Save money on wedding wine?

Treade

Can anyone recommend good places in Ireland (North or South of the border) to purchase wine for a wedding. I don't intend travelling to Europe to purchase it so was wondering where the best value for money on the island of Ireland can be obtained?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Fey!

You could try The Vineyard, Quay St, Galway - they're a wine importers as well as a bottle shop.

Bear in mind that if you do bring your own wine to a hotel/restauraunt, they may well charge you a corkage fee (€x per bottle), which could make it cheaper just to get the hotel to supply the wine!

thekooman

the hotels i have looked at charge €15.50 for the cheaper wine but if you BYO(bring your own) they charge €10 per bottle for corkage. would you really get a bottle of wine in ireland for €5.50?

Padraig Mor

We got ours in Tesco's in one of their regular 20% off offers.

oddy

A friend of mine bought her wine and champagne in Sainburys in Belfast and the hotel are charging her only €4.00 corkage. Seemly saved a fortune.

smileygal

€4???! Where is that? The lowest I've seen so far is 7.50.

oddy

I think its €4 down in Wexford Kilmore Quay

skaskck

just bringing this to the top of the list again, anyone else got more ideas on who to go to for ordering wine for a wedding as am in similar situation myself

Jacky08

skaskck wrote:

just bringing this to the top of the list again, anyone else got more ideas on who to go to for ordering wine for a wedding as am in similar situation myself

I'd be interested in any info as well on this topic

elqu

Oddbins have a 20% off offer when you buy 6 bottles or more. Think M&S might as well?

Unfortunately our hotel is charging €11 corkage so we won't save money but i think we will get nicer wine

There are also lots of online stores which sell wine by the box (12 bottles), for example www.winesonline.ie have bottles from €8 upwards. You could try out wines and then try and source it cheaper online perhaps?

Crea

Oh this brings me back to the most fun part of our wedding arrangements

We drank our way through the hotels wine list (buying from the offy). In the end we figured that one of the cheaper bottles was perfectly nice and we wouldn't save anything by buying outside the hotel so we just went with their wine.
I did buy the champagne from Fine Wines. I bought about 24 bottles and haggled. I think I got about 15% off. We did a champagne reception and toasts with it so it was a good deal.

Noelie

For champagne get the bigger bottle like magnums, it's still only one bottle to open show they should only charge you corkage once. you may have to argue the fact with them, so you can save a fair bit on corkage

dame

A friend from Cork drove to Fance on the ferry with her mother a few weeks before the wedding and loaded up with wine. I don't think they saved any money doing that but they got better wine for the same money and had a nice day-trip together.

Balmark

A couple of tips I was told of (some good ) plus what I'm planning to do:

I have been to france alot, and will go to one of the hypermarches (like e-leclerc in cherbourg or the 'continent' in le harve) and buy en masse.

The cherbourg hypermarche is/was about 1-2km from the ferryport, Irish Ferries (used to? probably still do) go there, the journey takes about 17hours and if its all working perfect, you should be ashore for about 4hours

I like the idea of magnums to get around corkage

When you get to the hotel, get them to ONLY OPEN BOTTLES AS NEEDED, don't place the bottles on the table, you'll get stung for corkage on more than you'll need plus you'll have alot of closed bottles left over.

Don't turn your nose up at 'screwcap' wine bottles, these have 0 chance of being a corked bottle of wine.. bottles with corks are more romantic, but tbh, they're not opened at the table, so it doesn't make so much of a difference.

I was also told to approach some wine sellers (like the winebuff) and inform them you are going but if they'd give you a really good deal, you'd go with them, or use them to ship it over (I've yet to enquire about this, but no harm can come from asking)

If you do go, try have a list with years .. or someone who knows what they're talking about when it comes to wine
Grand Cru wines are generally dearer but are the highest quality

Crea might have it right tho, unless you've a wedding full of wine connoisseurs, there's not much point in moving from the standard bottle of wine the hotel has.. you can get good bottle of wine in France for 4-6euro adding 7-10 corkage, petrol, time.. hmm

I'm possibly going on a booze cruise to France for stag .. if this doesnt happen, wine will probably be sourced at home