@Eoink @BobbyYork
Tempted to enter the world of en primeur. What merchants do you recommend (if that’s allowed @Richard.Dane)?
There are lots of specialist merchants but if you are starting out in world of buying en primeur I would strongly recommend joining The Wine Society if you aren’t already a member. They do the full range of en primeur offers - Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhône etc and they have excellent buyers. They also have the big advantage of their own specialist wine storage at Stevenage so you can store your wine in optimal conditions before withdrawing it when it is ready to drink. Can’t recommend them highly enough
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I am a member. Had a cursory look and couldn’t find the en primeur section. Will try again (with my glasses on 
). Thanks.
If you look under the Buy tab you’ll see a Tab labelled ‘In-Bond’ and that’s where you’ll find their en primeur offers. The only one open at the moment is ‘Bordeaux 2022 Whites’. The windows are pretty narrow so you need to check regularly. Once you have bought en primeur for a particular wine region, in future years TWS will send you paper copies of offers to your home
BTW - if you like Bordeaux whites then this is definitely an absolutely top year to buy
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I have an account at Berry Brothers & Rudd. They have their own bond storage too and a fairly extensive in bond trading platform (although the fees are pretty high). I like having an account manager who highlights things for me and someone whose brain I can regularly pick. An invitation to the occasional dinner in their lovely venue in St James’ with stunningly curated wines (wines that otherwise I would not be able to afford) is also very nice! I guess I’m paying for that one way or another though.
I’d recommend them, but I don’t have a lot of experience of others to compare. Although from the description of WS above, it sounds like BBR are more proactive.
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My usual merchant is Lay & Wheeler in Colchester, they have a good Bordeaux en primeur allocation and an enthusiastic staff who also seek out excellent wines outside the well-known regions. I’m also a Wine Society member and they are excellent.
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Nice piece by Jancis in today’s FT on Hemel-En-Aarde producers. Particularly looking at Chardonnays which she thinks are better than the PN’s
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Thanks for the recommendation, I was considering that a couple of weeks ago.
Just wondering how others feel about wines from Waitrose. I’ve gone from shopping there several times a week to barely fortnighly due to price rises and the pitiful ‘voucher’ scheme* which does not cover extra mileage in the car. For supermarket shops I now mainly use the closer Tesco/Sainsbury’s stores.
I’ve never been over impressed with the wines Waitrose has, often with seemingly inflated prices for cheaper items, though there are a few wines I regularly purchased over the years.
Recently I’ve actually been quite surprised by some utter bargains in Sainsbury’s.
As there’s a cracking independent wine shop close to home (too convenient if truth be told), I tend to buy most from there - seems ethical to go on foot and support local small business.
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Read the article on HRH’s site earlier this week. The winemakers could only show two wines and tasting conducted at Anthony Hamilton-Russell’s splendid home, so quite a tricky call what wines to submit! The overall message was very positive.
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L&W (like many others) issue regular sales emails throughout the campaign as the chateaux release their prices. Given the siren voices looking to part you from your cash, there is an argument for finding a palate you trust before making expensive decisions and waiting for their opinion.
Very true, I have a very small number of chateaux I’m prepared to take a blind punt on if the vintage suits their styles (Léoville Barton, GPL, Labégorce, Latour-Martillac), but usually I’ll also rely on Jane Anson’s reviews and a chap called Rod Smith whose notes I find excellent every year.
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If you sign up to Waitrose cellar you’ll have much more choice plus they do a 25% off sale every quarter or so. By signing up, you’ll be notified when it’s on. I often (and only) buy Waitrose wine when that deal is on.
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I occasionally get emails from them, not sure if I ever signed up. Unfortunately offers in store are often unavailable in devolved nations (eg 25% off 6 or more) due to minimum unit pricing but it seems to vary by supermarket - some seem to make the effort to indicate which products can be included vs cheaper ones which can’t. Might be worth checking if ‘Cellar’ exclude devolved nations too for online orders.
Cellar delivers everywhere apart from NI and Channel Islands. Your Wales iirc so should be fine (sorry, if I got that wrong).
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The issue boils down to devolved minimum unit pricing alcohol policy (in stores anyway).
I’m not sure if this applies primarily to vendor location or customer location.
Some supermarkets have multibuy offers and automatically exclude items at the till which would by virtue of cost/unit content drop below minimum unit pricing if the discount was applied. Other supermarkets inc Waitrose seem to acoid the issue by not offering multibuy discounts at all now.
Same issues with discount vouchers, eg Mrs AC had a £7.50 off a £60 Sainsbury’s shop voucher last week - small print says excluding alcohol purchases in the Scotland and Wales.
Usually any interesting bitumen availability only available online or in certain stores predominantly in South East. A topic of considerable vigour on another more wine focused forum (wine geeks not Naim geeks). There is considerable competition for offers once known. I treat the 25% off offers as entirely serendipitous / if my local store has some or I just logged on at correct time. Good luck and hope you have sharp elbows (unless I am after the same bottle)
Me too.
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Big John - the name says it all (not to be confused with Jimmy Dean‘s Big Bad John 
).
From the Scheiblhofer vineyard in Burgenland/Austria.
Very powerful but still fruity. Goes down well. More violet than red.
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