Wine Clubs...........any CCs in one ?

[PK99]

For those living in South East England, the solution is a day trip to Calais -

Noooooo! At least not to the WinoDepots @ Cite d'Europe or the nearby warehouses. Crap wine at inflated prices for the English punter.

Best policy in France is to visit a Hypermarche away from the tourist areas, find the mid price wine bins and select from the ones with the lowest stock - ie the ones the locals have been buying!

 

[SpokeyDokey]

Extending that thought, I've long believed that most fine Port served at dinner parties is wasted:

Fizz to start.
G&T/Beer
White wine
Red wine - in quantity! Then another bottle.
Pudding wine.
Cheese & Port

= Port completely wasted, just serve a cheap Ruby n one will be able to tell the difference!

Pudding wine is plain nasty tooth rotting stuff - even when served with pudding!

 

[Brains]

Noooooo! At least not to the WinoDepots @ Cite d'Europe or the nearby warehouses. Crap wine at inflated prices for the English punter.

Best policy in France is to visit a Hypermarche away from the tourist areas, find the mid price wine bins and select from the ones with the lowest stock - ie the ones the locals have been buying!

Agreed!!!!!
There are some good places towards Le Torquet

And for anyone heading up from the south, then Troyes is a good place to stop, it's about 3-4 hrs to Calais

 

[PK99]

Agreed!!!!!
There are some good places towards Le Torquet

And for anyone heading up from the south, then Troyes is a good place to stop, it's about 3-4 hrs to Calais

GREAT town - a Medieval Gem on the edge of the Champagne region. Wine shop to the right (as you look at it) of the cathedral is very good indeed and is the traditional home of Prunelle de Troyes, a great hooch distilled from sloe kernels.

If in Troyes it is well worth trying some Producer Champagnes rather than the big Houses - interesting diversity at sensible prices. Speak to the guy in the shop he is very knowledgeable and helpful

 

[GrumpyGregry]

AND the wine society is one of the very few places you can buy mature wines @Retail

and have them stored for you, to call

We were with Laithwaites a few years ago.
It was nice to be sent a mixed case and try different wines we hadn't had before.
There is a good wine merchants up here "Majestic".
I would give it a go.
We had no problems when we decided to cancel.

Majestic now let you buy 6 bottles rather than 12 iirc.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Extending that thought, I've long believed that most fine Port served at dinner parties is wasted:

Fizz to start.
G&T/Beer
White wine
Red wine - in quantity! Then another bottle.
Pudding wine.
Cheese & Port

= Port completely wasted, just serve a cheap Ruby n one will be able to tell the difference!

French 75 with the gin and the fizz. And let's be honest most mass market French NV fizz is improved by putting something in it.

 

[PK99]

Pudding wine is plain nasty tooth rotting stuff - even when served with pudding!

You have obviously been drinking the wrong sort of pudding wine - the right sort has a delicious balance of sweet and acid, the wrong sort is syrrupy sweet tooth rotting stuff.

and have them stored for you, to call

Majestic now let you buy 6 bottles rather than 12 iirc.

Now single bottles, but bulk , 6+, discounts make single very expensive

 

[swee'pea99]

I try to buy enough when Sainsburys have their occasional 25% off deals to see me through to the next Sainsbury 25% off deal. You know what you're getting, you know it's ok, and at about 'the going rate', except that you're getting 25% off. So you get a £5 bottle of Rioja for £3.75, or an £8 bottle for £6.

 

[Tin Pot]

For those living in South East England, the solution is a day trip to Calais - a normal car will take 20 cases of wine (240 bottles) which is about the weight of 3 adults, and that should be enough to see you through the Winter.

For those else-ware the solution is a good wine merchant, or a local wine club,
A good wine merchant, even if they are an hour away, where you can go to tastings a couple of times a year is great, you get to try them all and only buy the ones you like.

A few years back I was given a freebie tasting of Champagne at a local wine merchant, I actually did try 40 different champagnes and other fizzy wines, and found the one I like (which at 'only' £25 a bottle is fairly cheap)

As the newspaper wine clubs are all run by the same company, you get a decent selection of wines for not an unreasonable cost, but for a little more enjoyable effort you could do a lot better for less

Yeah but the wine in Calais is all the crap cheap Brits will chug.

 

[TheDoctor]

I'm in the Wine Society and would recommend it to anyone. Good value, good advice and good wines that aren't overpriced to fund the odd 33% off deal.
Sure, you won't get anything for £4, but their everyday mixed cases are lovely stuff.
The regular free tastings are fun too!

 

[Brains]

Yeah but the wine in Calais is all the crap cheap Brits will chug.

See the thread above, you don't need to get far out of Calais to find decent wine
Le Torquet is a good place to head to for a nice lunch and a good place to buy wine

 

[shouldbeinbed]

We used to buy from Pieroth, German parent company who did the lot and sold their own good range and something for every palate wines.

You could tell the quality and purity difference, from first tasting & particularly the morning after a glass too many when the hangover wasn't influenced by supermarket wine additives.

Bottles started at £8-10 and were a cut above same price supermarket/oddbins offerings. The tasting home visits and hotel events were darned good too & you tended to get a 1:1 relationship with the local rep by phone and in person

We couldn't afford to keep buying by the 12+ cases & told them so, but it took a long time and increasingly firm no go away responses before they finally stopped calling.

I do miss the wines, I could happily drink them on their own or with food in a way that I don't with the shop retail stuff.

All told though, excellent drink at reasonable prices and 95% good company to associate with, if they're still going I'd highly recommend them.

 

[srw]

We've had a Laithwates case which was okay but not exciting and a Naked case which was lovely; since then I've had some more Naked wines which, with the discounts and freebies, are decent value. I'd recommend going on holiday to a wine region in France and finding the local cave co-operative. We've done that in Saumur and Haut-Poitou and got some things you couldn't easily buy over here for bargain prices. Sparkling semisweet red anyone?

From Portsmouth, St Malo is an overnight ferry ride and the Loire is a 3-hour drive.