Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
OK so I think the DotD has been derailed enough by the wine chat, and since we're all becoming lockdown alcoholics I thought we could do with a proper thread about wine. I'll start, but I really don't know a great deal (just enough to have some idea of how much there is to know, I think), so I'm mainly here to learn (from whom, I'm not sure, although I think 'you' might know a thing or two about it).
Anyway, my pearl of wisdom is this. Don't ever be suckered into thinking you've got a great deal because a supermarket has marked a bottle down by a few quid. I used to shop for wine on this principle, but I'd often find that I'd buy a wine that was "reduced" from 10 quid to 6 quid, then open it and think "hmm, this is a perfectly reasonable six pound bottle of wine but I'd be pissed off I'd paid a tenner for it" - because in fact it was a six pound bottle of wine, that the shop had inflated to ten pounds for a short time - I think the legal minimum is two weeks - then put back to its normal price but with an eye-catching sticker on the shelf, advertising this great 'discount'.
Now you can get good discounts on wine, but you have to go to a proper wine merchant such as Berry Bros & Rudd (their London shop is on, er, Pall Mall!) and ask if they have any bin ends. These are wines that are being discontinued, not because they're not selling but just because they're being superseded by the following vintage and the shop wants to free up warehouse space. Then you can get discounts of 20, 30 or 40 percent, so you can get a 20 quid bottle for 15, or a 30 quid bottle for 20, say. And the original price will be a fair price (by UK standards, of course) for a wine of that quality. A downside is that shops like this often tend to be on out-of-town trading estates, so hard to get to if you don't have a car.
Anyway, my pearl of wisdom is this. Don't ever be suckered into thinking you've got a great deal because a supermarket has marked a bottle down by a few quid. I used to shop for wine on this principle, but I'd often find that I'd buy a wine that was "reduced" from 10 quid to 6 quid, then open it and think "hmm, this is a perfectly reasonable six pound bottle of wine but I'd be pissed off I'd paid a tenner for it" - because in fact it was a six pound bottle of wine, that the shop had inflated to ten pounds for a short time - I think the legal minimum is two weeks - then put back to its normal price but with an eye-catching sticker on the shelf, advertising this great 'discount'.
Now you can get good discounts on wine, but you have to go to a proper wine merchant such as Berry Bros & Rudd (their London shop is on, er, Pall Mall!) and ask if they have any bin ends. These are wines that are being discontinued, not because they're not selling but just because they're being superseded by the following vintage and the shop wants to free up warehouse space. Then you can get discounts of 20, 30 or 40 percent, so you can get a 20 quid bottle for 15, or a 30 quid bottle for 20, say. And the original price will be a fair price (by UK standards, of course) for a wine of that quality. A downside is that shops like this often tend to be on out-of-town trading estates, so hard to get to if you don't have a car.