Newsletters

January, 2008

Dear Customer,

Happy New Year to you. I hope that 2008 will bring you all the good fortune and happiness you could wish for – and I hope that we will continue to supply you with our good value wines to celebrate!

First, during January and February, we are pleased to have negotiated for you a special cross-channel Day-Return Fare of just £18 travelling with SeaFrance. This is bookable ONLY by telephoning 0870 2642644 and quoting our special code “Boursot”.

In addition, during January and February come here and spend more than 600 euros (around £400) in one transaction and we will pay for your ferry crossing. In order to take advantage of this specific Offer, please contact us here so we can tell you the process. This is the time to make huge savings on UK prices – and enjoy a great and inexpensive day out at the same time.

You might want to recommend the above offers to those of your friends who may be planning large parties, such as weddings.

As you will know from our previous newsletters, wine prices are on the move (upwards!) for a variety of reasons. First, the price of oil has inevitably added to freight and delivery costs. Also over the last 20 years, partially encouraged by the EU’s expectations of a wine glut, many producers have reduced their production volumes whilst raising quality - a good example of that is Burgundy where prices are now universally higher but the quality is much improved. There is still too much wine produced around the world, but gradually quantities are reducing with an inevitable and cumulative pressure on prices, and when inclement weather such as we saw in 2007 led to a smaller than average harvest, there’s not too much of a buffer - so prices have to go up.

Champagne is an interesting case: most producers want to retain their “luxury” image and thereby to justify a sensible retail price so it seems that there should be less deep discounting in the near future. This area is already seeing hugely increased demand on naturally delimited supplies, and history has been made recently by a decision to increase the acreage of the Champagne area. These new vineyards will be principally around the Epernay region, but as with all things viticultural, it will take a long time to see the juice from this new fruit – probably around 15 years. With ever-increasing demand for champagne, don’t expect many genuine price cuts over the coming years.

Having said that (!), until the end of January only, we are pleased to offer you the famous Grande Marque Champagne, Pol Roger at a reduced price of 25 euros or £17 (the lowest UK price appears to be £24). Once our stocks are exhausted or after the end of this month, our price is expected to rise to around £19. If you wish to take advantage of our Pol Roger Champagne Offer, please let us know as soon as possible so we can book the stock for you. In February, we expect to have an Offer on the excellent champagnes from Billecart-Salmon.

In terms of other Special Offers in our Ardres shop, the rich and very special red wine from Clos Montirius in the village of Vacqueyras has been reduced from €12,20 to a one-off price of €10,00 (around £6.75) so as to make way for a new selection of wines from this amazing bio-dynamic vineyard. I’d also like to draw your attention to an extra-ordinary wine that is new to us – La Bette, Côtes du Roussillon Villages, 2005. Having heard from a number of customers that they had to try the wine on the basis of the art deco label, I have been encouraged further by their reactions to this wine that is absolutely chock-full of juicy red-fruit flavours. Its price is a very reasonable €6 (around £4).

Our Christmas lunch in Ardres was better attended than could have been expected and I am sorry if you were one of those to be turned down owing to such strong demand. The day was only slightly marred by the atrocious weather, which sadly forced the authorities to cancel the Christmas market. However, the lunch formula was deemed a winner so we shall run other Sunday lunches combined with other major attractions in Ardres during 2008. Two such dates for your 2008 diary are Sunday 13th July for the Fête de la Belle Roze and Sunday 14th December for the Ardres Christmas market. Further details will follow in time.

Of course we will also continue to stage our Gourmet Dinners, and our next Dinner will be on Saturday 23rd February at the Hotel Le Relais in Ardres – renowned for its good value cuisine and simple old-France style of décor. This dinner is priced at just 48 euros (around £33) which of course includes everything - four courses, all wines, water, coffee et al. George Adams of Blakeneys.com, the internet wine retailer, and I will be talking about some of the latest trends in the wine world and we will be showing off some examples of world-beating modern styles of French wine, such as wines from the Vendée and the Languedoc. Another advantage of this dinner will be that, availability permitting, you will be able to toddle upstairs afterwards! Double rooms are available at reasonable rates of around €45 per room. It will be a very enjoyable evening - please let us know how many tickets you would like.

After that, regarding other lunches and dinners during 2008, we are awaiting responses from either speakers or venues so, rather than delay any further, I shall e-mail you these details once they are finalised. One Gourmet Dinner planned will feature the wines of the Rhône and another, the wines of the Loire – these will be hosted by English-speaking principals from those areas. In addition to that, further to the popular reaction at our Paul Bouchard Dinner at the Hotel Atlantic in October, we expect to host a Champagne Gourmet Dinner in Epernay in May. We anticipate that this will be well subscribed, so we will have to restrict tickets to existing customers only. Again, I am currently working to get a good package for the dinner, accommodation and some private visits to Champagne houses - once completed, you will receive details.

When the EU announced that Commissioner Marianne Fischer-Boel would review and make recommendations for reform on the European wine problem, there was hope that something major might emerge. There was much talk, yet what transpired after 18 months seemed to me a watery response. Witness for example the original proposal to grub up 400,000 hectares of vines – reduced finally to 175,000! With the benefit of hindsight, I suppose that nothing less should have been expected, owing to the wide variety of vineyard areas across Europe with all their different climates, demands and cultures. Aside from the grants for grubbing up, there will be grants diverted to marketing rather than to expensive distillation, and the permitting of more consumer-friendly and informative labelling as is found on other continents. The EU Commission’s summary findings, which are about to be presented for approval, may be found on this link – I will let you wade through it, rather than me try and explain and comment on each proposal.

Our website has of course been brought up to date, first, with a new Wine List for January. This time if you follow this link, your computer will not try to print the list – but if you should need to print it, then follow this link. We have also taken on board some of your comments on restaurants in this area and have amended our Hotels and Restaurants page on our website and we include many more web addresses especially for the area’s Golf Clubs.

After a respite of around a year, further restoration work on our historic building is about to start again – we hope you will appreciate some of the differences being made. Talking of this building’s history, legend has it that our main reception room upstairs was used for clandestine meetings by ‘Bonapartistes’ early in the 19th century. This property has changed hands only six times since its construction around 250 years ago and has sold a variety of articles such as jewellery, tobacco, postcards and gifts – and now wine.

Many of you have brought groups or company clients here for tastings, often accompanied by lunch either in the shop or at one of Ardres’ excellent restaurants. I am pleased to say that our underground vaulted cellars will be opened shortly to accommodate groups, giving an even more authentic feel to your special occasions. If you wish to book an event, please telephone us on +33 321 36 81 46 to discuss your requirements.

With all our good offers, we look forward to seeing you here again before too long!

All 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