MVV
pfm Member
Good point, oddly hadn't considered using the 6 or more lark at the cheaper end. Makes a lot of sense. Remember- the more you drink the more you save!
Christmas Wine
- Thread starter eternumviti
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Weekender
pfm Member
This offer has only just come on in our branch. Bought a couple as part of a 6+.25% off six bottles again at Sainsbury. What’s more, the Perrin Châteauneuf les Sinards is already reduced...
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
Here’s a Christmas (and beyond) wine suggestion if you are feeling adventurous...
I noticed today that the pound/euro exchange rate had gone up to 1.2 - no idea why, something must have happened yesterday - so now only 7% below the level on referendum day. I have just received Tanners 2018 Rhône EP flyer, and I wondered if there was a way to turn the rise in sterling to Christmas Wine threaders’ advantage.
There was, and here’s an example. Infinivin in France are selling Pigeoulet 2018 and Megaphone 2018 at 10.50€ and 13.50€ respectively when you buy half-a-dozen. So six of each will cost 144€. Delivery to the UK is 20€ (see here) so the total is 164€, or £136.66 at the current rate, and delivery is in 4-5 days so in time for Christmas. (Don’t forget these are designed for early drinking.)
Buying them EP from Tanners will cost you £45 (Pigeoulet) and £54 (Mégaphone.) Duty is 12x £2.23, which makes £125.76. Then there is VAT, which makes £150.92. So buying from Infinivin saves £14, or nearly 10%. And you get them now, not next Spring as you would if you bought EP.
In addition don’t forget these are EP prices you are comparing with Infinivin - the equivalent price for the vintage currently available chez Tanners (2017) is £186.60 total. So you would be saving £50 against that.
You could do even better if you bought six more bottles of something from Infinivin - delivery of up to 18 bottles is still 20€, so you would save proportionately more. And I noticed a 5€ off voucher code flash up when I visited the site... but this is just gelding the lily, as Perelman put it.
So why not put two fingers up to Brexit and Customs and Excise while you still can?
I noticed today that the pound/euro exchange rate had gone up to 1.2 - no idea why, something must have happened yesterday - so now only 7% below the level on referendum day. I have just received Tanners 2018 Rhône EP flyer, and I wondered if there was a way to turn the rise in sterling to Christmas Wine threaders’ advantage.
There was, and here’s an example. Infinivin in France are selling Pigeoulet 2018 and Megaphone 2018 at 10.50€ and 13.50€ respectively when you buy half-a-dozen. So six of each will cost 144€. Delivery to the UK is 20€ (see here) so the total is 164€, or £136.66 at the current rate, and delivery is in 4-5 days so in time for Christmas. (Don’t forget these are designed for early drinking.)
Buying them EP from Tanners will cost you £45 (Pigeoulet) and £54 (Mégaphone.) Duty is 12x £2.23, which makes £125.76. Then there is VAT, which makes £150.92. So buying from Infinivin saves £14, or nearly 10%. And you get them now, not next Spring as you would if you bought EP.
In addition don’t forget these are EP prices you are comparing with Infinivin - the equivalent price for the vintage currently available chez Tanners (2017) is £186.60 total. So you would be saving £50 against that.
You could do even better if you bought six more bottles of something from Infinivin - delivery of up to 18 bottles is still 20€, so you would save proportionately more. And I noticed a 5€ off voucher code flash up when I visited the site... but this is just gelding the lily, as Perelman put it.
So why not put two fingers up to Brexit and Customs and Excise while you still can?
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Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I’ve bunged nine bottles in the cooler for C*******s - or at least the run-up - including this one. What a great colour - no wonder the GC is called Goldert. It took a lot of self-control not to pull the cork on the spot.
I've come to the reluctant conclusion that discovering a new wine gives me another excuse to drink more than I should. Don't drink every day but, since retirement, I could and it is a slippery slope. I'm not good at the "just have one glass of red" routine.
Am going to try to keep it mostly to the weekend. Well after Xmas obviously. Could even be a NY resolution thing... not that I've ever kept those.
Am going to try to keep it mostly to the weekend. Well after Xmas obviously. Could even be a NY resolution thing... not that I've ever kept those.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I have had a drink virtually every day of my life since I was eighteen (I blame university and thirty years working for the BBC) so slippery slopes don’t come into it for me - I have gradually cut down over the years simply through gently diminishing desire.
I have a friend who was ill during his National Service in Palestine. The army doctor told him he had to drink alcohol every day - something he decided to continue after he had recovered, after he had left the army and for the rest of his life. He’s 94 now, and still does.
Now then, is there a bottle of Rochefort and some red sitting ready in the cooler for later? There is. Excellent!
(PS - neat idea for stimulating reaction to get those 93 posts in eight days to make the anniversary 1k!)
Not strictly a Christmas question, but not worthy of a post on its own: in the absence of a Monopole cork remover (the one with two tunes you bing down the sides of the cork) what’s the best way to remove a crumbling cork? Was faced with the challenge at a relative’s house today. Bottle of ‘80s vintage Ribera, sadly deceased, but I had to revert to gouging out the cork, after the ‘screw just removed a central portion.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
I succeeded once with one of those drywall anchors that looks like a miniature Archimedes screw.
Admittedly I was given my cards by the Ritz management the next day - the customers hadn’t taken kindly to the wine waiter nipping off to B&Q halfway through opening their bottle.
Admittedly I was given my cards by the Ritz management the next day - the customers hadn’t taken kindly to the wine waiter nipping off to B&Q halfway through opening their bottle.
Roger Adams
pfm Member
Does anyone drink port after dinner at Christmas these days?
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
Hello Roger - thanks for joining us in the drive to 1,000 posts by the 24th.
I keep a few bottles of Graham’s Crusted available at this time of year to share a tipple with the tenants of the estate when they come over the drawbridge to the Towers bearing C*******s gifts (it can get quite tiring if five or six show up in rapid succession) but personally speaking not at the end of or after dinner. I’ve become quite a convert to sweet white wine over the last few years and that does the job for me with the Munster and Roquefort (and afterwards.) It will probably be a Coteaux du Layon Chaume this year, or maybe a 1990 Huet Vouvray if I’m in a good mood (very unlikely.)
I keep a few bottles of Graham’s Crusted available at this time of year to share a tipple with the tenants of the estate when they come over the drawbridge to the Towers bearing C*******s gifts (it can get quite tiring if five or six show up in rapid succession) but personally speaking not at the end of or after dinner. I’ve become quite a convert to sweet white wine over the last few years and that does the job for me with the Munster and Roquefort (and afterwards.) It will probably be a Coteaux du Layon Chaume this year, or maybe a 1990 Huet Vouvray if I’m in a good mood (very unlikely.)
blossomchris
I feel better than James Brown
With your post number, it could be an emergency.
Usually do have port at some stage, usually Boxing day evening here for some reason or other.
Bloss
Roger Adams
pfm Member
I was trying to imagine driving one around the Nurburgring after half a bottle.
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
Port is normally later in the evening at ours, as opposed to immediately after the meal. If at all.
@Marchbanks have you tried macvin du Jura with cheese? Had some the other week and am trying to source a decent one for dessert on the 25th.
@Marchbanks have you tried macvin du Jura with cheese? Had some the other week and am trying to source a decent one for dessert on the 25th.
Doesn't happen often. Last one was a Musar but it tasted fine. I just use a sieve.
it’s more a case (bad pun, sorry) of how to remove the cork. It was wedged in, but crumbling from the centre as I tried to use a corkscrew. A monopole would have done the job, but wondering if there were better ways than carving the thing out with a knife as I did.
I’ve got a good fine mesh sieve, designed for tea, that works very well to capture sediment and bits of cork. Works well with tea, too.
Marchbanks
Hat and Beard member
No, that was a new one to me. How about this one?
The drywall anchor genuinely did work for me, although it also took several pairs of hands, a Mole wrench, a metal bar and a few bricks (we fashioned a kind of lever system rather than simply pull the thing out vertically*.) It probably would have been quicker to walk down the road to the pub and get them to use their Butler’s friend (or monopole if you prefer) or probably even to drive home and get mine.
I wonder if one of those pump action jobbies would have worked, but if you don’t have one to hand it’s irrelevant anyway! I’ve read that using two corkscrews angled in a ‘V’ formation can work, but whenever I have been desperate enough to try that I have opted for gouging out instead.
*in fact by the time we had finished it looked a little like this:
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