Newsletters

September 2020

Bonjour!

With many aspects of business not being possible at the moment, this is a relatively short newsletter to keep you up to date.

News

Few of us could pretend that life has been easy these last few months. As you probably know already, fortuitously Boursot’s has never had to close, having had the right to remain open as a provider of an “essential” product. Whilst our British clients were generally unable to visit owing to the movement restrictions, we then turned our focus to exporting our wines to our UK clients as well as across the rest of Europe. After some initial problems with the courier’s inability to supply us with the quantity of export boxes for our sheer number of orders, we have now changed courier and I am pleased to say that everything is very efficient now. This service has developed into an important part of our business and is something that may become even more important in post-Brexit trading.

All over France, the growing season has been near perfect but the only complaint amongst vignerons (isn’t there always one?) was that they could have done with a little more rain. But over the harvest period, there was a little rain, so that helped a little to swell the grapes without too much dilution – a year like 1964 springs to my mind (yes I do remember its mixed bag of pre and post rain wines!).

The 2020 harvest around France started very early which of course has become more and more commonplace over recent years and in parts of France, it had never finished as early as it did this year. It’s true to say that harvesting is generally a full month earlier than it used to be 40 years ago due to global climate change. But in general there are good sugar and acidity levels which should make really good wine this year from this harvest, which has lost on average 20% volume owing to scorched grapes. During the 2020 harvest, grape pickers were meant to wear masks as they harvested, although it was always hard to see how this could either have been effected or enforced under such inclement working conditions.

It almost goes without saying that this is not an easy time to be a wine producer. A hospitality industry whose demand has been severely reduced, global recession, Trump’s 25% tariffs, additional health and safety restrictions… all have conspired to stocks of wines from previous vintages lying unsold in producers’ cellars. In general, these are not the top, but the more average, wines that were made for immediate consumption and so without a ready market, much of this surplus has had to be sent off for distillation. In Burgundy where we live, growers are pretty upbeat about their prospects this year. It is an area that suffers often from frost and hail damage with consequent vine disease and whilst there is never enough of this good stuff to go around, in volume terms they have lost the equivalent of a year’s harvest over these last six years which has added to supply problems.

In Champagne, proposed yields for the 2020 harvest were reduced by 22% to 8,000 kilos of grapes per hectare meaning that total production will come down to 230 million bottles. But this agreement on the size of the reduction was made very late and so whereas normally growers might reduce yields by green harvesting during the summer months, this time there was a more conscious effort to pick only the most healthy looking grapes so as not to exceed their volume targets. The rest can either be left on the vines or sent off for distillation to become the local brandy known as Marc de Champagne.

All this is to do with protecting the longer-term image and price of champagne.

Over recent years, we have discussed here corked wine taint, but at last it appears that real progress has finally been made.

Cork taint, which comes from the compound 2,4,6-trichloroanisole (TCA), can manifest itself by any point between muting a wine’s aroma through to causing a wine to reek or taste of cork. In the heady days of the 1980s when wine consumption was growing so fast, cork producers could hardly keep up with the demand and so corners were cut in its production and specifically a lot of cork was not being dried properly. This dampness then attracted the spores that could cause the contamination of the cork.

This then allowed the development of alternative bottle closures such as plastic corks and screwcaps and there was massive financing to back these new initiatives. Screwcaps became popular and received much favourable press but of course they are still in their relative infancy and are continuously being tested over time for their efficacy alongside bottles stoppered with traditional corks. Resultingly these last 20 years have seen a more scientific approach to cork production and in talking to producers around the Burgundy area, guaranteed-taint-free corks are now used more widely. Coming at a high cost of 3€ per cork, producers cannot use these on anything less than their greatest wines.

Deliveries in the UK

We are delivering now even more rapidly than we were. Our shop collected prices are on www.boursot.co.uk/winelist.pdf to which 1,50€ per bottle should be added for the cost of repackaging and then there is a delivery charge according to quantity (you can see the scale on www.boursot.co.uk/wine-home-delivery-uk.html). However, you do not pay any UK duty and so, even with these charges, the wines are still less expensive than they would be in the UK, even if you could find them there.

To place your orders for delivery, go to our ecommerce site on www.boursot.fr/en/ and the whole process is both straightforward and automatic.

Of course the most fun and economic way of buying our guaranteed quality wines is to come over and fill your boot in Ardres before going off for a good lunch and a quick visit to the supermarket. If you’re spending more than 800€ on our wines, we will even book and pay for your Eurotunnel day or overnight return trip!

Payments

If you should be concerned about deteriorating exchange rates and you have a large party or wedding to cater for, you can of course reserve your stocks by paying in advance. Once payment has been cleared, we put your cases on one side in our underground cellars so that you can rest safe in the knowledge that what you want is here for you.

Payment can be made by card (for which we have a secure link on www.boursot.co.uk/secure.html which sends us an encrypted email). Or you can pay by bank transfer, for which we will happily send you our bank details on request.

UK Duty

At the moment the UK duty on a bottle of European still wine is £2.23 before VAT and the addition of the retailers’ margin. You might remember also that on the average sale price of a bottle of wine in the UK, only 60p of that is attributable to the cost of the wine – the rest is tax and margin. Depressing isn’t it?

The UK chancellor is yet to set his date for the Autumn Budget but there is an expectation that UK alcohol tax will rise again to try and offset some of the additional costs brought about by both the virus and Brexit. So, assuming that the quarantine conditions are lessened soon, this is an ideal time to hop across the channel and stock up - before the uncertainties of early 2021.

Our Events

Because of the 14 day quarantine imposed by the UK government, we had to postpone our dinner that was slated for mid-September. For the moment we still have other dinners planned this year with lists of guests for each and we are keeping abreast of the situation.

Our next dinner is scheduled for Saturday 17 October at the excellent Michelin starred Hotel la Matelote in Boulogne sur Mer. The theme is “The revitalised area of Bergerac” which will be presented by Frank Campbell, the new owner of Château de Fayolle. Frank is an American who has recently bought this château that we have been following for some years. In addition to him telling us about his panoply of wines, I will encourage him to talk about his experiences, as an American, of buying an ancient domaine in France…!

And then on Saturday 14 November I am planning to run that twice postponed “The Sheer Variety in Bordeaux” at a nearby hotel, to be arranged.

All events are in the Events panel on our home page and of course all tickets are refundable in the event of some problem outside our control, so you can book with confidence. We also have access to reasonably priced Eurotunnel tickets, so do say if you should like to take advantage.

Let us hope that the UK government follows the French lead in reducing quarantine time from 14 to 7 days, owing to the evidence of there being no contagion in the last 7 days of a coronavirus infection. That would help businesses enormously.

Wine Tastings

I am still giving tastings and talks to interested groups albeit that recent ones have been via Zoom – not quite as much fun as all being together but at least it is still possible to enjoy an evening of good combined wine a tutored tasting. For more details or to enquire for a specific date, please write to Guy on ardres@boursot.co.uk.

New Wines and Boursot's Wine List

Our full list is updated each month and can always be accessed through the View/Print Wine List button on the home page of our site. 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 web page.

There are several new wines in our list and particularly noteworthy is our new “superior” House champagne. It is a Premier Cru made from 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir by the well established house of Bauchet. The wine is really elegant and worthy of a much higher price than we are charging for it. This is of course in addition to our Richard-Dhondt that we have been listing for the last few years.

If there is something in our list 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.

If you wish to order wines for delivery, it is best to go directly to our ecommerce site on www.boursot.fr/en/.

I hope that you are keeping your spirits (!) up in these worrying times and hope to see you again very soon. Your previous supplies must be running low!

With all best wishes
Guy

Guy Boursot
Wine Consultants SARL

Boursot’s Wine Collection
9 Rue de l’Arsenal
62610 Ardres
France

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