Newsletters

February 2020

Bonjour!

Here is our latest news, the main headings of which are shown below.

With thanks to Nick Newman for his graphic sense of humour!

• The Ardres Experience
• And so to Wine - its Prices and UK Duty: a few facts
• Payments
• Hotel and Restaurant Offers
• Introduce a Friend and you will receive a Free Bottle of Champagne!
• Boursot's Special Membership Benefits
• Gift Vouchers
• Weddings
• Your Own Wine Events in France
• Forthcoming Boursot Events
• Views on the World of Wine
• Gite to rent in Burgundy
• Delivering wine in France and across mainland Europe
• Delivering wine to the UK
• New Wines and Boursot's Wine List
• Guy Boursot’s New Burgundy Club
• In Conclusion

Bonjour!

I hope that 2020 will bring you everything you could wish for. Here, one of my resolutions is to get back to sending out more regular newsletters. As some of you will know, 2019 was a year in which we had to adapt to some of the new conditions and expectations brought about by Britain’s decision to leave the EU. In October we sold our Marquise warehouse and shop, so now all retail and distribution operations have been brought back to our original historic building in Ardres.

Despite the recent start of B**x*t, nothing looks to change here in the near future as far as anyone can tell. Journeys across the channel have never been quicker and easier and for the moment, that appears set to stay so you should take advantage whilst this status quo still exists.

The Ardres Experience

The 16th century town of Ardres is widely recorded in history books. Historians among you will recall that the English occupied the Calais region from 1347 until 1558 and that the Field of the Cloth of Gold between Ardres and Guines was the meeting place in June 1520 of the two flamboyant kings, François I of France and Henry VIII of England. At this two week summit each side tried to outdo each other with splendour; there were banquets, tournaments and there was even a palace built specialy for the occasion. Because Ardres was on the border between the kingdoms of England, France and Spain, it was a fortified walled town and indeed remnants of the walls and some of the underground silos are still visible today. The town was not damaged in the two World Wars that so badly damaged Calais and other towns of the area, so it remains the small but prettiest jewel of the Pas de Calais.

Boursot’s Wine Collection is in a 250 year old building opposite the town’s old arsenal, and it is said that Bonapartists met on our first floor and plotted to bring back their own form of leadership after Napoleon I had been exiled to Elba. Our emporium is right beside one of the most attractive churches of the region, built in the 17th century and because they are paces apart, our building had always sold some form of religious artefacts - until we bought it in 2006, although some might argue that wine has its religious associations!

Ardres was recobbled in 2019 and has been restored to pristine condition without losing any of its old charm and character.

Boursot's Wine Collection

View from Boursot's to the main square

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And so to Wine - its Prices and UK Duty: a few facts

Wine prices in France have been pretty stable for some long time now. Over the last three years there have been some low yielding harvests in various viticultural areas across Europe. A few price increases are starting to feed into the system this new year but only by a few cents per bottle and in general, French wine producers have been playing cautious regarding the potential knock-on effects of any sharper movements.

The euro stands currently at around 1.18 to the pound. To those who propagate the false idea that there is little difference in the cost of buying wines on either side of the Channel, they ignore that on top of the current UK duty of £2.23 per bottle of still wine and £2.86 per bottle of bubbly, there is also then the addition of importers’ and retailers’ margins and of course on top of that subtotal, there’s 20% VAT! The difference in sales price is at least £3.50 per bottle. UK wine drinkers are already the second most heavily taxed in Europe, only beaten by Ireland. It is a sad truth that wine drinkers have been perceived as an easy target in order to reap more tax revenue for successive British governments.

With the average selling price of a bottle of wine in the UK at £5.68, this means that around 65% of the cost of that bottle is now consumed in tax. In the British market, just 60p is the cost of the wine itself and as you might imagine few producers are happy to produce wine at such a low price point. You get a lot more wine for your money in France: you are buying wine not tax. It really isn't difficult to work out.

The UK's Budget Day on Wednesday 11 March will as usual add further tax at the current rate of inflation, and we wait to see if additional tax increases will be advised. The expectation is that the already huge differentials will widen further, so we should be happy!

Remember: according to HM Customs there are no limits on the quantities of wine you have bought in France and wish to take back to Britain, provided that it's for your personal consumption. If you want to take back a lorry full of wine for your own use at weddings and parties, you are perfectly within your rights to do so. And despite B**x*t, there is no change to this in prospect.

With our range starting at around £3.40 per bottle, Boursot's has developed a reputation for taking some of the confusion and risk out of seeking and buying decent French wines, and with its British owner and experienced English speaking staff, you will always receive good advice. Wine lovers discovering us for the first time are often astounded by our wines' quality and value and we feel particularly happy when some of you compliment us on our selection. Keep coming and keep the compliments flowing!

We also provide an enjoyable day out (ok - I know many of you come straight over, load up and go straight back but…!) with good restaurants, shops specialising in all sorts of French delicacies, so there is no shortage of things to do whilst you’re here. "The best day-trip you could wish for!": the words from one of our customer reviews on TripAdvisor. So many of you say the same thing - voiced by one happy customer "One has to be crazy to buy wines in Britain. Virtually no choice on the high street and when you can find something interesting, it's ridiculously expensive... This (coming to Ardres) is so much fun, it's so easy, we make a day of it and everyone is happy".

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Payments

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Hotel and Restaurant Offers

We have a list of local hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, golf clubs and places of interest on our website under the Local Info button on all pages.

We also list there the Bank Holidays so that you do not find, on getting to France, that everything is closed (except Boursot's Wine Collection of course which remains open every day except Sundays and certain days over the Christmas period).

We are very fortunate to be in an area with so many good eating establishments at all different price levels, so do ask us if you would like a recommendation.

Château de Cocove, just 10 minutes south of Ardres: an impressive looking château hotel set in pretty grounds, that serves good quality cuisine. Boursot customers can receive a 15% discount off room rates, subject to availability. As with all our offers you need to mention Boursot's Wine Collection. www.chateaudecocove.com.

The Michelin starred Hôtel La Matelote opposite Nausicaa on the sea front in Boulogne sur Mer has food of really high quality. The hotel also has an indoor swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and hammam.

The Matelote Gourmet Package is a night with breakfasts included for two people upgraded to a superior room, with dinner (Saveurs de la Mer menu) and drinks included for two, access to the relaxation area, all at a price of 320€ weeknights and 389€ at weekends or bank holidays. www.la-matelote.com/en/

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Introduce a Friend and you will receive a Free Bottle of Champagne!

If you recommend us to a friend who becomes a new customer who spends more than 150€ in either of our shops and goes on our e-mail list, we will give you a bottle of our exclusive Richard-Dhondt, Cuvée de Réserve champagne next time you are down in Ardres. So make sure you tell them to mention your name, so we can save your bottle!

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Boursot's Special Membership Benefits

Travel: One of your benefits as a Boursot customer is reduced cross-channel return fares with Eurotunnel:
Spend more than 400€ and travel for £25 (34€)!
Spend more than 800€ and travel for FREE!
To take advantage, simply click on the Eurotunnel logo on our home page of www.boursot.co.uk and this will pull up a Secured Order Form. Fill in details of your order (if known yet) and preferred times of travel and press “Send”. On receipt, we will make your booking and you will then receive an emailed booking confirmation directly from Eurotunnel. It’s that simple! Additionally we have extended our advantageous rate if you are coming to collect your wines in a van – travel for just 45€ return on a purchase of 450€ and FREE for a wine purchase of 900€. Hotel and Restaurant Offers: We have a list of local hotels, B&Bs, restaurants, golf clubs and places of interest on our website under the Local Info button from our Home Page.

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Gift Vouchers

We are pleased to offer Gift Vouchers that can be made to any value of your choice and that we can send with your note to your recipient.

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Weddings

Clearly we are delighted to be asked to supply our wines for serving at weddings. You can safely recommend us to wedding couples and:

And as the introducer you will get a free bottle of champagne as a thank-you from us.

Many of you have been kind enough to tell your friends and family about us, resulting in more people being converted to the cause of what we would call “genuine” wine: very much better quality wine at lower prices than you could have otherwise bought in Britain. We have received so many compliments for our wines transforming a good wedding into a great wedding – so please do recommend us and make everyone happy!

We also have a Wedding List Service whereby the couple discuss with us their preferences and if desired, we create a list of wines desired. Guests can either order from this or from our general list. All persents will be assembled for the bride and groom to collect at their convenience. We pass all gift updates directly to the couple and attach any greetings notes to the bottles or cases ordered. Please call Guy on +33 321 36 81 46.to discuss this if you should be interested.

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Your Own Wine Events in France

Regularly you ask us to help organise various social events with a wine theme - for groups such as Golf Clubs, Rotary Clubs, U3A, Wine Clubs, Car Clubs, birthday parties, office parties, pre-wedding parties or simply a group of friends. We have advantageous arrangements with restaurants in Ardres and around the region that provide great quality food at a sensible price, and where you can enjoy our wines at our shop prices with no cost of "corkage", assuming of course that one of us is attending. Typically a four course lunch or dinner in Ardres works out at 30€, water, coffee and service included, and six wines work out at 9€ per person.

One of us can talk a little about the various wines being served, probably concluding with some entertaining words about what's going on currently behind the scenes in the wine world.

These events are always fun and they are different: with only 23 miles across that English Channel, yet a million miles away in cultural terms, people always seem delighted to get away for a complete change of scenery and for a bit of French life. It is a great day out.

You can also enjoy tastings, presentations or general events in the vaulted cellars under our Ardres shop. As you can see from the photo on our home page, our cellars can give you a memorable experience. If you should be interested in holding an event for up to 35 people in our cellars, do call or e-mail to discuss your preferences and we will be pleased to pull them together.

And finally, I am of course happy to travel to you to present wine related events, or simply to be your after-dinner speaker with a difference! I have rather a lot of experience in this and this is one reason, I imagine, why many clients are good enough to ask me back to speak year after year.

A recent testimonial: “Thank you for your talk and for entertaining our guests so well. When it comes to talking about wine, you’re a class act.” RF, Mayor of W….. – July 2017

You can see some more background on my speaker website www.boursot.com. Do please call or e-mail me to discuss your preferences.

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Forthcoming Boursot Events

We host a number of high quality wine dinners at several great local restaurants. Needless to say, these are conducted in English, often by a wine-related guest speaker, whether a winemaker, a vineyard proprietor or even a wine writer! We normally opt for a four-course meal starting with a bubbly reception, followed by at least five more wines. Where we can, we block-book bedrooms at the venue so you don't need to worry about searching out accommodation in the area. It’s all designed to be straightforward and enjoyable for you

Vegetarian and alternative food options can of course be provided, as long as we receive some advance notice. If a planned guest speaker is unable to attend, we will endeavour to find another speaker and if none is available, Guy Boursot will present the talk.

After a Saturday evening dinner, Boursot's Wine Collection is open on the Sunday morning.

Perhaps you have an anniversary to celebrate or you just want to get away for a change of pace and scenery? You are of course most welcome to bring some friends to make up a small group (normally to a maximum of eight please).

Please contact us on ardres@boursot.co.uk or on +33 321 36 81 46 to book for any of our events below.

Saturday 21 March - The Sheer Variety of Bordeaux presented by Guy Boursot: Hôtel Château les Tourelles, Le Wast

The food as well as the value at this hotel is exceptional. Bordeaux is currently in our news and we will discuss what it is that has made this area so special as well as where it is going in these modern times. With your four courses, you will be served a contrasting selection of wines from all around the area.

Dinner tickets will be 79€ each for four courses, six wines and all entertainment! This is expected to be a popular dinner and so we urge you to book early. We have reserved a number of bedrooms at 98€ per room breakfasts included so please also say if you should like a roomfrom our allocation. Click here for full details & booking...

Saturday 25 April: Awaiting final confrmation from venue

This date can be entered into your diary. We are in touch with a château hotel that we have not used now for some years but are currently negotiating rates for our evening and accommodation. As soon as we have more news, we will post this on our website in the Events panel.

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Views on the World of Wine

You often ask me as a wine presenter and writer to tell you my thoughts about what appears to be happening currently in the global wine market. Here is a collection of my latest thoughts. But I suggest that if you'd like to learn more, you should come to our next wine dinner in March.

France has been relatively late to get into wine tourism as part of its general sales strategy. I guide quite a lot of small groups around vineyards in many French viticultural regions and I find that some people are often surprised that some producers simply prefer not to open their doors to visitors. In Burgundy in particular, domaines can be tiny and if the head person is showing people around, he is not tending his vines or his wines. He has to decide whether to spend time with people who may or may not buy anything or to employ people to undertake this sales activity which can be an expensive luxury in a country that has high social charges, aka National Insurance in the UK.

But for larger producers, wine tourism has become an important part of their revenue stream. Indeed an observation I hear increasingly is that some producer visits are becoming more and more glitzy, with tours that appeal to a lower common denominator so that it is harder for a true wine enthusiast to glean any real depth of knowledge.

Via the internet producers now have greater access to their eventual consumers - who believe that, by coming to the cellar door, they would be buying their wines at the most advantageous prices. After all, the stuff has travelled maybe just 200 metres. Wrong!

Not only are producers now adding on a retail margin but they are also charging extra for the “unique experience”. By consequence all over the world, buying directly from the producer is becoming one of the most expensive ways of buying wine because visitors are a captive market and are buying often for other reasons – for example as a memento of an enjoyable visit. As stated here so often in the past, in asking people why their favourite wine is X or Y, I have been amused to find their responses are seldom related to the contents inside the bottle!

We are often called by suppliers to raise our prices: to quote one “because we have just raised our retail price by 10€ a bottle at the cellar door, we want you to do the same”. We try to argue our corner but there have been some producers delisted because of this attitude. However I should say that there are also a number of vineyards where you can still buy at good prices, but don’t simply assume that by going direct that you are buying at the best price available.

One of the big wine brand owners is said to be looking to lay off 60% of its sales and admin personnel in order to develop selling across the world over the internet. For the brand owner, it’s a simple exercise in profitability that may work well but from a consumer’s point of view, wine shopping could become increasingly fragmented. It’s why you have retailers who will stock a wide range of products, all competing for the space, on value and price.

I met recently with a major wine producer in Bordeaux who told me that things are not looking good there. Whilst of course the great names, the more investable domaines and châteaux, will always do well, the producers of inexpensive bulk red Bordeaux are really suffering. The bottom has dropped out of that market and their bulk sale price for a litre of wine is now below that for a litre of water!

Every producer needs to find his own point of difference for his wine. Why should anyone buy his wine in preference to that made identically by a neighbour in a crowded appellation? By contrast, organic or bio vineyards are managing to sell their wines at a significant premium and higher net profit. Expect to see an increasing number of organic wines in the market.

Some struggling properties that are within easy reach of big named châteaux are being bought up for the potential of their additional yield, but otherwise prospects are not good for producers of “cheap Bordeaux". The knock-on effect into local property prices will also be seen before too long: the market has changed. Whilst the definition in many parts of France of a safe “go-to” red wine has been for years “un bon Bordeaux”, younger consumers are looking for more fruit and roundness in their wines, and that is one more reason why the wines of the Rhône and Languedoc are currently in such increasing demand.

Across the higher end of the French luxury wine market, producers have been concerned about being used as pawns in Trump’s selective application of 100% tariffs on high value wines. For the moment there seems to be a ceasefire between the US and France. Scotch whisky also has been under fire from across the Atlantic.

Burgundy, or to give it its French title Bourgogne, continues to go from strength to strength. The area has developed a vigorous PR campaign in recent years and has been much helped along by its award as a UNESCO site around five years ago. Burgundy wine is highly sought at every price level across the world and there just isn’t enough to go around. Owing to its topography and the fragile nature of the Pinot Noir grape, the area often suffers from small yields, usually due to frost or hail damage. In the hot conditions of 2019, yields were down by 30% in the Côte d’Or and 40% in the Mâconnais. Growers generally take a four to five year view so some price correction is now taking place.

It is increasingly difficult to develop new relationships with growers but being insiders we are fortunate to have long established friends and suppliers who are attentive to our various needs; having said that, we are always on the look-out for new stars!

Owing to the limited volume of Burgundy there are a number of brokers who have started up in recent times, offering “great” named wines at high prices. These brokers seldom carry these in stock, so I do recommend caution if you are approached and certainly if an offer looks too good to be true… you know the rest of the adage! Since fine wine has become such a valuable commodity, it is inevitable that it has become a magnet for fraudulent operators.

Puligny-Montrachet. Widely publicised across the region and in the French media, it is fun but with 100,000 visitors over a weekend, it is not something that you would go to in order to learn about the wine! All the appellation’s producers put their wines of six individual years into six “village vintage blends” and each of the wine stalls dotted around the village serve tasting measures of the wine of a specific year! It is not intended to be great wine: more, the fuel for a good day out!

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Gite to rent in Burgundy

As you may know we own a charming gite, L’Ancien Domaine, just five minutes from Beaune in Burgundy, that is available for you to rent. Our nearest villages are Pommard, Volnay, Meursault – which are not bad references for wine! Sleeping six in three double en-suite bedrooms, with a kitchen, dining room, sitting room and a TV room, this makes an ideal base for your trips around the Burgundian vineyards. In addition, trips to interesting wine producers can be organised for you by Guy as well as recommendations given for local restaurants. Visit lanciendomaine.fr for many more details or drop an e-mail to ardres@boursot.co.uk

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Delivering wine in France and across mainland Europe

We deliver wine across mainland France on a 48 hour basis. So if you should like to send a gift to a friend or deliver some wines to an address where you will be staying, simply go to our ecommerce site www.boursot.fr/en and select what you would like, pay for it by card and your order will be delivered within a couple of days.

Delivery is free on orders of 12 bottles or more, mixed as you like and we can of course also insert any gift message for you.

We also deliver across the whole of Europe including the UK within a few days and so again, go to www.boursot.fr/en …

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Delivering wine to the UK

Our new service of delivering wines into the UK has been running well and delivery is typically made within three days of your placing your order on www.boursot.fr/en.

Even after the addition of the costs of repackaging and delivery, the prices you pay are still considerably less expensive than buying the self-same bottles in the UK, even when they are available. Of course the most economic way to buy is still to come and collect from the shop in Ardres but we are delighted to be able to continue supplying our wines to those who, for one reasonn or another, cannot get across for a while.

We effect all this correctly, sending a copy of the documentation to French customs who then pass it through to UK customs but to date no UK duty has been paid by any customer.

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New Wines and Boursot's Wine List

New wines are always coming in and there are changes of vintage. Our list is updated each month and can always be accessed through the View/Print Wine List button on the home page of our site. In the event that you see a previous version of the price list, try pressing Ctrl and F5 simultaneously on your computer so as to refresh the web page.

If there is something in our list that attracts your eye now, and that you'd like us to put on one side for you, just say and we'll be happy to arrange it.

FEBRUARY OFFER: 10% OFF ALL WINE PRICES

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Guy Boursot’s New Burgundy Club

As many of you are aware probably, when I am not in the Ardres shop, I am usually at home just outside Beaune in Burgundy, where we also have of course a self-contained gite - available for you to rent!

As an aside, I propose to start writing a newsletter specifically on the subject of what is going on in the region and eventually to source wines for Burgundy enthusiasts. These wines are likely to include more one-offs or wines only available in small supplies, perhaps making up some mixed discovery cases, so much of this will not be suitable for the Ardres shop.

This operation will be separate to my retail business up north and I will be doing it in my spare time, so I expect it to be a long work in progress. If you should like to be included to receive these newsletters for this, please let me know that you would like to sign up separately to receive them and all news relating to this most exciting, prestigious yet confusing of wine regions.

And if you’d like to tell me what you’d like to see from my Burgundy Club, please do send me your suggestions. A website is to come but in the meantime, click this link to sign up: guy@boursot.com

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In Conclusion

We are told regularly that our offering is so much more exciting and better priced than the equivalent retail operation in Britain. It is unlikely that you will read a review on us in the British media, even though we have been told often enough that we are newsworthy! The exception to this was a few months ago when the editor of Decanter magazine came into the shop, bought a selection and then wrote us up very nicely - thanks!

We have found that your word of mouth continues to be our most reliable source of new customers. So, if you are happy with what we do, please help us by telling your wine loving friends (and gain yourself a bottle of champagne!), or you could refer your friends to our "Receive Monthly Newsletter" button on the home page of www.boursot.co.uk. And if you’re happy, mention us on TripAdvisor – it all helps.

As with all our wines, we stand by our guarantee to take back any resaleable bottles if you find that the wine is not to your taste or if you have too many bottles left over after a party.

Bruno, Steven and I hope to see you in Ardres again very soon, whether it's for our delicious and easy to enjoy Petit Pont Réserve wines at around £3.40 a bottle or whether it's for something more exclusive for your special dinner parties. We have most French wines you could wish for.

And finally ... don't hesitate to get over shortly - à très bientôt !

With all best wishes
Guy

Guy Boursot
Wine Consultants SARL

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