Newsletters
 March, 2014
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Bonjour
The main headings in this newsletter are shown below.
General
At the moment the euro rate is bobbing around 1.22 to the pound.
In case you didn't know it already, before VAT the UK duty is £2.00 per bottle of still wine and £2.56 on each bottle of sparkling wine. Add 20% VAT to both the duty and to the value of the wine and you have ... a very unhappy situation for UK wine drinkers. With the average sale price of a bottle of wine in the UK now being £5.03, this means that around 60% of the cost of that bottle is now consumed in tax.
The UK Budget comes up of course on the 19th March and assuming that the normal duty escalator is still left in position, the announcement will be "no change", although what that means in reality, is that the UK duty will increase again by inflation + 2%.
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 £0.03 per bottle! You get a lot more wine for your money in France.
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.
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".
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 3,40€ (around £2.80) 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.
We host a number of high quality wine dinners at some top local restaurants – and we have some especially entertaining ones coming up over the coming months. You should come, so please see below for details.
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Boursot's Reduced Cross Channel Fares
We have arranged for you as a Boursot customer further reduced fares with P&O until the 31st March 2015. For a day trip or overnight trip (meaning returning before midnight the following day), your return fare will be just £22. There is normally a small supplement of between £3 and £5 for travelling on a Saturday.
The Afternoon Return Fare is £17, except between April and October when the price is £19. This means 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 a car and up to 4 passengers and can be accessed through this link or on the Offers page of our website. 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.
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.
You may have seen that Eurotunnel has bought part of the old SeaFrance fleet, which has been smartened up and is being leased to a workers' group based in Calais. Having travelled on this line recently, I was struck by the improvement in quality of service over the old SeaFrance operation. Myferrylink.com is the name of the new company and you can now find some attractive prices with them. You get no prizes for guessing their web address!
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Boursot's Hotel 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 - or directly here. 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 and over the Christmas period).
We are very fortunate to be in an area with several good eating establishments at all different price levels, so do ask us if you would like a recommendation.
If you are a "foodie " we are pleased to bring you 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 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.
This offer is available to you during the week but not at weekends. 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 95€ per person. Dinner is a set option and we have heard glowing reports from those of you who have taken up this Offer. 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. 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 and some other websites, that price excludes breakfast at 16€ per person whereas our Offer includes it.
When booking, please mention Boursot to get your special rates.
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New in at our UK online boutique are some Cellar Books that we have had specially crafted for us. Made in Britain, these are unlike anything else on the market, being practical as well as aesthetically pleasing. They are loose leaf, hand bound with marble paper and are available in 3 different colours.
Click on the Cellar Book underlined link above to view more information.
Our full selection of items is available in the Ardres shop, including wine-related gifts such as USB flash drives disguised as corks, framed copies of our exclusive Nick Newman wine cartoons, wine map tea towels, silver tastevin cufflinks, decanters, Screwpull wine accessories and many more.
Do also take a look at the G&V Blog, which includes articles about wine, recipes using wine and product information. Please feel free to add your comments and suggestions, as we welcome interaction.
New items appear regularly so do please keep coming back or sign up via this page to receive direct updates via ezine or Twitter.
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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, when planning your event, we would discuss your desired objectives and work backwards 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 good 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 works out at 27€ all-inclusive and six wines work out at 8€ per person.
Depending on whether you would 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 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.
"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 our recently restored vaulted cellars under our shop. If you should be interested in holding a tasting or other event for up to 35 people in the cellars, please say and we will be happy to reserve the space for you.
Additionally we have been pleased to incorporate some vineyard visits for some groups as part of their overall trip. 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 £350 per person. So do ask us if a visit to a vineyard area could be of interest for your group.
And finally, I am of course happy to travel to you to present wine related events to your groups or dinners, or simply to be your after-dinner speaker with a difference! I have a lot of experience in this, and is one reason, I imagine, why many clients continue to ask me back year after year.
Do please contact me by phone or through my speaker website guy@boursot.com to explore your options.
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Forthcoming Boursot Events
Boursot's dinners are held for our British customers and so are of course always conducted in English. Pretty much everything is taken care of, starting with our specially arranged crossing prices with P&O, through to a bubbly reception, followed by a four course dinner designed to go well with five more wines. Generally, we have also arranged accommodation for you at advantageous rates, so that all you need do after dinner is totter upstairs (perhaps via the bar?)!
Boursot's Wine Collection is open on the Sunday mornings after a Saturday evening dinner and an exceptional 5% discount is then available on purchases of the wines that were served at the dinner.
All in all, the Boursot events are designed to be highly enjoyable while offering phenomenal value. We take a private room where we normally restrict numbers to around 40, so as to retain a friendly atmosphere. Great food, great wine and great company. All you need to do is to come along and enjoy!
Vegetarian and alternative food options can be provided, as long as we receive ample 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 planned to be enjoyable, interesting and unstuffy.
Perhaps you have an anniversary to celebrate or you just want to get away for a quick change of scenery? As many of you have testified already, we make it easy for you to get away for a weekend with a difference. And of course, you are most welcome to bring some friends.
Please contact us on ardres@boursot.co.uk or on +33 321 36 81 46 to book for any of our events below.
Saturday 26th April: Meursault & Montrachet Dinner with Philippe Bouzereau at Hôtel La Matelote, Boulogne-sur-Mer
It seems only appropriate that we have the finest wines with the excellent food produced by the Michelin rated La Matelote on the sea front in Boulogne.
Philippe Bouzereau is one of the great winemaker names in the village of Meursault and he is in an excellent position to tell us how the Burgundian market is faring after two consecutive small harvests. He made wine in Australia in his formative years, so we can look forward to an interesting talk (in "English"!) from one of the bright stars of Meursault.
Based at Château de Citeaux in the centre of the village, he makes a full palette of red and white Côte de Beaune wines such as Auxey-Duresses, Beaune, Chassagne-Montrachet, Puligny-Montrachet, Corton, Pommard and of course Meursaults of several different quality levels. We will try and taste as many as is feasible over dinner!
There will be a white wine reception followed by at least 5 different Bouzereau wines and Philippe will explain a little about each wine as it is being served. Our dinner at the highly respected Hotel La Matelote will comprise an amuse bouche followed by a 4 course dinner. The ticket price is 89€ per person, all-inclusive.
We have blocked off a number of bedrooms (at 165€ per room) at the hotel with its pool and spa so please say if you would like to have a room from our reservation. We advise booking early as this event is expected to sell quickly.
Other events in the pipeline are as follows and we will let you know as more details become available:-
Saturday 31st May: Gourmet Dinner
Sunday 13th July: Mid-Summer Lunch
Saturday 27th September: Gourmet Dinner at Hotel Chateau Cléry, Hesdin l'Abbé
Saturday 18th October: Gourmet Dinner at Hotel Atlantic, Wimereux
Saturday 15th November: Gourmet Dinner at Hôtel Château Tilques, Saint-Omer
Sunday 7th December: Ardres Christmas Market Lunch
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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. Normally a collection of my latest thoughts appears here but this month I have strayed down a more historic route!
In 2013 Europe suffered from a "false" Spring, then a lack of warmth and dampness, all of which led to a very low yielding harvest. Australian yields in their current 2014 harvest are also expected to be reduced, owing to early frost damage, some vine disease and, yes, extreme heat! However with a backdrop of continued falling exports and some residue of oversupply, 2014 could prove usefully corrective to the Australian wine market. It looks as if Margaret River in western Australia might have one of its best ever harvests, especially for its white wines.
Price increases from European suppliers are seeping through now, as continuing demand from around the world is fast eroding stocks in some of the classic areas. These prices are of course unlikely to come down again, even if there should be bumper harvests in the coming years. I believe that these increases will combine with the forthcoming Budget tax increases to provide quite a nasty hike in wine prices in Britain during 2014. It (almost!) goes without saying that by shopping in Ardres, you will not be paying any of the UK tax which pre-Budget, stands at £2 per bottle before VAT.
Many growers are concerned about the lack of winter this year, preferring to have had a cold spell so as to rest the vines and to kill many of the bugs in the soil. The likes of Philippe Bouzereau in Meursault (who is presenting our next wine dinner in April – see under dinners above) are concerned that there will be an early budding of the vines, which could then be damaged by frost before the end of April. This could create another diminished harvest – the third in a row, and without doubt this would wipe out several of the smaller and less financially established growers who had been hanging on in the hope of better fortunes.
As usual over the coming weeks I shall be visiting many of our suppliers, tasting their new crops and catching up on their own particular stories. I was intrigued recently to read some of my father's buying trip notes that he wrote in 1947. From these I could see that he, as would other wine shippers and merchants, travelled for a period of three months flying from Northolt to Bordeaux, later driving on to Cognac, to Burgundy, to Chablis, to Champagne, back to Bordeaux and home eventually via Paris. How very different it all was to today, when buyers whistle in and out visiting three or, perhaps at a stretch, four vineyards per day.
Mind you, judging by his notes my father was visiting every top name property - Lafite, Mouton, Latour, Ausone, Petrus, Yquem et al so lunches, receptions and dinners were an obligatory part of the day's agenda. It must have been tough! As an aside here, years ago I asked him about his daily routine when he ran A. Boursot & Co. which was situated opposite Christie's in King Street Saint James's. He said he always started early, at around 8am. The first customer would arrive at about 11.45 whereupon the first glass of champagne would be served. Then it was through to lunch, during which several fine Bordeaux and Burgundies would be served – and then at around 4pm, they were finished. I responded naively "Ah, so at least you got another couple more hours' work in" whereupon there was a retort of "Don't be silly, after all that entertaining, there was no chance of getting much more done. But at least we got three and a half hours of paperwork achieved in the morning!". How the wine business has changed.
It was my great, great, great grandfather Claude Boursot who was the first to leave the village of Chambolle-Musigny in Burgundy where the Boursots had been installed since the mid-sixteenth century. He went off to military training at Auxonne, where he became a close friend to one Napoléon Bonaparte and later Claude was given the onerous task of procuring his friend's wine requirements through his several military campaigns. Historically until the end of the First World War, there was always a tradition of feeding armies with wine and indeed I have heard the theory that Napoléon only lost the Battle of Waterloo because Belgium then only produced mediocre beer and not fine wine!
After Claude was injured in battle and was unable to mount his horse unassisted (!), he was retired from the army and Napoléon appointed him to the post of Sécretaire Archiviste of the most honourable port of Calais, where the population was French and English in equal measure. And it was Claude's son, Adolphe (it was a more popular name then!) who then followed up his father's contacts in Champagne to set up one of the first champagne importing agencies in Britain.
From around 1828, our family firm of A. Boursot & Co was the sole UK agent for champagne Perrier-Jouët, and from 1921 the liqueur Bénédictine D.O.M. Unfortunately the King Street offices took a direct hit from one of Herr Hitler's bombs in 1944 and so the firm had to merge with another like-minded agency, Brooks Bodle & Co, and from thereon it represented Calvet from Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône, and Williams & Humbert sherries among several others. In its day A. Boursot & Co was said to have been one of the longest established and most successful wine importing agencies in Britain.
The Boursot involvement with wine is both long and interesting and until relatively recently, I had not realised much of its significance. I had been sitting on several passed down documents but with the help of one of my cousins and the internet, we managed to examine and piece together various pieces of information and legend passed down through the generations. Do take a look at www.boursot.co.uk/boursot_history.html - it makes "an interesting read"!
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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 big producers have managed to dumb down their tours for tourists 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 some years ago to share my experiences with groups of interested customers. So if you should like to visit one of France's viticultural areas, go to our vineyard tours company www.overthetoptours.net - we will take you 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 specific 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 on 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 £350. We do all the planning and make the bookings so all you will 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
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TripAdvisor, Twitter and E-mail
In case you thought that TripAdvisor was only for hotels and restaurants, think again! It is also there for " Things to do" and for " Shopping" so if you are particularly happy with what we do, please help us by telling others and post 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 19 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 asked 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 e-mail provider, please don't forget to advise us of your new address, so we can update your records.
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Boursot's New 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, 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 sizes in wooden boxes, making smart gifts. For example, we have magnums, jeroboams (double magnums) and imperials (quadruple magnums) of Bordeaux, Champagne Rhône and Minervois, most of which are in wooden boxes at very sensible prices. As with our wine-related accessories, these make impressive and unusual gifts.
Here are the wines that are new or that have returned to our wine list this month. Of particular note to any Rhône aficionados among you are the super red and white wines from Tardieu Laurent which are extraordinarily hard to come by.
| Quincy, Domaine Mardon (Loire), 2013 | 9,60€ | £8.00 |
| "G" de Guiraud (Bordeaux), 2012 | 12,20€ | £10.00 |
| Coteaux du Layon, Cuvée Prestige, Sélection de Tri, Haute Pièce
| | Domaine Matignon (Loire), 2013 | 11,70€ | £9.60 |
| Rully, Les Villeranges, Domaine Faiveley (Burgundy), 2012 | 14,10€ | £11.60 |
| Saint-Péray, Vieilles Vignes, Tardieu Laurent (Rhône), 2012 | 17,90€ | £14.70 |
| Meursault-Genevrières, Premier Cru, Château de Citeaux (Burgundy), 2011 | 37.90€ | £31.10 |
| Château Fauré Beauséjour, Fronsac (Claret), 2009 | 7,50€ | £6.10 |
| Côtes du Rhône, Domaine Grand Nicolet (Rhône), 2012 | 7,90€ | £6.50 |
| Château La Vieille Forge, Lalande de Pomerol (Claret), 2009 | 11,20€ | £9.20 |
| Château Loudenne, Cru Bourgeois Médoc (Claret), 2009 | 16,40€ | £13.40 |
| Château Tauzinat l'Hermitage, Grand Cru Saint-Emilion (Claret), 2009 | 16,60€ | £13.60 |
| Chassagne-Montrachet, Château de Citeaux (Burgundy), 2011 | 18,50€ | £15.20 |
| Côte de Nuits Villages, Domaine Boursot Père et Fils (Burgundy), 2010 | 18,60€ | £15.20 |
| Pauillac de Grand-Puy-Ducasse (Claret), 2008 | 19,50€ | £16.00 |
| Cornas, Coteaux, Tardieu Laurent (Rhône), 2011 | 27,90€ | £22.90 |
| Larose de Gruaud, Saint-Julien (Claret), 2007 | 28,50€ | £23.40 |
| Domaine de Villeneuve, Les Vieilles Vignes,
| | BIO-DYNAMICChâteauneuf du Pape (Rhône), 2011 | 29,90€ | £24.50 |
| Chambolle-Musigny, Domaine Rémy Boursot (Burgundy), 2006 | 33,80€ | £27.70 |
| Côte Rôtie, Tardieu Laurent (Rhône), 2011 | 42,40€ | £34.80 |
| Nuits Saint-Georges, Hospices de Nuits, Cuvée des Sœurs Hospitalières,
| | Domaine Boursot Père & Fils (Burgundy), 2010 | 48,40€ | £39.70 |
| Le Syrah Rosé de Morin-Langaran (Languedoc), 2012 | 6,20€ | £5.10 |
| Billecart-Salmon, Brut Réserve Champagne | 30,50€ | £25.00 |
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In Conclusion
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 tweet about us - 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.
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.
If you are returning from a holiday, Boursot's Wine Collection is situated just off the old main north-south road (RN943) and 5 minutes north of Junction 2 of the A26. Then from Ardres to the port or the tunnel in Calais takes 15 minutes.
Once again, please let us know if you should like to visit outside our normal opening hours; with a little advance notice, often 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.
Jean-Bertrand, Antoine and I hope to see you here again very soon, whether it's for our delicious and easy to enjoy Petit Pont Réserve wines at just over £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
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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