Newsletters
 September, 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
In case you should ever wonder, before VAT the UK duty currently stands at £1.81 per bottle of still wine and £2.32 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 being £4.55, this means that just over 56% of the cost of that bottle is now consumed in tax.
Thanks to the automatic duty escalator, this will rise by inflation plus 2% from 1st January.
You may have read recently that the French government has raised duties and taxes in order to better balance its budgets. There has been no increase in the negligible rate of duty on wine, thanks to the country being a major supplier of wine both on the domestic and export markets. So, wine tax still remains at an almost non-existent rate of about 1.5 pence per bottle!
Many of you say the same thing but one happy customer said to me 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 will see some net price comparisons between our wines and their net prices charged in the UK. You get a good selection of French wines here in Ardres with some huge savings.
You can rest assured that all the wines on the Boursot list, starting at just 2,90€ (around £2.50) 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.
With both numbers of customers and our sales volume increasing, these are very happy times for us in Ardres.
If you should like to come outside our normal opening hours, do please call or e-mail us. 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 just £35 (£40 for Saturdays) as a Boursot customer.
SeaFrance's special rates are available to you all through the year, including during busy holiday periods. When others are wanting to charge you in excess of £100 for a day trip, SeaFrance will charge you just £25.
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
Following recent press articles, inevitably there has been a certain amount of speculation about SeaFrance. However the facts are:-
SeaFrance remains in a period of safeguard, under the protection of the commercial court in Paris, and can do so until 28th October 2011. The appointed representatives of the commercial court are reviewing the options for the business, with a view to preserving the greatest number of jobs on a long-term basis.
The company has submitted a business plan to the competition authorities in Brussels and has now presented it also to the council of staff representatives and the trade unions.
At the same time, the administrators requested offers for the assets and activities of SeaFrance and a joint offer was submitted by DFDS Seaways and Louis Dreyfus Armateurs. This proposed acquiring a substantial proportion of the SeaFrance business but as it was a conditional bid, it is not receivable in its current form.
The SeaFrance plan remains superior to any other proposed offers and it is hoped that the necessary approvals will be achieved by the end of October. In the meantime, SeaFrance services continue to run normally and it's business as usual.
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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!
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 and over Christmas).
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Boursot's New UK Venture: Grapes & Vines Gift Designs
Our new online wine gift boutique, Grapes & Vines Gift Designs, based in the UK, is now up and running. The selection of items - from USB sticks disguised as corks, to our exclusive Nick Newman wine cartoons, wine soaps, wine map tea towels, glassware, wine books - in fact almost anything to do with wine – is growing by the moment. You can order these online and the items will be delivered to you at home within a few days.
Several of these items, which make ideal gifts, at our online store have been specifically designed and made for us. There are many more to appear yet, so do please keep looking!
Sign up here for the ezine, to read the blog or to sign up for tweets to learn of new items added.
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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: A Visit to, and Tasting at, a Local Microbrewery
plus Dinner at the Restaurant de la Plage, Boulogne: "39 Not Out" presented by Guy Boursot
On that Saturday afternoon we have teamed up with local brewer, Christophe Noyon, whose highly respected Deux Caps microbrewery is situated at Tardinghen halfway between Cap Blanc Nez and Cap Gris Nez: http://www.2caps.fr/en.html. Christophe is all set to take you behind the scenes at his brewery where you can taste his acclaimed range of six beers (which he even exports to England!) with a selection of local cheeses. He will explain the intricacies of his brewing processes.
You may recall that when Oz Clarke came to Boursot's Wine Collection a couple of years ago, he then went on to visit Christophe Noyon's brewery. You can see the video clip of Oz's wine and beer day here.
That evening, the Restaurant de la Plage on the sea front in Boulogne as one of the best restaurants of the area, will play host to a very special dinner. With luck we'll have fine weather and so, enjoy the sunset over the sea, whilst having some good wines to accompany the restaurant's excellent cuisine.
Apart from introducing the wines, I shall tonight be talking about the many changes in the world of wine 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. How, for example, back in 1972 the word Burgundy counted more than Chardonnay – very few people knew the word "Chardonnay"? I will also talk about the mid-1970s rise of the "New World"; the transformation in the style of red Burgundy; the ascendance of the science of winemaking over the art of winemaking; the demise of the UK's retail wine chains; the impact of the media and the internet and where all this might lead us all over the next five years.
This should be a fascinating and entertaining evening accompanied by four courses of excellent cuisine, six wonderful wines - and all this for the price of just 78€ per head (about £69 at today's rate).
Hotel accommodation is readily available within easy walking distance and as always we will be very happy to help arrange this for you.
Saturday 15th October: Boursot's Anniversary Weekend
Our Anniversary event this year will be even more of a food and wine extravaganza! On the Saturday afternoon in the Ardres shop, we will be hosting an informal wine tasting of several of our new discoveries. There will also be a Cheese and Chocolate Tasting in our underground vaulted cellar ... and as if that were not enough, we have arranged a visit to Ardres' best Boulangerie where the owners will explain and demonstrate how their various different breads are made. All these activities will be free of charge to you as a Boursot's Wine Collection customer.
Then, to Wimereux...
Anniversary Dinner at the Hotel Atlantic, Wimereux
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.
There are a few places remaining for this dinner. We have now used up our full allocation of rooms at the Atlantic for the Saturday night 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.
I am delighted that journalist and broadcaster Simon Hoggart 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.
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 19th November: Dinner at Château Tilques: "Riesling and Gewürztraminer – the greatest grape varieties in the world?" Presented by Nicolas Faller from Ribeauvillé.
Many people enthuse wildly about Riesling; many people also go into raptures about Alsace wines. We would have loved to have had an evening exclusively of Riesling but that might have gone too far! So for the purposes of the dinner, we have also introduced Gewurztraminer and for our red wine, the Pinot Noir. All these will be from the family house of Robert Faller & Fils in the picturesque town of Ribeauvillé. And who better to introduce his wines and talk about the current developments than Monsieur Faller himself?
The name of Faller is legendary among quality wine producers 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 many valuable hectares of Grand Cru vineyards dotted around Ribeauvillé, growing all the main grapes but arguably working best with Riesling and Gewürztraminer.
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.
As usual, 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 with breakfasts included.
Four courses and at least 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 perhaps the fun highlight of the year and this year we are dining at the Restaurant La Griotte on the green in Ardres where the owner Madame Dacheville cooks very good, honest and uncomplicated food. This lunch comprising four courses and six wines at 55€ per person all-inclusive is now officially sold out but in case of cancellations, we are starting a waiting list.
However, you can still come for a day of pre-Christmas fun.
From 10am that day, the annual Turkey Festival will be held about 20 minutes away in Licques, a village famed for its outdoor reared chickens and turkeys. Here, a flock of local turkeys is "shepherded" up the main street. Dotted along the route you can enjoy stew served from a huge steaming cauldron, eat roasted meat from street barbecues and you can even try out "Licquoise", a fiery local liqueur that will help to keep you warm. All for free. There are musicians and confrères and there is also a simple Christmas Market brimming with local produce. It is all typically "local French".
Then I suggest come and have lunch in Ardres and then "do" its Christmas Market in the afternoon, by which time everyone's spirits and the general atmosphere will have warmed up! Père Noël (Father Christmas, not the local priest!) is normally to be found abseiling down the church spire at around 6pm throwing goodies to all the children assembled below.
This 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.
Saturday 28th January: Boursot's "Blues Buster" Gourmet Dinner: Venue to be arranged
January is when most of us need a bit of cheering up. So, on the weekend of the 28th we will be hosting a thoroughly relaxing and enjoyable evening in the cosy surroundings of the newly purchased Three Musketeers at Aire sur la Lys. This hotel is now back on top form; we have hosted a couple of dinners here ourselves or for other groups and have been excited by the quality of cuisine from David Wojtkowiak who, among other accolades used to chef at the (new) Berkeley hotel in London – a fine reference indeed!
We have a selection of exciting speakers, including a champagne grower, a wine book publisher and a highly rated wine writer, lined up for the early months of 2012 but we are awaiting their confirmation of dates, so the theme for this and other 2012 dinners will be announced shortly. However if you wish, we are happy to take bookings now for our January dinner.
Saturday 24th March: Hotel Château Tilques, Saint-Omer
The theme and speaker for this dinner will be announced shortly.
Saturday 29th April: Hotel Atlantic, Wimereux
The theme and speaker for this dinner will be announced shortly.
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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.
Harvesting started early around France this year and as I said last month, such early timing compares with the very hot year of 2003. Champagne, the Rhone, Languedoc, Bordeaux, the Loire: almost everyone started picking from the middle of August – indeed many of them have now finished. Although it is really too early to say, it seems to me that 2011 may well turn out to be a winemaker's vintage. In other words nature did not provide enough and human hands will be needed to produce decent wines, also meaning that those who cannot afford such technical expertise will suffer.
In Burgundy, 2012 is expected to be a good but not a "great" year. Quantity is reported as being 20% down on normal, owing to rot on grapes as a result of the wet weather in mid-summer. There is also talk among vignerons of "weak" wines in 2011 and a possible need to chaptalise (add sugar).
In Champagne, the Chardonnay has done well, whilst the two black grapes, the Pinot Noir and the Pinot Meunier, have suffered as a result of the dreary summer months. This may also impact badly on supplies of red wine for the production of rosé champagne, demand for which has been rising over recent years.
Loire – rain across the region in mid-August has resulted in plenty of problems. Relative to other parts of France, the harvest has started late in Sancerre and Pouilly, where Pouilly Fumé is produced.
However in the warmer south, the Languedoc and the Rhône, there are happier reports emerging of good quality and good quantity. There have been near perfect conditions for them with decent rainfall to top up their water tables. In the Languedoc, I had heard that drip irrigation was being considered officially as a means to save the vineyards of the area, but for the moment that plan is on hold. Around 4% of the Languedoc-Roussillon's vineyard area vineyard area had been grubbed up, but despite this, this year's crop is expected to yield 13 million hectolitres, an increase of 1 million hectolitres.
Bordeaux is virtually silent (so far) on the potential quality of its 2011! After 2010 and 2009 being "great" years, could 2011 really be another vintage of the century? The short answer is no. There was hail damage a couple of weeks ago in several localised parts of the Bordeaux appellation, such as the northern Médoc and Entre Deux Mers in particular. This has damaged some grape crops and with an uncertain weather pattern emerging, some château proprietors decided to bring forward their picking dates to avoid further risk of damage. But in general the harvest of Bordeaux 2011 has got into full swing this week.
The point is that in these days of global warming and improved technology, it is increasingly difficult to make poor quality wine. "Investment Grade Wine" is a new term that has crept into wine parlance, especially in Far Eastern markets: red Bordeaux from 2000, 2005, 2009 and 2010 fit into this category. But other years produce perfectly respectable wines that can be enjoyed without the investment price premium.
It was a different story 30 years ago (come to our September dinner to hear more about this) when there could be huge variations between the qualities of annual harvests – indeed you really need to look back to the 1970s to see when one might have advised against buying a vintage claret on the basis of its quality. Wine hardly featured then as an investment commodity and the now-commonplace consultant winemakers were not evident in those days.
But among all French wine producers the big discussion of the moment is the changing climate and how they have to adapt for the future.
I don't know why particularly but at the moment there seems to be a lot of positive press about wine and its health benefits. In Russia, for example, President Dmitry Medvedev has recommended that Russians should drink more wine to combat alcohol abuse which is said to kill 500,000 Russians annually. With vodka on sale widely at a mere £2 per bottle, and duty on imported wine being around £3.50 per bottle, one can see several ulterior motives!
I was amused but perhaps not entirely surprised to learn that Spar supermarkets conducted a survey among 2,000 of its shoppers and found that nearly half of them thought that water was added to grapes to make wine - and that more than half of them thought that if the descriptions of gooseberries and blackcurrants were used to describe the flavours of a wine, then that wine must contain those fruits. Wine is an enormous subject and there is so much written and said about it, but it need not be confusing or intimidating. Many of you know our very popular wine dinners which are always fun, foremost, and illuminating. We do not pontificate about wine – that is for others. If you enjoy particular wines, that's great (you cannot like every wine!) and we can help you understand which other wines might appeal to you and why. The word "expert" is used far too commonly but in every aspect of the trade, we are constantly learning – it is a subject almost without end. Already we have some great guest speakers lined up for 2012.
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Twitter
Our address is @Boursots_Wine. Do please feel free to mention us and our wines if you are happy with what we do, and we will be pleased to retweet your comments to our own followers.
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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.
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Special Offer for September
During September or whilst stocks are available, we are pleased to offer you:
- Half-Litre bottles of the very popular Château de Sours Rosé, 2010 at a one-off price of 3,90€. Equating to 5,85€ (around £5 at today's rate) per 75cl bottle, this makes a saving of almost 1€ over our normal shop price (let alone the considerably higher UK price of £9.99 "reduced on Special Offer" to £8.49 – ha, ha!).
- The half-litre size will produce 4 good glasses – ideal sometimes for two people when a bottle seems a little too much!
- From Château de Sours, we also have a limited supply of some red 2002 which will be at the extra-ordinary price of 5,90€ per bottle (around a fiver) or 12,00€ per magnum (about £10.30). I need hardly tell you that for a mature claret from a good reliable Bordeaux château, these prices represent exceptional value and before stocks run out, we urge to you to take advantage by placing your order now for later collection.
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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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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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