Newsletters
 February, 2010
Dear Customer,
This newsletter is shorter than normal, because our Ardres shop is closed until the middle of January.
Current Cross Channel Fare Deals
As a Boursot's customer, you can get specially priced day return trips on SeaFrance at £23 for a car and all passengers Sundays to Fridays, and £30 for Saturdays. As always, these fares are only available by calling the Ferry Travel Club on 01304 501100 (new telephone number) and by quoting our code "Boursot". You do not pay a membership fee.
Also if you spend more than 500€ with us, we will be happy to reimburse your day return fare booked through the Ferry Travel Club, so please remember to bring along your receipt.
On the face of it, there have been a couple of other good offers available but, as so often in modern retailing, these seem designed to grab headlines whereas the reality seems to me slightly different.
Eurotunnel is once again offering £15 day returns - this time on 16th, 17th and 18th February but these are only available by calling 0844 879 7371. Further information can be seen here. Rumour has reached me that there are no crossings available any more at this price, but I have not checked this.
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General
Getting back from holiday in mid-January it was good to see that the days were getting longer again. It was also a relief to see that at last the exchange rate had improved and since then we have been seeing customers return after a gap of some months. Mind you, even when the pound euro rate was at its lowest ebb, it was still so much cheaper to buy decent wines here than in Britain.
Our web statistics, too, are now reflecting increased interest, and I read this to herald the start of the wine buying season for weddings and other big events. As always, if you know of anyone who would benefit by having a fun day out while saving themselves a lot of money, please do drop me an e-mail and I shall make contact with them. I will be very grateful to you.
This is the time of year to let me know if you'd like a tasting or a wine presentation either in Ardres or in England as a form of entertainment. It is something I have done over many, many years and I believe the Testimonials here say it all.
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Recent Boursot Events
Our January "blues buster" dinner at Château Cléry proved to be a wonderful treat and was much enjoyed by those who escaped the British drear for the weekend. The evening was entitled "The Sheer Variety of Bordeaux" and started with a horizontal tasting of clarets across six different communes (Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac, Saint-Estèphe, Saint-Emilion and Pomerol), but all from one year - 2007. These were all good wines, priced between 24 and 32 euros per bottle. I talked about what gave each area its different style, and several people commented how much they enjoyed the unusual experience of being able to compare so many wines side by side.
After that, we refreshed our parched throats with a glass of Château de Sours' excellent fruity sparkling Brut Rosé before moving through to Château Cléry's conservatory. There we enjoyed four beautifully presented courses, accompanied by two dry whites, two mature clarets and rounding off with a sweet white. After all that, as you might imagine, we slept well!
At around £65 this was excellent value and following customer reactions, we intend to return to Château Cléry for another dinner soon. As one customer said: "What a brilliant evening on Saturday - many congratulations for a superbly hosted wine tasting and subsequent dinner. Hotel Clery was an ideal location too". And another compliment: "Just a short note to thank you for organising such a great venue for the dinner on Saturday, we really enjoyed it, lovely food and wine. Even the weather managed to stay fine!".
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Forthcoming Boursot Events
The next dinner will be on Saturday 27th March but our chosen top quality venue may have a problem on that specific date. If so, the dinner will be at an equally impressive restaurant in the area.
This 4 course dinner with 6 wines is aimed at those who'd simply like to learn a little more about wine, and there will be a small introductory tasting before the dinner with an informal talk on the basic principles of wine, how to taste and what to look out for.
Everyone should enjoy this dinner, whether novice or connoisseur, and it is expected to be a popular event so I recommend booking early. The cost will be 78€ (around £68 at today's rate) per person. Once you have sent your enquiry or booking on ardres@boursot.co.uk, I should have heard where we will be hosting this dinner.
Saturday 24th April at Hotel Château Tilques: The vineyard owner and winemaker Gilles Ferran is fast becoming a legend in the southern Rhône. He is the man behind our ever-popular Domaine des Escaravailles in the village of Rasteau, producing the exquisite white La Galopine and the reds Les Sablières and La Ponce that many of you have become familiar with. Despite having been highly rated by the American wine writer Robert Parker, these wines still offer superb value for money.
Gilles will be coming up especially from the Rhône to be with us and to talk about some of his extraordinary wines that will be on show, which should also include wines from some of his neighbours in the villages of Roaix and Châteauneuf du Pape. I hope that you will join us at this exceptional dinner. Tickets are priced at 79€ and we have managed to secure substantially reduced rates for your stay at the château.
Friday 4th - Saturday 5th June, Gourmet Experience in Champagne: We have received an encouraging number of responses to our proposed Dinner in Champagne combined with some visits to producers in Epernay and Reims. After much fine tuning, the price is expected to be 350€ per person, to include two lunches, a Gourmet Dinner, hotel, breakfast and visits to three champagne houses and transport within the region. This will be a memorable trip.
If you could be interested, please do let us know as soon as possible so that we can pencil in your name at this stage, and I will be in touch with you personally as details begin to unfold.
To quote a testimonial from someone who came on one of our trips to Champagne: "It was well organised and most interesting. We will particularly long remember the tour, tastings, lunch and cordial reception at Pol Roger." (DB)
Sunday 11 July, La Fete de la Belle Roze: Lunch at Hotel Clément. Watch the centre of Ardres come alive with its biennial pageantry celebrating La Belle Roze who saved the destruction of Ardres in July 1653. Our informal summer lunch at the Hotel Clément will, as always, feature 4 courses, 6 wines and a sparkling talk about the current state of affairs in the wine world. 49€ per person all-inclusive.
Sunday 12 December, Christmas Market: Lunch at Hotel Clément. Some customers have already booked for this 2010 lunch, so if you want to guarantee your places, we can happily take your bookings now! I suggest you go to the Turkey Festival in the morning, come to the lunch and then "do" the Christmas Market in the afternoon. 4 courses and 6 wines for 49€ per person all-inclusive.
There will be several other events during 2010 but these are the only ones where all details are known currently.
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News in the World of Wine
Shock waves from the First Quench debacle are still being felt around the wine world, as suppliers are left licking their financial wounds. As said here previously, Britain's independent wine retailing sector is still remarkably buoyant, although few would claim to have had a good 2009. Many of the ex-Thresher, Wine Rack, The Local and Haddows shops in the First Quench portfolio have been bought by ex-franchise holders and this may yet result in a further resurgence of the independents.
The British government can still be heard talking of a more responsible approach to alcohol retailing! Everyone knows where a start could be made but the government hardly has the nerve (some might say "bottle"!) before a preoccupying general election to take on the all-powerful supermarkets who continue to promote alcohol below cost. VAT has already gone up by 2.5% and duty is set to ratchet up again in a few weeks and then it seems that, whoever takes over the poisoned chalice of running the country, several taxes are going to have to rise sharply. And increasing alcohol, motoring and tobacco duties, yet again, will be one of the easiest means of achieving further revenue.
It was with great sadness that I heard that our Burgundian friend Paul Bouchard died in early January. Paul had hosted two Anniversary Dinners for us and guests will remember him as a passionate and highly amusing ambassador for his region. Having been educated in England, it was impossible to tell from his accent that he was anything but pure English. Both the Bouchard and the Boursot families have been around Burgundy for so many centuries that they have each married into every major wine family in the region - indeed looking through my own list of "cousins" is rather like reading a Burgundian version of "Who's Who"! Consequently the start of each of our telephone conversations was always prefaced with "Mon cher cousin"!
For around 35 years "Petit Paul" was in charge of Bouchard Ainé in Beaune until its takeover by wine giant Boisset. In 1989, Paul started a vineyard with Peter Finlayson in Hermanus in South Africa's Western Cape, focussing on producing high quality Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc. Nowadays Bouchard Finlayson is one of the Cape's most respected vineyards, albeit that the Bouchard stepped down from this venture some years ago. Paul was supposed to have retired some time ago, but his drive took him all over the world to communicate his passion for Burgundy.
My article (on this link) on the situation in Champagne, written in October for the December edition of CNBC magazine, seems almost old hat now that the statistics show a resurgence of sales of Champagne over the Christmas period. However, it should be said that this spurt has been driven by price cutting and there still remains a good deal of work to get sales back to where they were at anything resembling a profitable price. Sales sank back (too rapidly) last year to their 1998/1999 levels, which at that time were at a record high. Champagne has been by no means a disaster - it was simply another of those overheated markets! Piper Heidsieck in Reims has just announced 45 job cuts among its 160 employees and without doubt there will be more losses announced soon in other companies.
Having read a couple of dreary articles in the media recently on the subject of wine writing, I was heartened to see yesterday morning an excellent response by Tim Atkin - hit this link to read it in the Guardian.
The world of wine has grown hugely over the last decades but it can still provide some of life's greatest pleasures. However with so many choices now available, the law of averages dictates that wines can also be disappointing. Mass wine retailing has become entirely about what makes profit, rather than what pleases the customers.
How many hundreds of bottles do we have to endure or waste before we find the ones we really like? For the last 37 years, my full-time job has been to seek out interesting wines, irrespective of price and to put them in front of an audience. It's my taste. That has always been the point about Boursot's Wine Collection - set up to answer people's exasperated complaints about buying blind from large concrete bunkers with no semblance of advice or service, and at inflated prices. So it comes as a huge reward when you say to me "Thank you, I really enjoyed that." Or more appropriately, you come back for more!
In Italy, Chianti Classico has tried to distinguish itself since the 1930s from the more "ordinary" Chianti. Finally a newly announced government ruling will prohibit Classico vineyards from supplying grapes or wine to "ordinary" Chianti producers and this should have the effect of driving a more serious wedge between the two wines. Chianti Classico is always recognisable by the black rooster motif around the neck of the bottle.
Many of you will have heard me talk over the last few months about the bottle closure debate, and how cork's share of this lucrative market has been falling. The Portuguese government has just announced that it is set to finance a campaign to convince us all that cork is both natural and best - to the tune of 20 million euros! From my own point of view, I have always enjoyed the "theatre" of opening a bottle of wine and so I hope that once the cork makers have got their own industry in order, they can flourish once again, and I hope that this will be neither too little nor too late.
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E-mails
Over the last few weeks, we have had problems with our e-mail system but have now changed server which should provide us with a better service.
The two addresses wine.consultants@aliceadsl.fr and guy.boursot@aliceadsl.fr will cease to exist very shortly, but you can use each of these by replacing aliceadsl.fr with orange.fr. Our main address of ardres@boursot.co.uk will of course continue to operate as normal.
If you had written to us and not received a response, please resend your message and when received, I will respond to you.
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Boursot's New List
As always you can see our new list on this link and if you would like to print it, it's available on this link. This month, look out for some new vintages of some clarets that have proven popular here such as Châteaux Saint-Romans, Bordeaux at just 4,90€ (around £4.30 at today's rate) and Vieux Cros Lamarzelle, Saint-Emilion at 10,70€ (£9.40). These are good reliable wines of excellent value - guaranteed to impress.
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February Offers
This month our Special Offer is on our highly praised and traditionally made Chablis, Henri de Villamont, 2007 reduced from 9,80€ to 8,60€ (around £7.50) as well as on our ever-popular Rhône, Vacqueyras, Cuvée Prestige, 2008 reduced from 8,60€ to 7,80€ (around £6.80). These reduced prices offer amazing value for money and they will of course revert to their normal prices from next month. You can order your wines at these prices for collection at a later date by phoning or e-mailing us.
The 4 star Hotel Château Tilques outside Saint-Omer has confirmed that it will continue to offer you, as a Boursot's Wine Collection customer, a free kir when eating in their Brasserie du Parc, provided of course that you tell them you came through Boursot's. Other restaurants in Ardres offering you the same "kir gift" are listed on our local restaurant web page.
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I hope to have found more good Offers for you next month.
Now that spring is almost here and by consequence, everything must be getting better, I look forward to seeing you here again shortly! After all, you might need to get in some stocks to celebrate or commiserate the results of an election...
With my best wishes
Guy
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Guy Boursot
Wine Consultants SARL
Boursot's Wine Collection
9 Rue de l'Arsenal
62610 ARDRES
+33 3 21 36 81 46
www.boursot.co.uk
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