Fellow Wine Lovers,<\/p>\n
An extraordinary thing happened to me earlier this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You know how you carry on your life month in month out, and time passes by quickly, and you get tied up in your day-to-day existence, and before you know it a whole year has passed, and that meet-up you said would definitely happen in a few weeks has never happened, and now it\u2019s almost forgotten about…<\/p>\n
Well, the other day, I stumbled around the corner and BANG!, blow me, if it wasn\u2019t Summer just standing there with a \u2018bet you never thought you\u2019d see me again\u2019 smirk on his face (because Summer would be a he, something to do with being unreliable and letting people down)!<\/p>\n
\u2018Where the hell have you been?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018Europe, like the rest of the sensible people, but school holidays are over now, so I thought I\u2019d hang out in Wimbledon Park for the next few days, drink some ros\u00e9, perhaps even come on your wine and cheese tasting on Thursday 20th<\/sup> September…\u2019<\/p>\n I was impressed he knew the date.<\/p>\n And in the real world<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Life goes on, cabinets get re-shuffled (shouldn\u2019t it just be shuffled as it\u2019s the first time of asking), east London still seems to be paved with gold, Mr Murray marches on and Prince Andrew skids backwards down the shard.\u00a0 The best quote I heard was from one of the esteemed gents who descended after HRH, commenting on the panorama from the top:<\/p>\n \u2018The view was breath-taking, you could see the south coast, clear as gin!\u2019\u00a0 Clear as crystal, your days are numbered…<\/p>\n And in Wimbledon Park<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n For those of you that may have missed the announcements, we have two events coming up shortly.<\/p>\n Our 6 week Wine Course<\/strong> returns after the summer recess.\u00a0 This starts on Wednesday 19th<\/sup> September and concludes on Wednesday 24th<\/sup> October<\/strong>, just before half term, very neat.\u00a0 It takes place at 8pm and lasts between 1 \u00bd and 2 hours<\/strong>, and the whole course costs only \u00a3150 per person.<\/strong><\/p>\n You\u2019ll learn about whites, reds, fizz and sweeties plus you\u2019ll get to try, if you want, some faulty wines to educate your palate \u2013 if you learn nothing else you will at least have tasted about 60 wines over the course, and you\u2019re bound to like some of them.\u00a0 Previous alumni have gone on to enjoy wine for many years, and this, I think, is not a bad premise.\u00a0 So book a babysitter, or tell your other half they\u2019re in charge of kids for the next six weeks, grab a likeminded pal and head on down.<\/p>\n Spaces still available, phone me or email me or visit me, I\u2019m not fussy, and the wonderful world of wine will be demystified for you!<\/p>\n Then, Thursday 20th<\/sup> September<\/strong> sees another return \u2013 the Cheese and Wine tasting evening<\/strong>.\u00a0 Again this starts at 8pm, costs \u00a315 per person<\/strong> and is always an exciting night.\u00a0 In a nutshell, drink wine-taste cheese-chat about it.\u00a0 But it\u2019s so much more than that, it\u2019s food and wine matching heaven, new discoveries are made and common myths exploded, who could ask for more?<\/p>\n As before, phone, write, visit, you know the routine.<\/p>\n And in Chile<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Wayne set the Chilean ball rolling last week and I will continue his theme.\u00a0 We trod carefully last week with the Central Valley, this week I will be venturing to the northern end of the wine lands, visiting the Limari and Choapa valleys.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Limar\u00ed Valley<\/strong> is located 470 km north of Santiago and is both an old and new wine region. Vines were first planted in the mid-16th century but more recently winegrowers have been making good use of the cool sea currents just off the coast and the morning fogs, the combination of which creates fresh wines with a distinct mineral edge \u2013 De Martino Legado Reserva Chardonnay 2010 \u00a312.49<\/strong> – is our representative here.<\/p>\n The Choapa Valley<\/strong> is located 400 km north of Santiago at Chile\u2019s narrowest point, where there is no distinction between the Andes and the Coastal Mountains. This small, very dry valley, which historically has been coupled with Limar\u00ed, consists of two sectors, Illapel and Salamanca.\u00a0 Neither have wineries in place as yet, but vineyards planted on rocky piedmont soils are producing limited quantities of high quality Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.\u00a0 De Martino Legado Reserva Syrah 2010 \u00a312.49<\/strong> – is our choice here, as I said, there are no local wineries so De Martino make the wine. <\/em><\/p>\n That just about rounds it off from me, wines open from 5pm this evening, ros\u00e9 wines installed in the fridge, butcher has ordered more sausages and is sticking meat on sticks as I write, so let\u2019s do it!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Alex & Wayne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Fellow Wine Lovers, An extraordinary thing happened to me earlier this week.\u00a0 You know how you carry on your life month in month out, and time passes by quickly, and you get tied up in your day-to-day existence, and before you know it a whole year has passed, and that meet-up you said would definitely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98","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\/98","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=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/parkvintners.co.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}