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The Vintner Blog
Sticking your nose inSticking your nose in
If you’ve ever been to one of our tastings, or watched the likes of Jolly Olly Smith or Oz Clarke tasting wines on the telly, you’d have noticed there’s a fair amount of fannying about before they actually get stuck in. Once poured the wine is peered at and swirled around, before they stick their hooters in and wax lyrical about lemon blossom, butter, farmyard – a #ParkhurstPoints favourite.
There’s definitely an art to swirling without spilling, but why bother at all? Well the answer lies in the fact the motion releases the aromas from the wine, and not only are the majority of our flavour sensors in our nose, so what you smell is what you’ll taste, but these smells also offer clues about the development of the wine, and more importantly, whether you want to drink it at all.
Our Inaugural Vault Club TastingOur Inaugural Vault Club Tasting
What do you get if you cross 48 wines with a handful of pioneering Vault Club members, the crack entertainment division from Coutts Bank and the jolly jack tars from HMS Vintner? You’d be half right if you said “pretty blinking jolly”, but you’d get full marks for saying “The Inaugural Vintner Vault Club Tasting”.
We’re HOW busy?We’re HOW busy?
Like most hospitality businesses, the wine trade is cyclical: Everybody gets stuck in before Christmas, enters teetotal purgatory in January, before slowly reacquainting their livers with the delights of vino at Easter, when it all goes quiet again. Something to do with Jesus, and rabbits, or something…
Nuits-Saints-Georges Day Pre-Shipment Offer!Nuits-Saints-Georges Day Pre-Shipment Offer!
We like to do things a little differently here at The Vintner. Rather than follow the herd we’re not going to big up English wines just because of the date, nice though they are, because who wants to drink crisp and zingy whites from anywhere when it’s tipping it down outside, and you’ve had to stick the central heating on again?
Instead we’re offering a pre-shipment offer on our other favourite Saint George, a Nuits-Saint-Georges 2009, from our top-selling Burgundian producer, Christophe Buisson – utterly delicious and guaranteed to drive the cold out this spring! After all, why have Seyval Blanc when you can have Pinot Noir?
Diego Riojas the Vintner OfficesDiego Riojas the Vintner Offices
Despite the fact the clocks have gone back so the boys aren’t loading up in the pitch black each morning, it still feels like winter. Even more so in fact, when Tom swans off on holiday for Easter and returns with a tan, which is just rubbing it in frankly.
So whilst he was away we decided to get our own dose of sunshine into The Vintner Towers by inviting our favourite Rioja producer, Diego Pinilla-Navarra of Bodegas Bilbainas, over for an evening showing off his fab reds to a few equally SAD-suffering customers. Even better, he turned up with some heaving platters of tapas having dropped a ton at Brindisa. Rioja, jamon, what’s not to like?
We’d love to keep in contact to let you know about special offers and exclusive deals.
