Buying Drink in France

Mr Minty

Getting married in December. Was thinking of making a trip over to france on the ferry to purchase Wine for the wedding.

Has anyone done this and is it worth it

Thanks

penexpers

It's pretty common I think. Be warned though that hotels will charge you a corkage (I think?) fee if you bring your own wine to the wedding. You'll probably get a better answer over at Weddings & Marriage.

Davidth88

Hi,

We did this , but we were living in London at the time so popping to Calais was only a day trip.

We purchased a number of cases ( 10 ) of a working champers and 10 of a sparkling wine , we then negotiated with the hotel that they supplied the table wine ( which basically no-one drunk and it was only 2 bottles per table ) and we supplied the champers and they didn't charge corkage.

The corkage charge can be quite hefty so check first.

Also , the British Customs went through a stage of being picky about what was ' for personal usage ', it could be the Irish ones could be the same so take some evidence that a wedding is taking place ( letter or something ) . We didn't get stopped, I know no-one who has been stopped but its very little effort to negate the risk.

P. Breathnach

A carful of wine is not normally considered excessive. I gather that customs use a guideline of about 80 bottles per passenger as an appropriate amount for personal use. It is a guideline, and I think there is some scope for negotiation. I have brought in good amounts of wine and been chosen for customs inspection (I must be dodgy-looking). The generous amount of wine was not discussed; all they wanted to know was if I had any tobacco.

I think they might look differently on a vanful of drink, or if you had many bottles of spirits along with the wine.

Be careful about overloading a car. A bottle of wine weighs about 1200 gms; champagne about 1600 gms. I once brought a bit too much. The car could move quite well with it, but braking performance was affected, so I had to cut my driving speed.

On balance, I would suggest that is worth doing only for superior wines, where the savings per bottle are a bit more, or if you like the thought of a trip to France anyway.

Ponster

There's usually no problems at customs if you can show them something that proves that you need the drink for a wedding.

From the seedings that I've been at where the coupld bought the wine in France, the corking fee was so much that it didn't make any difference to the actual price but they got the wine that they wanted.

Certain hotels in the Clonmel area can charge up to €15 per bottle to 'open' it !


By the way, this is probably best asked in the Weddings forum

BuffyBot

Agreed, think it's a better discussion for the Weddings forum.

hot fuss

You could also try Sainsburys in Newry.. We got fab deals there on bubbly and wine and got all our booze there for the reception.

It worked out way cheaper than buying from the hotel, and we didn't have the expensive of travelling to France, which isn't cheap. Just work out how much you need, how much corkage your venue is charging and see if it's worth your while travelling..

whosedaddy?

same idea crossed my mind... our venue charges 10€ corkage...
And we don't like their low end red wines.

the main thing (apart from the customs question) stopped me from doing it.

How much wine do I need to buy (how much money will I save) to pay for the ferry / petrol AND make a saving over buying it here.

Is it worth spending two days on a ferry?

Minicruise to France with Irishferries is 257€..

hot fuss

Depends on what size wedding you're having I suppose. We had 100 people and bought 60 bottles of wine. We had loads left over and saved 8 euro per bottle by buying it in Sainsburys..

I really think France would only be worthwhile if you are buying a lot of wine.

djkeogh

This is a debate that we're going through ourselves. Our venue is charging and outrageous €12 corkage per bottle. Having about 150 people on the day so I definitely think money could be saved but only if we can come to some agreement on that corkage price.

10-10-20

Hi, I went to north France to get the wine for our wedding in March of this year.
It was a great trip. I had a lot of planning done before and had the wine and champagne ordered beforehand. Our wedding was for 230 people, and we purchased 84 red, 84 white and 84 champs.
Corkage was €10 for wine and 15 for champs.

In all, I saved €3000 and that includes the boat price. In truth, we did manage to borrow a van and our accommodation was free as a friend has a house near Fougeres (2hrs from Cherbourg). I just brought over a bed for him!

If you are planning on going, note that Irish Ferries only publish their prices and schedule in December, and up until May the trip comes to ~€350 for two people and a car/van.

In relation to the weights, our supplier was able to give us the combined weight of the wine beforehand, so I knew we needed a van when I saw it was going to be 350kgs approx!

If you have good French you can negotiate better rates from some of the smaller suppliers. I avoided the wine warehouses around the ports as I feel that you have more control when you purchase through a specialist (sommelier) as they know and have hand picked/tasted the wines. They also appreciate the business a LOT more!

Let me know if you want the name of my contact. The do have an English speaker available.

10-10-20

whosedaddy? wrote:

same idea crossed my mind... our venue charges 10€ corkage...
And we don't like their low end red wines.

the main thing (apart from the customs question) stopped me from doing it.

How much wine do I need to buy (how much money will I save) to pay for the ferry / petrol AND make a saving over buying it here.

Is it worth spending two days on a ferry?

Minicruise to France with Irishferries is 257€..

The thing with the 'minicruise' is that you only have a few hours on shore and if the boat is late arriving, it means that the shops could be closed.
I went over on a Wednesday (arrived Thursday), and returned on Saturday (arrived home Sunday). I know that this may be a bit longer than you would prefer but it's worth taking time instead of a rush-job.
Accommodation over there can be got for as little as €40 per night in a village hotel or B+B. Fuel costs over there are higher than here, but you could quite easily avoid having to stop-off at all if you stay local to the port.

To help you with the figures, our hotel was looking for €50 for a bottle of Chablis, we got a better bottle for €7. Their red was €60, and we again got a better bottle for €14. Champagne was €80 and we got a Blanc-de-blanc premier Cru for €27. Of all the comments after the wedding, most complemented the drinks hugely, so the gamble we took on not being able to taste the wine beforehand, leaving it in the hands of the sommelier paid off!

We had 18 bottles of champs left over, 27 reds and 3 whites. It really made the day (even better!) in being able to say that we had sourced good quality wine!

whosedaddy?

10-10-20: Sure I only picked the mini-cruise as i thought that is the cheapest way of getting out and back. everything else requires accomodation, etc.

thanks for providing some actual figures.

If you hadn't gone to france - would you have bought the Cablis for 50 and he red for 60? What was you budget per bottle?

This raises another question (I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere in the forum): How much would you (the ones considering going to France/ Sainsbury, etc) pay for the venue wine otherwise?

Victor

I've heard that Customs can look at 300 bottles of wine for a wedding as 'not for personal use'.

10-10-20

whosedaddy? wrote:

If you hadn't gone to france - would you have bought the Cablis for 50 and he red for 60? What was you budget per bottle?

I would have looked for the next best thing - getting it from a supplier here. I wouldn't have been able to afford what they were looking for per bottle, so maybe I would have chosen the cheaper option after that.

But, having said that, the hotel where we got married removed the option for corkage early this year. So, if you want good booze at a wedding there in future, you've got to pay top-euro for it!

Tarbo

Just back from Cherbourg with Irish Ferries. Would do again for the wine, but only just. You need to have your homework done in advance and pre order if you can. If the ferry arrives on time, it can take 40 minutes to get off the ferry and another 40 to get through immigration & customs.This leaves it tight if you want to browse. You will need 15 mins to get to auchan, two hours there and 15 mins back. This all eats in to your 5-6 hours ashore so a good option is to order half your requirements for pick up at the wine warehouse and on to Auchan. Normandy wine warehouse will take your order and have it on a pallet ready to go. So you just pay and load. They are probably a little more expensive than the French supermarkets but will have more of the brands we recognise at home. Better value is Auchan hypermarket about 7kms from the port, pretty much only French wine here but very good value to be had. Their own brand "Pierre Channau" in particular is good value with special offers on every week. It is funny to see all the D reg cars in the French supermarket carpark. Don't go if you want 100 bottles, you would want to be getting 150+ to make it worthwhile.

10-10-20

Hi, good to see your feedback!
I was always of the opinion that the day-trip was a gamble at best - the weather plays havoc with some of the sailing times and dates and you really cannot guarantee your arrival in late or early season.

I'm looking at booking a trip over in late April. I'll be bringing a more modest amount back this time...

Tarbo

Update. Did the booze cruise again in May on the new Irish Ferries "Oscar Wilde" and had a much better experience. The "new" ferry is nearly as old as the "old" ferry but far superior in every way. There is more room in every cabin. I booked the 3 star window cabin, which has ensuite bathroom, two single beds, double windows and small TV with assorted satelitte TV channels (RTE, SKY News, Sports).The restaurants are of a good standard and not too pricey. The expensive one is €35 per person for a 3 course dinner. There is also a steakhouse and canteen type one as well. One major improvement was the helpfulness of the staff. Nothing was too much trouble.

This time brought back 300 bottles of wine, the majority of which I got in Auchan. This is a over the 120 bottles (90 litre per person) limit but it was ok. I would say that this is at the limit of what you can put (weight wise) in to a family estate car. If you want to buy more you will need a van and you run the risk of getting pulled by customs.

Auchan have very good value in the €2-€3 euro range and would recommend many of their wines at this price. Don't be afraid to ask the staff to recommend some to you.

If you are going just to save money, it is just about worth it. But if you are going to have a weekend away and a bit of craic, it is well worth it. The whole experience is much better on the new boat.

Bon Voyage!