Purchasing Wine Abroad

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lexi

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I am looking to take advantage of any experience anyone might have of purchasing wine in France/abroad. My boyfriend and I were thinking of driving over and purchasing some good quality wine for our wedding.

Has anyone undertaken such a trip? Can you recommend any vineyards to go to... or even give advice on whether it is worth just going to one of the hypermarkets straight off the boat? Perhaps it is not worth going at all, and we should resign ourselves to hotel prices here??

Ideally speaking, we would like to have really nice wine at a reasonable price... and a few cases of champagne thrown in for good measure (i know we would have to go to the champagne region for this - so probably best to stick to the hypermarche for the last request)!



(PS: I am aware (and horrified!) at corkage charges here, and thankfully we are looking at a self catering venue.)
 
We went to Cherbourg & bought all our wine & fizz from who were absolutely fantastic. It's best to preorder your booze to make sure they have it all in stock, and make sure to tell your credit card company before you leave Ireland so they don't put a stop on your card thinking it's been stolen!!!
 
If you did not want to travel - how about buying on line. I get our corporate gifts from www.winesdirect.ie. Their prices and quality are good. As is the service.

Also, was at a Farmers Market in Naas on Saturday and bought some absolutely fabulous quality french wines (Loire Valley) from a husband and wife team who have just started out importing french wines. www.auserviceduvin.ie.

They had various different wines, all fabulous quality. Very friendly and knowledgable too.
 
Or as I have said on AAM before www.vinatis.com have been buying off them for about 2 years and never had problems, they have in particular a great selection of French wines. Free delivery with 18 plus.
 
I also second Vinatis, I used them for champagne and found them great!
 
Yes, have just had a quick look at vinatis, prices are good. Do you have to order from the UK site, or can you order from the French site? Can they deliver to you in work?
 
Yes, have just had a quick look at vinatis, prices are good. Do you have to order from the UK site, or can you order from the French site? Can they deliver to you in work?
Click to expand...

Better to order off the French website (but use the English one for translation if you don't have much French !!), reason is is that you get charged in Euro but if you order off the English one it's in STG. Not sure if there is any benefit now that STG has weakened against the Euro, might be worth just checking.

Yes I think they deliver to any address you give them, might be worth just e-mailing them first to ask if they will deliver to a different address than your credit card address. They say delivery is about 8 wkg days but I have found that the average delivery time has been 3-5 working days, it's never taken 8 days.
 
Sorry Manda C, I should add, I don't think you can buy off the English site due to the delivery being to Ireland.
 
Have checked out some of the prices and is still better to buy in Euro.

Is there VAT or anything on top of the prices quoted.
 
You pay at the point of sale and total automatically changes when you put your delivery country in, I see it's gone from 2 euro to 3 euro per bottle, still makes for competitive purchasing IMO though. Enjoy !
 
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For those that have bought wine on the Internet, did you have any problems? We used to get stuff from champagnedirect.fr and last time we got one it was sent back by customs. It is classed as 'unaccompanied' so cannot be brought into the country without paying additional taxes in Ireland - we weren't even offered the option, we got a call from them saying the boxes had been sent back by Irish customs...as far as I know now champagnedirect.fr won't take any more orders for Ireland.
 
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