u00e8dre, this is deep red garnet with cherry and raspberry compote notes, backed by red licorice undertones and a juicy acidity.\u00a0 Floral and mineral details weave together on the crisp finish that is everything you could wish for on a weekend filled with bonfires.<\/p>\n And we\u2019ll open a white, too, Ci\u00f9 Ci\u00f9 Merlettaie Pecorino 2016 – \u00a313.99<\/strong>, to be precise.\u00a0 As I think we have mentioned in the past, this wine is not made of cheese, Pecorino is a grape variety originally from the Abruzzo.\u00a0 A pleasing floral nose with clean, pleasant and refined aromas of banana, broom, apple, hazelnut and plum followed by a hint of vanilla.\u00a0 The mouth follows the nose, a slightly round attack however balanced, agreeable crispness, good body and intense flavours.\u00a0 We first had Pecorino in 2005, when it first came into the market over here, and frankly are very surprised it hasn\u2019t become a chart topper, however that does mean there\u2019s more for us and our friends!<\/p>\n And that just about puts an end to this week\u2019s ramblings \u2013 it was his turn on the Saucer and Cup run again and I can see him carrying back two coffees –\u00a0 I\u2019m just praying that the long lump of ash on his cheroot doesn\u2019t fall into either of them\u2026 Amazing how much I can write in a fag break, eh!<\/p>\n Over and out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, Whoop, whoop!\u00a0 Guess who has just scored 6 days of extra leave this year?\u00a0 I reckon I can finish work on the evening of Wednesday 20th December and not come back into work until 3rd January \u2013 how good is that?\u00a0 Plus I get to avoid the busy time in the shop […]<\/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-929","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\/929","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=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":930,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions\/930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}