Curious as to whether any folk use retailers other than supermarkets.

Cheers. 🙂

British Airways (via Laithwaites) for quaffing plonk. I have so many Avios I may as well get free wine! Case of LP rosé or mixed French reds earned by sitting in a plane eating and drinking. Which is nice. 8)

LWS for good stuff.

After getting a fantastic bottle of red at christmas I went on line and found it at Laithwaites. Ended up ordering some more plus 20 other recommended bottles. It came to £180, then with discount codes down to £100. I figured that at about a fiver a pop it only had to be as good as the usual stuff I buy in the supermarket – so far it has all been amazing. Plus we have a properly stocked wine shelf, all in all it’s very exciting and no need to carry booze home from the supermarket.

Which ever supermarket has an offer on. Usually stock up and store it when it’s cheap.
For the camper we usually stock up on boxes in the French supermarkets to hopefully last us the season. But the boxes as they don’t roll about or rattle when we are on the move.

Supermarkets, small shops, specialists and direct from producers. But mostly Cahors and Riesling from Lidl at the moment.

Once you’ve used Laithwaites expect to be hounded on the phone if you don’t keep up with the ordering!

We use naked wines when we’ve built up enough money, then a mixture of supermarket and local off-license (Corks in Bristol – highly recommended).

Either Aldi, Asda or the Coop when doing the shopping.

1. LWS 55% – he’s brilliant. Use for good wines £££ and he has great deals too ££
2. Wine Society, Majestic, Laithwaites 35% – mainly offers or hidden gems. ££ plus cheaper wines £ anfor everyday/casual suppers/friends who are pi$$ heads and can’t appreciate 1
3. Supermarkets 10% heavy discounts and bulk offers. ££

Two cases from Laithwaites arrived this morning – whites plus two Aussie Clearskins which work pretty well. First experiment with Clearskins white this time. We shall see…

Use Berry Bros for work quite a lot.

Local small wine merchant as much as we can. Have done since he opened. It’s nice to have something in the village high street other than charity shops, estate agents and late night economy ‘restaurants’.

Waitrose now.
I used to buy it off Laithwaites but recently they’ve been bothering me with phone calls about deals despite me asking them not to bother me.

I’ve never used anyone else TBH. Waitrose, for me, have a great selection of French Wine and since thats the only wine I like I’ve no need to bother going elsewhere.. also on occasion theres an offer or discount on so deals are available.

Recently popped into local wine shop and got such good advice and tasty wine I’ve decided only to buy from there from now on. Don’t often buy wine, typically for a treat so happy to pay £10-12 for a bottle of something nice.

Mate’s wine firm – Swig or Wine Soc,

Morrisons

Various places…
Hay Wines, Ledbury
Enoteca Valentini, Canazei
Majestic
Laithwaites, but only in person
Cremant in Dijon, depending upon where we’re going
Prosecco from Fara di Soligo, or Valdobiadene
And supermarkets.

Morrisons here too. Their cheap crap is as good as their expensive stuff (IMO).

Lifestyle Express. Buckfast for £5.99 a bottle.

@km79 – was I the only one that read that as ‘Breakfast for £5.99 a bottle’? 😀

Co-cop, they do pretty decent wines (as far as my palate can tell)

Indeed Essel. Their own label Shiraz is a nice drop.

I’ve recently been buying more red wine than I used to. Coming from the “don’t know much about it but I know what I like ” school, one thing I’ve found at the Sainsbury’s shelves is that for the better tasting gear, you need to spend over at least £16…

Currently schlurping some “Chateauneuf du Pape” at £23.

du Pape is just that – pap.
Lauded as a top wine – the Spaniards won’t drink it themselves – not daft enough.
They sell it to the brits at massively overinflated prices and then drink their own Joven’s.

As for shop bought – Yellowtail’s Jammy Red Roo from Tesco’s or Makro takes some beating at under £6 a bottle.

Wine society mainly, rude not to as i work nearby.
Sometimes buy from Costco too

Spaniards won’t drink it themselves

Erm…..

The Wine Society

Excellent quality, deliver to your door and regularly wins retailer of the year.

I know where it comes from CF – its one of the biggest sellers though in tourist resorts/restaurants in Spain and sold to the Brits as the best thing since sliced bread.
It isn’t.

CaptainFlashheart – Member
Spaniards won’t drink it themselves
Erm…..

😆

In cheap tourist restaurants in Spain it might say Chateauneuf de Pape on the bottle but the chances of it being Chateauneuf de Pape in the bottle are close to zero. You can try asking for an uncorked bottle with the original sealed cap but it’s easier to ask for the vino tinto de la casa – it’ll be better.

In the expensive restaurants where they open it at the table in front of you its still shite wine.
Like many of the “denominacion de…” its nothing more than the poorer quality stuff they export added to the fact they’ve got the rights to the name – nothing more.

In cheap tourist restaurants in Spain it might say Chateauneuf de Pape on the bottle but the chances of it being Chateauneuf de Pape in the bottle are close to zero.

hammyuk – Member
I know where it comes from CF – its one of the biggest sellers though in tourist

So, not, then…

hammyuk – Member
du Pape is just that – pap.

That’s like saying American 29ers are pap – they aren’t all the same. There are good and bad examples of wines from every region and winemaker, and there’s some bloody good CdP.

Read the post above Woppit.

the poorer quality stuff they export

To Spain…

Anyway, this one’s lovely. 8)

Generally Waitrose. Very good independant locally but somewhat stuffy atmosphere puts me off. Perhaps they are happier when you buy by the crate.

Do they use google translate when making CduP Spanish – or do they leave the original French label on?

Virgin Wines.
Some sort of special intro offer a year or so ago after travelling a fair bit on Virgin Trains. They’re very good.

American 29ers are pap

That’s not strictly true, depending on usage, 29 inch wheels have thier place.

Wine forgery and refilling bottles is a real problem for French wine. The biggest profits being made on the biggest names. Spain imports very little CduP yet you can buy it in many restaurants, it just doesn’t add up when a very limited quantity wine is readily available in a country way down the list of purchasing countries.

It’s not a question of a poor CduP, you’d have to be very unlucky and get a duff cork to get a poor bottle as the vigneron wouldn’t risk his appelation and simply bottle it up a sell it as Côte du Rhone.

I worked les vendanges at a Bordeaux Chateaux where they had two labels, only the perfect production that respected le cahiers des charges got put in the cru bourgeois bottles, the rest was sold as vin de Brodeaux.

A group of us had an MTB weekend in Spain. House wines were drunk initially, perfectly drinkable, then one of the group generously offered a descent bottle of French wine. Having lived in Spain I watched peoples reactions (clearly unimpressed) and then sowed the seed of doubt. Tasting became a lot more intensive and the collective verdict was that the wine definitely wasn’t what it said on the bottle and probably wasn’t even French.

It’s not just wine, up the hill in Spain I can buy famous branded whisky that tastes like nothing that’s written on the bottle.

Thanks for the responses, some ideas now of where to investigate/avoid.

Lidl for me… or Tesco Express as it’s walking distance from my house.

CG, if in Salisbury, Cambridge Wines are superb. If in my neck of the woods, Caviste are equally superb.