Newsletters

March, 2008

Dear Customer,

We are pleased to be continuing our Special Offer on inexpensive ferry crossings starting at just £18 for a day return in your car. Longer trips still attract discounted prices but with all these Offers, you can only receive these by calling 0870 264 2644 and quoting our code "Boursot". Prices are of course per car and its passengers - no tricks!

The last of our Champagne Offers moves now to the fabulous Billecart-Salmon champagne, well known and respected by aficionados all over the world. It is a family-run House founded in 1818 in the village of Mareuil-sur-Ay, just outside Epernay. Their Rosé in particular is often described as one of the finest on the market, and all their wines have an elegance of style. Our price of the Billecart-Salmon Brut Réserve Blanc is just 26,40 euros, which is still an amazing price even if the pound against the euro is not quite what it was. Our Offer on three of Billecart's champagnes closes 31st March 2008 when prices will move to a higher level. As always, you can e-mail and reserve your orders now for collection at a later date.

You can see our March wine list on this link or you can print it from this link.

In the world of wine, increased oil prices are feeding through to the costs of raw materials, notably bottles and cartons, and these coupled with a less than easy 2007 harvest are producing worrying price increases in the European market.

Additionally, some of the Australian giants have continued to question the longer-term value of the discounting of their wines by the "multiple" retailers in the UK market, so you can expect to see less "Special Offers" on branded wines from Australia in particular. The European Commission has also for some time been talking about encouraging more responsible promotion and selling of all alcohol, so BOGOFs (buy one, get one free) and deep discounting may soon become a thing of the past on all wines, spirits and beers.

But all this appears to be small fry compared to the tax rises being warned of by the British Treasury. The government has been told, I understand, that any duty increase is going to have no impact on youth behaviour, but the view pervades that this is a tax increase that the government will find both quick and easy to implement and justify.

The current worry in the UK trade is of a duty increase of at least 25p on a bottle of wine in the forthcoming budget. We are currently seeing the usual pre-Budget leak and hype, which means that you are supposed to feel grateful when the increase turns out to be not as high as had been rumoured - but the resulting tax increase will still be several times the norm. Multiple retailers will not be complaining as they edge their prices and margins up to "convenient" price points - which will now start at £3.99.

Clearly we will not be complaining on this side of the channel, where you will save even more on your wine purchases and we will of course continue to arrange for you interesting meals and events as well as places for you to visit (see our website). Our prices start at just €2,30 which, even if the pound is temporarily weak, is still well under £2 per bottle. To quote a typical happy customer: "I told my friend that I have at last found somewhere with good wines and where I do not feel as if I am being ripped off. I also told him he should come here." (PA)

Many of you have enjoyed some spectacular meals at the François Premier restaurant in Ardres, generally acclaimed to be the best restaurant for many miles around. Within the restaurant they have now additionally introduced from MONDAY to SATURDAY a lunch menu under the banner "Le Petit François" for those who want just one course and to be in and out relatively quickly.

Our dinner at Le Relais on Saturday 23rd February was attended by 30 customers, and the general reaction was it was good fun and offered great value. Other plans for dinners have not been at all easy to finalise but I can say that we will be hosting dinners at both Le Channel in Calais and Le Cygne in Saint-Omer: both excellent restaurants where we have held dinners previously. I will be in touch just as soon as I have some more news.

Following the small harvest of 2007, Chablis prices have risen sharply. We are now adding a straight Chablis, a Premier Cru and a Pinot Noir from the renowned Simonnet-Fèbvre so as to offer you more good wines at sensible prices. Chablis is the one area where in my view "cheap" simply does not work - to attain supermarket price points, corners have frequently been cut on quality. We will continue to list the impressive Chablis Saint-Martin from Laroche, albeit at a higher price. To launch these three new excellent Simonnet-Fèbvre wines, we are offering you Special Prices until 31st March. These prices can be seen on this link.

With the current price increases of Champagne I have been looking at cheaper champagnes, which is never (believe me!) a pleasant task. Wine Consultants are really pleased to have reached an exclusive arrangement with Champagne Pannier for our region, and have bought forward on a large amount of this excellent champagne and whilst stocks last, can sell it to you at just €16,20 (around £11.00). The wine is elegant and has a slight biscuity / toasty flavour that so many of the best champagnes have - perfect for large parties, this has an obvious taste of real quality. It will be priced under our delicious and hard to beat Grand Cru Saint-Réol champagne which continues to be so popular with our customers.

My colleague George Adams has now launched his website www.blakeneys.com which focuses on quality wines, whether from Argentina, Australia, Chile, the Languedoc or Spain among many other areas. If you prefer to look at his excellent selection as a list, you can follow this link. One particular white wine that struck us both in a recent tasting is a white Loire wine called Sacré Blanc (at 8,50 euros) from Mourat in the Vendée area who were responsible for providing Boursot's Wine Collection with the excellent Château Marie du Fou last year. The wine is light, deliciously fragrant and dry.

On a practical note, as of today, our Tiscali e-mail address wine.consultants@tiscali.fr has changed to wine.consultants@aliceadsl.fr. I suggest changing your address book to use our other address ardres@boursot.co.uk.

If you are new to us and wish to see other recent newsletters, you can click this link. However, many of the Offers you receive are restricted to you as an existing client and so to gain access, your User Name is Boursot and your Password is VIP.

That's about it for the moment. I want to get these offers out to you as soon as possible.

With 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