Earlier this month Marané luxury swimwear brand together with Soho House in Miami hosted a discussion about the emerging future of men’s fashion and the direction of future trends. Ahead of the evening, Christine Serhal, founder of Uruguayan swimwear label Marané shared exciting news:
Beautiful, mysterious opals... these very unique gems are top of the scale when it comes to superstitions associated with precious stones. They are traditionally the birthstone for October and their multi colour light refracting properties have inspired devotion and irrational fear in equal measure through the ages.
After a lovely dinner and night spent at the picturesque five star Lainston Hotel near Winchester we set off under a light grey sky in the Bentley Flying Spur heading for Exton Park Vineyard, the last stop on our luxury English wine tour. Exton Park is set in Hampshire overlooking Exton village in the Meon valley (now that’s a great name for a wine region, evocative and rolls off the tongue) and has the same chalky soil as the Champagne region. They are a relatively new company which is already winning some very impressive accolades.
Nagorno-Karabakh, apart from being notoriously difficult to pronounce and also particularly problematic to place on a map, is somewhat unknown in the wider world. Located in-between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh was the scene for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the late 80s and early 90s.
The next vineyard on the Bentley Flying Spur tour was the Bolney Wine Estate in West Sussex. They are another family run business, who have been experimenting and developing English wines for many years. They are also one of the first, started back in 1972 by Janet and Rodney Pratt. Rodney became interested in producing wine whilst studying Chemistry and Engineering in Germany, spending his spare time learning what he could from German vineyards.
Uruguay’s Punta del Este is often thought of as a destination for the jet set but it’s much more than an expensive playground for the famous and glamourous. It is located on a peninsula jutting into the ocean, with the wild Atlantic to the east and the calmer Rio de la Plata to the west and its name lends itself to the wider area embracing the communities of La Barra, José Ignacio and Manantiales. These sleepy, secluded communities retain that famous Latin-American laid-back vibe with dirt roads and hand painted road signs.
The briolette is one of the oldest cuts used in gem faceting, reaching its height of popularity in the 17th century. A briolette cut is a pear shaped stone whose surface is entirely cut with small, triangular facets. It was developed in India and before the full refractive properties of diamonds were fully understood, in the 16th century it was probably the cut that reflected most light out of the stone. The name probably comes from the Italian word ‘brio’, or vivacity, which is probably the most loquacious way of describing the way this cut reflects light, especially in diamonds.
After an informative morning steeped in oenology, and a lot of spitting and no swallowing (well in my case anyway) we got back in the Bentley V8 S, placed our Blanc de Blancs 2008 in the Bentley’s wine cooler, with its two designer glasses and Star Trek swooshing glass door, and headed back out on to the country lanes. We were now bound for Ridgeview Estate Winery, a vineyard in the Sussex Downs and official suppliers to Downing Street. Rolling along in the Bentley was as usual a distinct pleasure. The comfort specification now coming into its own as we had been driving a few hours.
Russell Kane has a new show out entitled Right Man Wrong Age which we caught at Glive in Guildford. His performance is as energetic, hilarious, electric, hysterical and as explosive as ever. However one thing has changed, he now has a baby daughter and like most great comedians (he is one of the very best of this generation) he takes his material from his own experiences and life. Clearly having a baby was a life changing moment and Russell is keen to share this in all its glories and vertiginous pitfalls.
What better way to tour the best English vineyards producing award winning sparkling wines than in the Bentley Flying Spur V8 S? The Flying Spur is without doubt one of the most comfortable luxury cars ever made and ideal for a luxury tour of the chalk and clay landscapes of southern England that now host some of the finest wines in the world.
