Newsletters
 July, 2011
Dear Customer,
And so to our usual verbiage: our newsletters can be unfashionably verbose, so if you prefer to go straight to a particular topic, the main headings are below.
General
UK tax now stands at a minimum of £2.17 including VAT on each bottle of still wine and £2.78 on each bottle of sparkling wine.
For Boursot’s July price list I took the opportunity of checking the equivalent prices of the handful of our wines that are available on the UK market. I know I have said it here before, but this time I experienced the shock for myself and rather than bang on about it, I leave the choice of words to one happy customer who said to me recently, "One has to be crazy to buy wines in England. 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".
You will see some net price comparisons on our list.
One question I am often asked during my talks is "is it still worth buying wines in France as the exchange rate is not what it once was?". For those who buy the wine brands, then the UK supermarkets often sell many of these as loss leaders – they’re called the "footfall drivers" and so there will be savings in France but some of the headline price differences will have been eroded. But if you’re buying "real" wines, there are still huge savings to be had in France and a quick look at Boursot’s wine list and its price comparisons will prove that. Buy a couple of cases and you’re quids in. And then there is also the enjoyment factor.
You can rest assured that all the wines on the Boursot list, starting at just 2,60€ (around £2.30) per bottle, have been tasted by me and are "good" in their own different ways – it’s then simply a question of your personal preferences and everyone of course has different tastes.
With both numbers of customers and our sales volume increasing, these are very happy times for us in Ardres.
Don’t forget to call in on your way to or from holiday if you are in your car. Being situated between junctions 1 and 2 of the main north – south A26 motorway out of Calais, you hardly need to go out of your way at all. If you should like to come outside our normal opening hours, do please let us know. Sometimes it is possible to open up, or else to leave your order nearby for you to collect - and we have a secure web page on which you can leave your card details.
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Boursot's Reduced Cross Channel Fares
As a Boursot’s Wine Collection customer you should take advantage of our special arrangement with SeaFrance whereby you can get a special day return crossing fare for just £25 for your car and all passengers Sundays to Fridays, or £29 on Saturdays.
In addition, SeaFrance is offering you a 36 hour return of £35 (£40 for Saturdays) as a Boursot customer.
These savings over SeaFrance’s normal prices are only available to you as a registered member of our database, and are not visible on our website. You can book at these special rates directly on this link. If you lose this link, you can also go to www.seafrance.com and in the Offer Code panel, enter the word Boursot.
In addition if you spend more than 600€ with us, we will be happy to reimburse your day return fare booked through SeaFrance, so please remember to bring along your receipt.
In case you didn’t know it already, we should also point out that Tesco clubcard points can be exchanged for Eurotunnel tickets.
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SeaFrance
I have it on good authority that SeaFrance’s ownership is being retained by the French government, subject to final approval by Brussels. However, some of the other cross channel operators are complaining that SeaFrance would be receiving unfair treatment and it is these complaints that have slowed down the decision!
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Boursot's Hotel Offer
As you may know, 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 - or directly here. We hope you will find this helpful. Whilst talking about Local Info, we also list the Bank Holidays so that you do not find, on getting here, that everything is closed (except Boursot’s Wine Collection of course which remains open every day except Sundays and Mondays).
It is probably true to say that about three or four years ago, the 4 star Hôtel Château Tilques between here and Saint-Omer, was overly crowded with partying Brits and the consequence of that was that the hotel’s quality and value seemed to slip.
Now, things are very different as those of you who have been to our Gourmet Evenings there can testify, and we have no hesitation in recommending the hotel and its restaurant. The food is great, the service is impeccable and the bedrooms are characterful, light and spacious. With its idyllic setting, and proximity to the bustling and pretty town of Saint-Omer with its historic cathedral, I can’t think of a much better combination for an easy and tranquil getaway for a night or two.
As a Boursot’s Wine Collection customer, through 2011 you will continue to receive reduced rates of 129€ per room Sundays to Fridays and 159€ for Saturday nights; these prices are per night for two people, including breakfast and are of course offered subject to availability. When booking, please mention Boursot to get your special rates.
Also between Monday and Friday, if you’d like to eat in the Brasserie du Parc, Château Tilques’ attractive conservatory, you will be offered a free kir – again, provided that you mention Boursot’s Wine Collection!
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Your Own Events in France
You may know it already but we are often asked to help organise various social events - for groups such as Golf Clubs, Rotary Clubs, U3A, Wine Clubs, Car Clubs, birthday parties, office parties, pre-wedding parties etc.
Typically, we would discuss your desired objectives for your event and then work backwards from there. We can liaise on your behalf with local restaurants and if required, hotels. Being locals, often we are allowed to provide our wines in restaurants at our shop prices and with no cost of "corkage" to you.
Depending on whether you would like it, I can talk a little about the various wines being served, probably concluding with some entertaining words about what’s going on in the World of Wine. These events are always fun and they are different: with only 23 miles across that English Channel, but 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.
With our advantageous deals with SeaFrance as well as with local restaurants and hotels, you can really entertain your guests here in northern France at extraordinary value.
In addition of course, I am happy to travel to you to present wine related events to your groups or dinners.
Do please contact me by phone or on guy@boursot.com to explore your options.
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Forthcoming Boursot Events
All our customer lunches and dinners are of course held in English. Vegetarian and alternative food options can also be provided, as long as we receive notice at the time of booking. Please contact us on ardres@boursot.co.uk or on +33 321 36 81 46 to book for any of our events below. If a guest speaker is unable to attend, we will endeavour to find another speaker and if none is available, Guy Boursot will present the talk.
Boursot’s Wine Collection is usually open on the Sunday morning after a Saturday night dinner.
Saturday 24th September: Dinner at the Restaurant de la Plage, Boulogne: "39 Not Out" presented by Guy Boursot
We were particularly struck recently by the excellent quality of this restaurant on the sea front in Boulogne. The quality of the cuisine was one of the finest we have enjoyed in a long time and we felt that it would be good to pass on this experience to you.
However, there is limited capacity for only 35 in the restaurant’s private room so we recommend you book early for this dinner. With luck we’ll have fine weather and thereby enjoy the sunset over the sea, whilst having some wonderful wines to accompany the restaurant’s great food.
I will be talking about the changes in the wine world over the last 39 years, when I followed in my family’s footsteps by joining the wine trade in London: about some of the phenomena that came and went as well as those that lasted, recounting some of many experiences in the business over all these years. For instance, how back in 1972 very few people knew the words "Chardonnay" or "Cabernet Sauvignon"; the rise of the "New World"; the improvement in vinification techniques enabling attractive wines to be produced in warmer climates; the demise of the wine retail chains; the impact of the media and the internet and where it might take us all over the next five years.
I believe you should enjoy a delightful evening of four courses of excellent cuisine, wonderful wines and entertainment and for all this the price will be 78€ per head (about £69 at today’s rate).
In addition, during the Saturday afternoon we are teaming up with local brewer, Christophe Noyon, whose Deux Caps brewery is situated nearby on the coast at Cap Blanc Nez. He will take you around his brewery and you will be able to taste his acclaimed range of beers. You may recall that when Oz Clarke came to Boursot’s Wine Collection a couple of years ago, he then went on to this brewery. You can see the video clip of Oz’s wine and beer day here.
Saturday 15th October: Boursot’s Anniversary Weekend
Our Anniversary event this year will be something of a food and wine extravaganza. On the Saturday afternoon in the Ardres shop, we will be hosting a wine tasting of several of our new discoveries that we would like to share with you. There will also be a Cheese and Chocolate Tasting in our underground vaulted cellar ... and as if that were not enough, there will be an organised visit to Ardres’ best boulangerie where the owners will explain and demonstrate how their various different breads are made. You may be tempted to walk out with a warm baguette!
That evening, our Gourmet Dinner will be held at the Hotel Atlantic on the seafront in Wimereux, 30 minutes to the west of Ardres. The hotel is a favourite gastronomic destination for those wishing to escape and spend a relaxing weekend on the French seafront. We have used up our full allocation of rooms here for tonight, but there are plenty of other hotels within easy walking distance, such as the Hotel Saint-Louis and the Hotel du Centre to name but two.
Anniversary Dinner at the Hotel Atlantic, Wimereux
Last year, our dinner with journalist and broadcaster Simon Hoggart was sold out, and I am delighted that he has agreed to be our guest speaker again this year. Simon will probably be well known to you as the Guardian’s political sketch writer as well as the wine columnist for The Spectator. In addition of course he was for 13 years the chairman of BBC Radio 4’s comedy show "The News Quiz".
I am sure that Simon Hoggart needs little further introduction but in case you should be wavering, you can be assured of a highly entertaining evening and we recommend that you book as soon as possible.
Tickets for this Gourmet Dinner will be, as last year, 96€ (around £85) per person to include a champagne reception, four course dinner and five more wines. And of course all entertainment - and there should be plenty of that!
Saturday 19 November: Dinner at Château Tilques: "Riesling and Gewürztraminer – the greatest grape varieties in the world?" Presented by Nicolas Faller from Ribeauvillé.
Our speaker will be Nicolas Faller from the family house of Robert Faller & Fils in the picturesque town of Ribeauvillé in Alsace. The house was founded in 1697 and the business as propriétaire-viticulteur has been passed down from father to son to this day. Faller has several valuable hectares of Grand Cru vineyards dotted around the pretty town of Ribeauvillé, growing primarily Riesling and Gewürztraminer grapes. This is one of the area’s best producers and we feel honoured to work with them.
The Riesling grape in particular has of late been enjoying a renaissance among aficionados for its different and distinctive style. We will be enjoying Rieslings and Gewürztraminers from simple to the top, Grand Cru, level as well as late harvest sweet wines, demonstrating the grapes’ versatility.
We have blocked off a number of bedrooms at the 4 star Hotel Chateau Tilques for this dinner, so please let us know if you would like to stay so we can allocate you a room at our advantageous rate of 159€ per double room bed and breakfast.
We can be sure of some excellent food and as usual we will be asking the kitchen to produce some dishes that may be found typically in Alsace. Four courses and six wines and all entertainment will be 79€ per person. We are of course happy to take your reservations for this exciting evening now.
Sunday 11th December: Christmas Market Lunch at Restaurant La Griotte, Ardres
Our Christmas Lunch is a fun highlight of the year. This year we shall be eating at the Restaurant La Griotte on the green in Ardres where Madame Dacheville cooks good honest uncomplicated food. We are taking over the entire restaurant.
That morning, from 10am, the annual Turkey Festival will be held about 20 minutes away in the village of Licques, and then I suggest you come to the lunch and then "do" the Ardres Christmas Market in the afternoon, by which time our spirits and the general atmosphere will have warmed up! Père Noël is normally to be found abseiling down the church spire at around 6pm.
The lunch comprises four courses and six wines at a price of just 55€ (around £49) per person all-inclusive. It is an inexpensive fun day out and accommodation can of course be arranged for you in and around Ardres, should you wish to stay over.
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News in the World of Wine
You often ask me as a wine writer and presenter to tell you my thoughts about what appears to be happening currently in the global wine market.
I am not joking when I tell you that a group of amateur vine growers has recently planted 3,000 test vines on some of the steep coal slag heaps found around Bethune in the Nord Pas de Calais! The first usable crop could be in two years and some of these growers are already talking about the wine’s possible interesting aroma - of coal! Not exactly what I would call appealing – and I do hope they’re not expecting to harvest great Pinot Noir!
I have been writing here in several previous editions about Fosters’ sale of brands such as Beringer, Lindemans, Penfolds, Rosemount and Wolf Blass. These brands were hived off from the brewing business in May. This portfolio of wine brands is expected to be acquired shortly by the Chinese food producer, Bright Food Group of Shanghai which has oft stated its desire to add alcoholic beverages to its portfolio and to become a global player in the wine industry.
And so then to Bordeaux. After the longest known en primeur Bordeaux campaign lasting two and a half months, the dust is finally settling. Across the world there have been several critics of the high prices being asked for these very good reds from the 2010 harvest: on average 10% higher than the highly priced 2009s.
Looking at the 2010 reds, the quality is certainly very good but is a little more erratic than 2009, especially in the right bank areas of Saint-Emilion and Pomerol where Merlot and Cabernet Franc play a more dominant role. The Cabernets in particular seem to be rich in fruit and tannin (the natural preservative that gives an astringent dryness in the mouth when the wine is young) but they also have high levels of acidity, meaning that these clarets have a freshness and should develop into long-lived wines - probably longer than the "rounder" 2009s. So in 2010 the Médoc, Haut-Médoc, Margaux, Saint-Julien, Pauillac and Saint-Estèphe appellations appear to be a reliable source of high quality wines for longer term keeping.
We bought a small quantity of a few 2010 clarets en primeur, not for a short-term turn but so as to have some stocks at sensible prices in years to come. I cannot see how the prices will escalate too much now in the short term but having said that, many of us in the trade were shocked by the degree of price escalation with the 2009s.
Wine has become an investment commodity and while other financial markets have had more downs than ups recently, fine vintage red Bordeaux continues to perform well, and even more so now that several new markets have emerged. The "new rich" especially in Asia are thirsting for great names, either to keep, as an investment, to have on their tables or, even, to drink (albeit that it might then be mixed with Coca-Cola)!
As usual the châteaux have sold everything they had to their négociants (or agents) in Bordeaux, but the prices charged by the former were in many cases too high (between 10% and 40% above the prices of the highly priced 2009s) for what the négociants felt was a sensible price for the global market; so the négociants have been forced to slim their margins this year.
But the net result of Bordeaux 2010 is that many traditional markets for the greatest wines have simply turned their backs on the high prices of these wines, which has permitted stocks to be bought by the Chinese specifically. Privately there is unease among the négociants in Bordeaux about the increasing dependence on one (relatively unknown) market. The négociants have bought and they are waiting to be paid so if financial cracks do appear in the market, they will be the first to feel the ill winds.
Bordeaux needs to regain respect and business from its traditional markets and so prices are not expected to rise in the same way for the 2011s.
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Twitter
If you would like us to retweet any of your comments on our wines and / or any other aspect of our offering, do please let us know by e-mail when you tweeted it and we can retweet it for you to our followers. As you can tell, we are not permanently tuned to Twitter and have not as yet found it to be a major boon to our business. But I am assured that internet networking has a role!
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Boursot’s New Venture
Many of you have asked about wine-related gifts and we plan to tell you in our next newsletter about a new venture we are setting up.
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Boursot's New List
You can always see our latest list on this link and if you would like to print it, it's available on this link.
We are for a while reducing the price of our lovely new Champagne Richard-Dhondt to just 15,20€ (around £13.50 at today’s rate). Made by a Premier Cru producer in the village of Dizy just outside Epernay, this wine is ideal for large parties or weddings – it is of excellent quality and has plenty of dry fruity flavour. We do not believe you will find a better champagne at the price, and with prices in Champagne hardening now, this is an excellent time for you to stock up.
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Stocks
Inevitably our stocks rise and fall according to the season. If there is something that attracts your eye in our current list, do call or e-mail us and we shall be pleased to put some stock on one side for you, so as to guarantee that you can have it for when you want to visit.
We also have a range of unusual sizes in wooden boxes, making smart gifts. For example, we have magnums, jeroboams (double magnums) and imperials (quadruple magnums) of Bordeaux, Champagne and Minervois, most of which are in wooden boxes at very sensible prices. They make great gifts.
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An Offer for July
During this month, we are pleased to be reducing the price of our new red wine from the Costières de Nimes area, close to the Rhône. The Syrah/Grenache wine is made by the well-known Château de la Tuilerie and is soft, fruity and fully mature now. Now reduced to almost the same price as the Petit Pont Réserve, this wine is in a higher league and has a smooth and full fruit style. If you like Côtes du Rhône, you should love this. This Offer runs whilst stocks last.
Sarments de la Tuilerie, Syrah/Grenache (Costières de Nîmes), 2008 | 4,60€ | £3.80 |
SPECIAL OFFER | 3,60€ | £3.00 |
A wine that has a haunting light, almost Pinot Noir, fragrance. From the well-known Château de Tuileries, this wine is fruity and medium bodied. We have bought a limited parcel of this wine at this excellent price. |
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In Conclusion
As mentioned earlier, we are constantly being told that our offering is so much more exciting and wide ranging than the equivalent retail operation in Britain. We are proud of our wine selection which, thanks to your support, is finding a wider audience with each passing month. We do not advertise and it is very unlikely that you will read a review on us in the British media, but we have found that your word of mouth continues to be our best source of new customers. So, if you are happy with what we do, please help us by telling your wine loving friends about us - or you could refer them to our "Receive Monthly Newsletter" button on the home page of www.boursot.co.uk. We will be very grateful to you.
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.
Remember: according to HM Customs & Excise you can take back as much wine as you like from France 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.
We are open from 10 to 6 from MONDAY to SATURDAY, and we do not close for lunch. If you should like to visit outside these hours, do please let us know. Sometimes it is possible to open up or to leave your order nearby for you to collect - and we have a secure web page on which you can leave your card details.
We hope to see you here again very soon, whether it’s for our delicious and easy to enjoy Petit Pont Réserve wines at around £3 a bottle or whether it’s for something more exclusive for your special dinner parties. We have them all.
A bientôt!
With all best wishes,
Yours sincerely,
Guy
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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