Friday, March 21, 2014

It's Sale Time

It's Sale Time!

Why exactly it's Sale Time in the third week in March, or what type of Sale this actually is - we're not really quite sure. All we know is that there are some "known knowns" and "known unknowns".... so let's find out...

The Known Knowns:
Well, these are the discounts - and they're pretty plain to see. The smallest discount is exactly 24.12%, ranging up to a whopping 66.10%! That's well over Half Price. The other big Known Known is that these are all wines we'd happily drink ourselves.

The Known Unknowns:
Well, these are a bit more difficult to be specific about...

The Sale itself isn't really a Bin End Sale. Some of the wines are Bin Ends, some aren't. We have just picked wines that we think maybe need to find a good home in the near future, or wines that might be familiar to you but we know we'll get a bit of fun from by selling them at a silly price, or wines that you might not ordinarily choose, but could be tempted to do so at a silly price. What we do know is that the volumes indicated are what we are selling. We may have more of some of the wines, but this is all we're selling at these prices. If we don't sell them during the Sale, then they'll go back to their normal public price (and we'll probably sell them off secretly somewhere else!). Other that that, there are no rules - except for the other rules at the end....

What about the Known Unknowns of the Wines themselves...? Well, in there we have....

A good selection of drinking Bordeaux from excellent vintages at great prices - there's the second wine of Ch. Montrose that excelled in St. Estephe in 2003, the second wine of the super-cult Valandraud from the wonderful 1998 vintage, there's superstar Pontet Canet from 2001, the rare Lynch Bages Blanc 2009 and more..

There's John Wilson's "dream" wine that he wrote about for Christmas Day Dinner - the Furst Pinot Noir 2010 at a knockdown €18.00, along with two other stunning and must-try German wines.

There's a white wine that one other National wine journalist tasted last weekend at a big Gourmet dinner (along with many other more prestigious wines) and proclaimed it as their top wine of the night - the Miro Furmint 2009 (a lovely crisp, fresh Sauvignon-like white) at a crazy €11.00 a bottle! How low do we have to go to convince you to try this stuff? Miro's mate, Samo Kolaric has his own lovely Sauvignon Blanc 2011 in there - we bought a small parcel of it and it's nearing the end - at €12.00.

There's tons of stuff from the southern Rhone - lot's of big, hearty reds, many of them developing lovely farmyardy characteristics as they age gracefully - like an old age boxer, they have sensitivity, charm and a knockout punch.

There's a weird, but wonderful semi-dessert wine from Puglia in Southern Italy - the San Donaci Pieta Caya @ €15.00. This is a slightly sweet red that is rich and smooth - amazing with a dark chocolate-based dessert like strawberries dipped in chocolate - or delicious chilled on it's own.

There are some great Burgundian bargains as well... lovely, aged Nuits St. Georges Veilles Vignes from the almost impossible to find Mugneret sisters at just €25 a bottle (that really is mad), or the frustrating 2010 Macon Cruzille Red from Emmanuel Guillot Broux that we seem unable to sell despite it being great (and now at €12.00) - think crunchy Beaujolais meets elegant Burgundy.....

There are various Magnums of some pretty fine stuff, all ready to drink...!

And more.....

The Rules:
So, a few rules....but no sneaky ones....
i) First come, first served
ii) We have to hold you to our minimum spend of €200 to qualify for free nationwide delivery. Sorry, but at these prices, we just have to do it.
iii) If you take a violent dislike to anything you buy and threaten never to purchase from us again, we'll crumble and offer you some replacement wine to the same value to keep you quiet.
iv) The Sale ends March 31st.

Happy Hunting.
Download the March 2014 Sale here