Newsletters

April, 2008

Dear Customer,

I must be one of the few British people grateful to Gordon Brown for hiking up the UK's duty rates in his recent Budget! As anticipated in my last newsletter, he got away with this easy tax rise with hardly a complaint, as many people concluded that they had got off lightly: such was the preceding spin. As you probably know, here in France there is no duty on wine to speak of (at around £0.015 per bottle against the UK rate of £1.47 per bottle). Consequently price savings here begin at around £2 and can often be around a massive £15 per bottle.

Here are some bullet points of latest news.

• Inexpensive ferry crossings
  We are pleased to continue our Special Offer starting at just £18 for a day return in your car. Longer trips still attract discounted prices but with all these Offers, you can only receive these by calling 0870 264 2644 and quoting our code "Boursot". Prices are of course per car and its passengers - no tricks!
  
  
• April Offers
  We suffered recently as a consequence of the SeaFrance strike which had the effect of blocking the M20 to Folkestone and Dover, so we will hold open to you until the end of April (or until stocks run out) our Offers on both Champagne Pannier at around £11 and the fabulous Champagne Billecart-Salmon at around £18, which will save you around £4 and £9 per bottle respectively over the cheapest prices found in the UK. If you know of someone who is getting married this year, or who is planning a large party, please do them (and us!) a favour and put us together. Your friends will not be disappointed.
  
  
• Our new April list
  You can access our new wine list on this link - there are many exciting new wines that have arrived now that spring is definitely here, so if you haven't seen it recently, it's worth checking out. We are grateful to those who tell us that we have a really interesting and well-priced selection of wines. This month, we see the return of two popular wines - in white, Château Marie du Fou from the Vendée at around £5.50 (albeit in allocated quantities this year) - and in red, the delicious claret Château Saint-Romans, 2005 at around £3.25. There are some super new wines from Beaujolais, Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhône, as well as a trio of really good quality wines called "Le Petit Pont, Réserve" from the Languedoc which taste delicious and whose packaging will flatter any table. And the price is just 2,70 euros (around the £2 mark)! Try them when you are next here.
  
  
• Boursot's Wine Collection vaulted cellars
  Our old underground cellar is now available for you to use for your own special events, so do get in touch if you should wish to use it for group tastings or something similar. To accompany your wines, we can organise, if you wish, lunches with local produce - French bread, cheeses and patés with salads at negligible cost.
  
  
• Wine Tastings in the UK
  I continue to give talks and tastings across the UK and if you should wish to organise an event with a wine theme for a group of friends or colleagues, do contact me and I shall be delighted to help pull together something that is both fun and informative.
  
  
• Exchange rate
  Vested interests in the UK may tell you that with the weak pound / strong euro it is not worth going across the channel but of course exchange rates, by definition, go both up and down. I recall many periods over recent years when the exchange rate was no worse than it is right now, yet in a modern world where the selling of communications is so important, it seems that bad news makes the headlines much more quickly than good news.

To quote Day Tripper.net the independent website that covers many things cross channel:- "Its easy to say the lousy exchange rate makes it worthwhile shopping at home. Wrong. Prices vary considerably and even the current exchange rate has not affected our view that its cheaper shopping in France. Just check your shopping from France with local prices in the UK."

David Ash, the editor of Day Tripper, has compared a wide cross section of products and has, for instance, found cheeses (despite British supermarket "special offers"!) to be on average 31.92% cheaper in France. And even at the moment, Evian mineral water is 18% cheaper in France. Car servicing too is another area where you can make huge economies. And so the list goes on and on...

Take in Ardres' market (each Thursday), enjoy a good inexpensive lunch, buy the sorts of local produce that are hard to find in the UK, and stock up on good wines at low French prices. But, regardless of the size of the economies made in coming here, what people really seem to like is to be able to escape the "rat race" with such ease for a day to Ardres, this beautiful little French town, full of history and charm.

I hope to have a fuller newsletter next month, but in the meantime I look forward to seeing you here again very soon.

With best wishes

Guy

Guy BOURSOT
Wine Consultants SARL

Tel: +33 3 21 36 81 46
Mob: +33 6 76 10 32 41
www.boursot.co.uk