Wine?

Book a weekend away in France! We have friends in Reims and buy our Champagne there from Wafflart & Fils at Bouilly.

You can get decent wine in the supermarkets there from about £4 a bottle.

Once you're through the channel tunnel it's a straight 2 hours to Reims on the motorway.

I don't know where you live but if going to Calais is an option try the Calais Wine Warehouse. You can pre order on their website (don't worry you can add to it or change the order once you get there). It is cheap and if you order a certain amount I think its a couple of hundred quids worth they pay for you channel tunnel crossing, car and passengers. They are really helpful there too and let you try different wines. They even recommended a restaurant for us and a supermarket other than those full of day trippers at the port. Its a good day out too, if you go by tunnel it is only a 30 min crossing.

We're putting on a free bar (basically baskets of drinks people can just self serve) getting all our drinks from Bookers cash and carry. They have really cheap wine for £2ish a bottle or like £4 a bottle stuff we will go for! Maybe some posher stuff for the meal and cheapy in the evening! I'm going to make out own labels so nobody will know what it is anyway xx

Is the corkage £8.50 per bottle? What does the fine print say exactly?

Have you considered using cask wine (you can get some nice ones nowadays) or those 1litre bottles of wine? Less bottles surely means you pay less corkage, but check what the policy says.

If heading to calais isn't an option, Tesco/Asda often have 'buy 6 bottles get 25% off' specials and lidl have the odd bargain too. You'd need to try a few to see what you like though which could be fun.

Our corkage is £7:50 per bottle but it does not state what size so I called the venue to see if I could have 1.5L bottles and they said yes.

My fav wine is Hock or leifeaege (sp?) asda sell the big bottles for £6.75 but I haven't gone with them as they tooky money and have said they didn't ( long story) so now a friend has bought us 36 bottles of wine as a gift.

Love it :-) I really never thought of the bigger bottles :-) I've just sent an email to my venue asking them and fingers crossed they haven't thought about it, more wine and less spent

Thank you so much for suggesting this xx

Out of interest, did the venue respond with a reply?

I think I have a rule to never drink wine that routinely comes in a magnum-sized bottle...It comes under the same category as never eating in a restaurant where there are pictures of each dish on the menu.

Yeah its only the normal 70cl bottles allowed. We have decided to go with the drinks voucher for everyone as we do feel they are getting enough drink during the day. Then our night time is in a social club so drink is cheap, they can all get drunk there lol

Our caterers gave the option to pay corkage per bottle or per head. Obv we went per head as by the time we have served reception drinks, wine with dinner, toasts etc people will have more than one bottle of something. Might be worth asking by way of negotiating the price down a little.

Also to the bride who mentioned Hock. Id be careful with choosing this for your guests as I don't think it will be everyone's cup of tea.

25% off 6 bottles of wine at Morrisons this week, you can buy max 36 bottles but it is on till 24th, also online with this voucher code VOU****

Aye, t'is grim. And dire with any kind of food whatsoever. Same for Liebfraumilch (assume this was the second wine...). But it would remind me of being 15 again.

Ha! My dad always says this. If you need pictures of the food it's not the sort of place you want to eat.

do people actually drink hock/Liebfraumilch after graduation? I thought it was purley aimed at the student market.

I would definitely reconsider this. I don't know anyone who likes that stuff.

We are getting our wine from Majestic and they have been really good - they are delivering direct to the venue, and gave us an additional 5% discount (on top of the 33% sale discount that was already on the wines we chose) for a bulk purchase. Also, all on sale or return which is helpful.

Agree with others about not serving Hock or Liebfraumilch - not most people's thing these days. But if you love them then maybe get a special bottle just for you!

x

Liebfraumilch - my grandparents would drink that! That was the first wine I tried..surprised it didn't put me off wine altogether!

I keep seeing the title of this thread (wine?) and thinking 'yes please!'

just me?

Definitely not just you! ?

£9 prosecco for £4.80- head to morrisons. 25% off 6 wines in addition to the third off they are already offering. They are doing deals on red and white wines too. Max 6 cases but go a couple of times. Xx