Newsletters
July 2015
Bonjour!
The main headings in this newsletter are shown below.
General
At the moment the euro rate is at around 1.43 to the pound - the best it has been for a very long time.
As you may know already, the rates of UK duty before VAT are £2.05 per bottle of still wine and £2.63 on each bottle of sparkling wine. This tax forms part of the cost price, so retailers have to calculate their margin on that higher cost, so the difference becomes even greater. Add 20% VAT then to both the duty and to the value of the wine and you have ... a really unhappy situation for UK wine drinkers.
In France there is only a negligible rate of duty on wine, thanks to the country being a major supplier of wine. So, its tax still remains at a comparatively non-existent rate of around 3p per bottle! You get a lot more wine for your money in France.
With the average sale price of a bottle of wine in the UK being £5.03, this means that around 65% of the cost of that bottle is now consumed in tax.
Some of you enjoy the lower expenditure while others spend the same on your bottle as you might in the UK, but by buying at Boursot's Wine Collection in France, you get a far superior quality and value. With a range starting at under £3 per bottle, Boursot's has developed a reputation for offering a wide range of French wines of reliably good quality and value. Boursot's Wine Collection has taken some of the confusion and risk out of seeking and buying decent French wines, and with its British owner and English speaking staff, you will always receive good advice. And most of the time you can taste the wines as well.
On our list you get a good selection of French wines here in Ardres with some huge savings over UK prices. You can rest assured that all the wines on this list, starting at just 3,80€ (around £2.70) per bottle, have been tasted and selected by me as being "good" in their own different ways - it's then simply a question of your personal preferences and of course everyone has different tastes.
Many of you say the same thing - voiced by one happy customer not so long ago "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".
We host a number of high quality wine dinners at some top local restaurants - and we have some especially entertaining events coming up over the coming months. You should come, so please look in the relevant section below for more details.
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.
Nobody can deny that Operation Stack on the M20 has caused several headaches to businesses in the north of France. When I travelled to London on Sunday and back on Monday, there were no signs of any blockages or unusual traffic and there were no delays on the tunnel. Judging by recent patterns, it seems that Monday is the day of the week that is least likely to be affected by any trouble. back to top
Our new Marquise Shop and Warehouse
Our new shop warehouse are less than a minute off the A16 motorway at Marquise, north of Wimereux and Boulogne, and just 15 minutes from the tunnel. There are several attractions to Marquise, particularly at this time of the year, being only 10 minutes away from the picturesque seaside village of Wissant with its various restaurants and one of the finest sandy beaches of the area. You will find a list of local places to eat and places to stay on this link.
Work on the façade will be ongoing over the coming weeks, and we will update its photo on the home page of www.boursot.co.uk as it changes. As yet, the building does not have much signage up but you can find detailed directions on www.boursot.co.uk/directions.html.
As one of our established Ardres customers said recently "The new outlet is larger, lots of parking, so convenient to get to, three supermarkets very close by. The town has good shops, the butcher is a must. The bar opposite the butchers is very friendly." (JB, Glos)
Opening hours for Marquise are marginally different, being Monday to Saturday 10.30 - 5.30 and it is NOT open on French bank holidays. back to top
Boursot's Reduced Cross Channel Fares
We have arranged for you as a Boursot customer reduced fares with P&O until 31st March 2016. For a day trip or overnight trip (meaning returning before midnight the following day), your return fare will be just £23. There is normally a small supplement between £3 and £5 for travelling on a Saturday.
The Afternoon Return Fare is £19, meaning departure after midday and returning before midnight. So, after buying your wines in Ardres, you should also be able to fit in some fine dining!
These special rates are exclusive to Boursot's and apply to on-line bookings for a car and up to 4 passengers and can be accessed through this link or on the Offers page of our website.
Our promotional code is BOURSOT (case sensitive). As always, there may be some specific £5 supplement days but provided there is availability and that you're travelling in a standard car, you will pay these low rates.
P&O has had some trouble with its recently revitalised website and so if you do not succeed as above, please call 01304 448888 (high phone charges will not apply) to make your booking and you will not be charged the £5 telephone booking fee.
You should book at least 24 hours in advance so as to take advantage of this P&O offer. We hope you find this helpful.
In case you didn't know it already, we should point out that Tesco clubcard points can be exchanged for Eurotunnel tickets, although it may not be possible to use these in conjunction with any other Offer. back to top
Boursot's Hotel Offers
here.
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. You will also now find a list of similar places close to our Marquise store.
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 certain days over the Christmas period).
We are very fortunate to be in an area with many good eating establishments at all different price levels, so do ask us if you would like a recommendation.
We are pleased to bring you a new partnership with the Michelin starred Hôtel La Matelote opposite Nausicaa on the sea front in Boulogne sur Mer where as well as its great position, the food is of notably high quality. The hotel also has a swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna and hammam. The Offer comprises dinner for 2 (the Saveurs de la Mer menu) and a night in a "Superior" double room with 2 breakfasts. From Monday to Friday, the all-in price of dinner, bed and breakfast for two at 230€ (instead of their normal 283€) or on Saturdays and Bank Holidays at 310€ (instead of their normal 330€).
Also, if you are a "foodie" you should enjoy our Special Offer from the 4 star Hostellerie de 3 Mousquetaires which is just 30 minutes' south of Ardres on the outskirts of Aire sur la Lys. Here you will enjoy a cosy atmosphere and fine innovative cuisine as many of you have discovered already. Chef proprietor David Wojtkowiak worked at the Berkeley Hotel in London before setting up his own restaurants in northern France and so speaks good English. There is also a gymnasium.
This offer is available to you Mondays to Thursdays. Normally a room for two would cost from 115€, breakfast 15€ per person and dinner typically 45€ per person: total 235€. The offer to Boursot's Wine Collection customers is an all-in price of dinner, bed and breakfast for two at 192€. Dinner is a set option and we have heard many glowing reports from those of you who have taken up this Offer; we should point out however that if the selected choices for the dinner do not suit, you can ask for a change. When you book, you must mention Boursot's Wine Collection to get these special terms. You can call on +33 321 39 01 11 or there is a booking form on:-
www.hostelleriedes3mousquetaires.com/fr/reservations. php
Also, as a Boursot's Wine Collection customer, you have access to reduced rates at the 4 star Hôtel Château Tilques between here and Saint-Omer. The hotel has a swimming pool. Here they are giving you a special price on their superior "Luxe" room at 159€ per double or twin room (or 135€ per single room) any night of the week. While you may see a "special price" on their own or some other websites, that price excludes breakfast at 16€ per person whereas our Offer includes it.
When booking any of these Offers, please be sure to mention Boursot to get your special rates.
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Wine Related Giftware
We have a great range of gifts for wine lovers or for your own self-indulgence, accessible on this link.
For example, our own design of Cellar Books is proving popular for those who wish to keep a record of their purchases or cellar contents. These are practical as well as aesthetically pleasing. Unlike many other types of cellar book on the market, ours are loose leaf so that you can simply take out or re-file pages of wines that have been finished. Our books are also hand bound with marbled paper and are available in three different colours. A Boursot's Cellar Book makes a fantastic gift for any wine lover.
Our gifts are also available from Boursot's Wine Collection in Ardres, and there are some fun items such as USB flash drives in the form of corks, framed and unframed copies of our exclusive Nick Newman wine cartoons, wine map tea towels as well as our own design of silver tastevin cufflinks. We also have decanters, Screwpull wine accessories and many more items. There is a present for anyone who enjoys wine. back to top
Your Own Events in France
Regularly we are asked 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 etc.
When planning your event, typically we would discuss your desired objectives and work out everything from there. We can liaise on your behalf with local restaurants and if required, hotels.
We use restaurants in and around Ardres that can happily accommodate your needs and provide great quality food at a sensible price, while we can provide our wines at shop prices with no cost of "corkage" to you. Typically a four course lunch or dinner starts at 29€ all-inclusive and six wines work out at 8€ per person.
Depending on whether you should like it, 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.
"Many thanks for arranging our recent visit to Ardres. Everyone enjoyed themselves so much they want to come again." CW, Fetcham U3A.
You can also enjoy tastings, presentations or general events in the vaulted cellars under our shop. If you should be interested in holding a tasting or other event for up to 35 people in our cellars, do say and we will be pleased to discuss your requirements and reserve the space for you.
Additionally we have been pleased to incorporate some accompanied vineyard visits for some groups as part of their overall trip to France. Typically a visit to Champagne going behind the scenes and meeting the producers involving two nights, two dinners, two lunches and all visits starts at around £380 per person. So do ask us if a visit to a French vineyard area could be of interest for your group.
And finally, as always 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 a lot of experience in this, and this is one reason, I imagine, why many clients ask me back to speak year after year.
Do please contact me on +33 321 36 81 46 or through my speaker website guy@boursot.com to explore all your options. back to top
Forthcoming Boursot Events
Boursot's dinners are held for its British customers and so of course are conducted in English. They usually feature a wine-related guest speaker, whether a winemaker, a vineyard proprietor or even a wine writer! We organise everything, starting with pointing you towards our advantageous crossing rates with P&O, through to a bubbly reception, followed by a four course dinner designed to accompany at least five more wines. Usually we can also arrange accommodation for you, so all you need do after dinner is totter upstairs (perhaps via the bar?)!
All in all, the Boursot events are designed to be friendly and enjoyable while offering unbeatable value. We take a private room where we normally restrict numbers to around 40, so as to retain a convivial atmosphere: great food, great wine and great company. Dress is not formal and we suggest that you dress as if you were going out to a smart restaurant - which we hope you will be! All you need to do is to come along and enjoy!
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. All our events are arranged to be enjoyable, interesting and of course, relaxed.
Boursot's Wine Collection is open on the Sunday mornings after a Saturday evening dinner.
Perhaps you have an anniversary to celebrate or you just want to get away for a quick change of scenery? You are of course most welcome to bring some friends to make up a small group (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. These are likely to be popular events so we recommend booking early.
Saturday 17th October: "The Highs and Lows of winning Best Wine of the World" by Frantz Venès of Château Massamier la Mignarde at Hotel Les Trois Mousquetaires
Frantz Vènes is the owner of Château Massamier la Mignarde and we had told him that his topic was to be "The Grands Crus of the Minervois". However we will be asking him to widen his topic to talk about the highs and lows of having one of his wines elected the International Wine Challenge's Best Wine of the World in his category. Frantz is a most engaging character and we know that he will entertain us with his various experiences.
The four course dinner will be provided by the ingenious David Wojtkowiak, chef patron of Les Saveurs du Parc at Les Trois Mousquetaires in Aire sur la Lys, and of course care will have been taken to provide a good marriage to the six Minervois wines on show which will course include the Domus Maximus, the wine that created such a whirlwind back in 2005 .
Tickets are 86€ per person to include four courses and six wines, and all entertainment. We have blocked off a number of rooms at the hotel so please do say if you would like us to let you have a room from our allocation.
Saturday 14th November: "A château owner's view of the Bordeaux market" with Pierre Brousse of Château Kirwan, 3ème cru Margaux at Hotel Château Tilques
Some of you may recall the highly enjoyable evening hosted three years ago by Pierre Brousse of the highly reputed Château Kirwan, 3ème cru Margaux. He provided some magnificent older vintages of Château Kirwan.
The Bordeaux market over-inflated with its 2010 harvest but since then, prices have been more restrained. Château Latour has opted not to take part in the annual "en primeur" merry-go-round and there are rumblings of other châteaux following suit. Are some of Bordeaux's traditions finally being broken and what can the world's customers expect for the future?
Tickets are 89€ per person to include four courses and six wines, and all entertainment. We have blocked off a number of rooms at the hotel so please do say if you would like us to let you have a room from our allocation. The hotel has an indoor swimming pool that you might wish to take advantage of during your stay.
Sunday 6th December: Ardres Christmas Market Lunch at the Restaurant François Premier, Ardres
So easily accessible from Britain, the town of Ardres always injects some fun and colour into an otherwise grey time of the year.
As last year, the annual Turkey Festival held about 20 minutes away in Licques, will NOT be happening on the same day but on the following Sunday. So, in place of that entertainment, we will have wines available to taste in the cellars under our Ardres shop from 10.30 on the morning of Sunday 6th, and then we will go across to lunch at 12.30 at the François Premier which hardly needs any introduction, being one of the finest restaurants of this area. Being situated on Ardres' main cobbled square, you will be in front of much of the afternoon's action, so you may be able to watch some of it from the warmth of the restaurant!
The informal three course lunch will be preceded by a bubbly reception and then accompanied by a further five Boursot wines, and everything costs just 62€ (around £43 at today's rate). I will tell you about the backgrounds of the wines being served.
We suggest you "do" the Ardres Christmas Market after lunch by which time everyone's spirits will have been warmed up! Père Noel is normally found to be abseiling down the outside of the church at around 6pm, throwing goodies to many of the local children gathered below! back to top
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.
Recently you may have heard much about the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. As do so many others, I have forebears who fought on each side!
My own great-great-great grandfather, Claude Boursot [1769-1846] first met Napoléon Bonaparte when they attended officer training school together at Auxonne and they became firm friends and colleagues. Knowing that Claude Boursot was from a vine growing family in Chambolle-Musigny in Burgundy and that he knew something about wine, Napoléon appointed Claude to be in charge of procuring the Emperor's vinous needs wherever he went on campaign.
Until relatively recent times, a good amount of wine was consumed by all ranks and it was felt that an army could not function effectively without a ready supply of decent wine. Indeed, there was a view that the French only lost Waterloo because the Belgians did not have any good wine, so the local beer had to be consumed! The logistics of organising convoys transporting precious liquid were complicated in having to go as far afield as Italy and Russia to name but two of Napoléon's more famous skirmishes.
Napoléon is of course reputed to have had a special affinity to champagne and it was for this reason that Claude Boursot was despatched to find the emperor's drink, and eventually he forged a solid relationship with the Perrier family of Champagne Perrier-Jouët in Epernay, something that then lasted with the Boursot family for 130 years.
See the transcript of Rodney Gilbert's remarkable lecture on www.boursot.co.uk/boursot_history.html in which he gives not only many interesting facts about the family, but with his remarkable access to archives all over the world and painstaking research, he paints a very interesting social history scene of the day.
Incidentally the French cavalry officer Claude Boursot would have been instrumental in inventing "sabrage", the spectacular art of opening a bottle of champagne with a sword, so that whenever I am asked to demonstrate or teach this, I feel a certain pride that it was my own great-great-great grandfather who was among those who designed this alternative and original method of opening a champagne bottle.
It was good to see a recent clarification of France's controversial Loi Evin (Evin Law) which for so long has been open to interpretation as to what it should and should not cover in the world of wine in France. For instance there has been for some time a fear among some wine writers in France that they could not write about wine for fear of being prosecuted for "encouraging" the consumption of alcohol. This French acquiescence to lobby groups always seemed bizarre to me in a country where wine is the second largest contributor to the French Exchequer after the aerospace industry. One positive note that can be said about President Hollande is that he seems to be more pro the wine business than his two predecessors.
There is much proposed economic reform from Hollande's new team of Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Finance Minister Emmanuel Macron who were brought in to revitalise an otherwise lacklustre administration. Various institutions, which have remained untouched since being set up by Napoléon in the 19th century, are being modernised so as to be more relevant in the 21st century. The new proposals, under the heading of the Loi Macron, are being heavily criticised as they touch certain interest groups such as those in medicine, the legal profession, tax authorities, who are now finding that their once precious way of life is being opened up to inspection and being changed where necessary. It's a thankless task but it seems to me an important process that should ultimately do France a lot of good on the international stage. There have even been tortuous discussions regarding Sunday opening (why can't they sort out Monday opening first?!) and making the employment conditions more flexible. Some complain that the sum of these reforms could take the country from being too inflexible to being too loose, and people are not unsurprisingly worried about their own livelihoods in what has been a protected environment.
The conglomerate Diageo has recently sold off Gleneagles, the hotel and leisure complex in Scotland, and is now thought to be thinking of selling off some of its wine brands, as these represent only 4% of the group's overall sales. Brand names that spring to mind are Piat d'Or, Blossom Hill, Sterling Vineyards, Beaulieu Vineyard and the wine merchant Justerini & Brooks. The company also has lucrative distribution rights for such LVMH brands as Moët & Chandon and its Dom Pérignon, but it would be surprising to me if these were to be relinquished.
As part of Australia's drive to improve its image and thereby attain better retail prices and net margins, the national trade body Wine Australia is about to invest AUS $35m in a huge marketing campaign for the coming five years. This is to be achieved by subscriptions from grape growers in tandem with financial contributions from national government. The campaign is planned to emphasise the huge variety of vineyard terroirs available, each with its own distinctive resulting flavour, across the country as well as to support and encourage those wine producers who are focussed on quality.
This move follows a period in which some of Australia's larger producers have pulled back from or out of discounting markets such as the UK as they were simply not making money. For a country that so successfully promoted its image and popularity back in the 1970s and 1980s, it has been a shame that Australia has not been able to profit more, especially on the export front where its margins achieved have not matched those of its global competitors.
While talking about discounting, I was interested to hear that, following a "super-complaint" to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority and its own subsequent research within the market, the authority has criticised many supermarkets' trading practices, and in particular the strategies designed to obfuscate real values and prices of products. These practices are of course widespread and have to an extent been accepted passively over a long time but at last it seems that devious practices need to be outlawed.
The CMA's words have been expressed delicately, owing to the sheer size and importance of the supermarket sector within the UK economy.
The last "super-complaints" involved banks' card charges and on a previous occasion the mis-selling of PPI. While of course there will be other new pricing ruses dreamt up, this should see a fundamental shake-up of promotional pricing. I would like to believe that the promotions will be more honest but we wait to see. I do not have a particular axe to grind, but I do recall the words by the head buyer of a major UK supermarket chain saying to me that he was not interested in quality, and was only interested in the amount of profit that he could make from listing my wines. His words, not mine.
Of course any business needs to make profit but few businesses have the luxury of guaranteed ongoing footfall and so other retailers have to try that much harder to get people to come back. We do not wish to play with our prices to offer so-called "deals" and I am grateful to many of you for telling us how you are so happy with our straightforward pricing and real value. It's not difficult to understand!
Clearly the disparate problems at Calais have been affecting us but we can only be pleased to hear the recently announced news that the EU has just agreed a bundle of financing for the port of Calais to the tune of 270m€ which will contribute towards the total anticipated cost of 800m€. As mainland Europe's busiest passenger port, 10.4m passengers passed through Calais in 2013 while also handling 140bn€ of freight trade. Work on the port will start soon and should be completed in 2018. A little more light at the end of the proverbial tunnel?
Few growers around France have been complaining about the ripening conditions for their grapes this year. During the last nine months, there was no great winter cold which, in ideal conditions, vines tend to like so as to "rest"; spring was good without frost damage and summer has had a gradual build-up to the present prolonged heat, which may result in an early harvest during the latter part of August or first week of September - reminiscent of 2003. And across France so far there has been little or no damage from hail, the prime enemy at this time of the year. Storms are frequently forecast but so far….
The only problems I have heard of from our neighbours in Burgundy has been of oïdium (powdery mildew which can develop into a mushroom growth) caused by extremes - dampness or cold followed by great heat - and so there is some spraying in the vines especially in the Côte de Nuits. The problem is being contained.
You may have heard that Champagne and Burgundy have been awarded UNESCO world heritage status. I was fortunate enough to attend the press conference last week at Château de Meursault in celebration of this award to the Climats of Bourgogne. There was much congratulatory back slapping, especially for Aubert de Villaine, head of Burgundy's most exclusive estate, Domaine de la Romanée Conti, who has worked so hard over many years for the area's recognition. What does this mean to wine consumers? Not much, but I expect that tourism here and in Champagne will increase and wine prices could harden a little, for a while at least. back to top
Wine Tourism
Whilst much of Europe has been relatively slow to catch on, nowadays France's vineyard areas in particular have really embraced wine tourism. You just have to visit Epernay, Beaune or Bordeaux to appreciate how wine tourism has been accepted and developed and whilst you can try dropping in on whoever might see you, increasingly many top domaines will only see you as part of an officially recognised group. In addition, many of the large producers have managed to dumb down their tours for visitors with absolutely no wine knowledge to such an extent that you would probably feel disappointed if you know anything about wine, as clearly you do. It is increasingly clear that you need a specialist to get you behind the doors that are closed to everyone else.
Having visited the quality vineyards over many years, I set up Over The Top Tours Ltd 12 years ago to share my experiences with groups of interested customers. So if you should like to visit one of France's viticultural areas, have a look at www.overthetoptours.net - you will be taken behind the scenes in many of the great vineyard areas where you will meet and often dine with some of the producers. Alsace, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, Languedoc, Loire, Rhône and the South West are all areas that we visit and where we have great contacts who are happy to greet and inform you, as well as invite you to taste a wide selection of their wines.
Fine dining is also included as it goes hand in hand with good wine!
We tailor private tours specifically to your preferences, so if you have a group of friends or colleagues whom you would like to get together on a vineyard tour, please do contact me through info@overthetoptours.net and we can start working out a schedule and budget. Do remember however that weekends, and especially Sundays, are often not good times for visits, as so many vineyards are small hands-on enterprises and do not employ teams of PR personnel to show you around!
Ideal sized groups are between 12 and 26 adults and typically two nights away with all meals and visits start at around £370. We plan the trip with you and make the bookings for you, so all you need do is to come along and enjoy a thoroughly memorable trip.
As you will see from our website, we also organise battlefield tours around northern France.
A couple of testimonials:
"People are still talking about the wine trip. Those that went have had great fun telling those that didn't just what they missed. The 49 wines tasted have somehow become 100 and the light lunches and dinners magnified out of all proportion. We must think about the next place to take them another year." JM - May 2012
Our group of eight recently spent three days in Burgundy with the hope of trying to broaden our understanding of the wines and the region. Having used guides before we had found that guides can be overly technical and insist on telling you what they know rather than what you are interested in. Through Over The Top Tours we struck 'gold' and found their guide Ursula and in doing so found someone who really knows their subject matter but also someone who was all about making sure we enjoyed ourselves during the process as well which given our diverse group was not easy. It's fair to say that Ursula made our trip to Burgundy and we would all unreservedly recommend her and Over The Top Tours to anyone thinking of visiting Burgundy. ND - September 2013 back to top
TripAdvisor, and E-mail
In case you thought that TripAdvisor was only for hotels and restaurants, think again! It has "Things to do" and "Attractions" sections so if you are particularly happy with what we do, please help us by telling others - by posting your comments on TripAdvisor. This link will take you directly to our page. Your positive input will be most gratefully received. In most cases, one does not know who the contributors are because they use a pen name, but to those 52 people who have already put up favourable reviews, thank you very much. It all helps.
Hotmail.com and aol.com have particularly vicious spam filters which reject many mailshots, even though you might have requested to be mailed. So if you know of another Boursot customer who is not receiving our monthly e-mails, please ask him or her to check with us - perhaps it's because of these filters that they are not receiving our mailings, but we can also check the address that we have on file. Also, if you are about to change your e-mail provider, please don't forget to advise us of your new address so we can update your records. back to top
Holidays
In case you should be travelling to France and wish to have some good wines available for you to enjoy while you are away, you can have your requirements delivered to your French address by going to our French e-commerce website www.boursot. fr. You will see the English language option available and the process should be self-explanatory but do call or e-mail us if you need help.
If you are returning from a holiday, Boursot's Wine Collection Ardres is situated just 7 minutes off Junction 2 of the north-south motorway, the A26. Then from Ardres to the port or the tunnel in Calais takes 15 minutes. Boursot's Wine Collection Marquise is sited just 2 minutes off the A16 between Boulogne and Calais and going on to the tunnel will then take you 15 minutes.
Boursot's Wine Collection does not close for holidays and is open as usual every day except Sundays. The Ardres shop is also open every Bank Holiday - French or British (with the exception of a few days around Christmas). back to top
Boursot's Wine List
You can always see Boursot's latest list on this link and if you would like to print it, it's available on this link.The list is updated monthly but 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 page.
If there is something 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.
We also have a range of unusual sized bottles in wooden boxes, making smart gifts. For example, we have magnums, jeroboams (double magnums) and imperials (quadruple magnums) of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Minervois, many of which are in wooden boxes at very sensible prices. As with our wine-related accessories, these make impressive and unusual gifts. back to top
In Conclusion
www.boursot.co.uk.
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, has been growing and is finding a wider audience with each passing month. Thank you.
We do not advertise and it is unlikely that you will read a review on us in the British media. 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, or you could refer your friends to our "Receive Monthly Newsletter" button on the home page of www.boursot.co.uk. And mention us on TripAdvisor. 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.
If by chance you are worried about the status of the port or the tunnel, call or e-mail us and (without guarantee!) we can pass on any current news. As I said earlier, it seems currently that Monday is the day of the week that is most likely to be clear for travel but having said that, one can never tell. For us, we are very much looking forward to business as normal.
Jean-Bertrand, Antoine, Bruno and I hope to see you in Ardres or Marquise again very soon, whether it's for our delicious and easy to enjoy Petit Pont Réserve wines at around £2.80 a bottle or whether it's for something more exclusive for your special dinner parties. We have them all.
If you should wish to come off our mailing list, please >click here back to top
A très bientôt!
With all best wishes
Guy
Guy Boursot
Wine Consultants SARL |
