Where to buy wine and how many bottles to get

purerandom

hi all,
with a potential guest list of 250, what would the wise folk on this forum reccommend regarding the number of bottles to purchase?
we hope to give each guest a glass and 1 top up so how many bottles should we purchase.
Can anyone reccommend a good place to get such an order of wine as we will be sourcing it our selves.
the trip to the north seems likely but i would like to avoid that if i can and give it to an irish seller if possible.

Toots

Generally the rule of thumb is half a bottle of wine for each adult guest (that's about a glass and one or two top ups). So assuming each of your 250 guests is an adult, and drinks, then you'll need about 125 bottles of wine.

uberwolf

I've no where near that number to cater for but still anticipate an overnight to north France somewhere.

How Strange

We've got 110 guests coming to our wedding and are allowing half a bottle per person so we needed 60 bottles. For that quantity it wasn't worth considering going to France as the ferry costs are high enough and it would require staying there for a day or two.

We looked at lots of different options i.e. the sunday times wine club, bennetts wine in NI, wine shops in Dublin, supermarkets in NI. In the end we bought our wine from superquinn. They are French from the Languedoc region and are very nice for €6.70 per bottle.

We were in Newry after we bought the wine and saw how cheap wine is up there.

I suppose the best thing I can say is shop around. Don't necessarily assume supermarkets and off licence here are too expensive to consider. Look out for deals in your supermarkets and in the newspapers. We really wanted French or Italian over New World so we're happy with what we got.

BC

Try some of the big off licences like O'Briens and Mitchell & Sons. I spoke to Mitchells and they will do sale & return so you can buy extra to be sure you have enough and return it if after if you don't use it.

NextSteps

You should get a good price if you're buying that much. I'm buying 144 bottles from my local wine shop at a discount of about 30%, with free delivery etc.

lotie

I buy my wine in Ringsend (The Wine Boutique). Independent wine specialist run by two sisters (I think their father ran the post office there some time ago). Very good at recommending wine with good tasting sessions - I sure they wouldn't be cheaper than going North but for a large order I'm sure you'd get a good deal. Very good selection of Portugues wines - which happen to be among my favourites!

Try Herdade dos Grous - excellent (though I admit I found it originally while on holiday in Portugal).

dara_

Any good local wholesaler should be able to offer you a great deal. Thats what i did and saved a small fortune.

shane b

hi
We bought our wine from O'Briens Wines and it was Santa Rita red and white for about 8 euro. They deliver to the hotel for free anywhere in the country and will take back any bottles not opened. We could have got cheaper but it would have meant picking it up delivering, transport cost, storage etc

curlybob

I was recently at a wedding of 215 people and 54 bottles of wine were used. More white than red. The hotel suggested to this couple to buy 80 bottles, which would allow 1 glass and 2 top ups, they got 100 bottles to be safe and are left now with 46 bottles of wine which they cant return! If you do want to over estimate I reccomend you buy from a supplier who will take back the unused bottles and give you a refund. There is a place in Galway called Cases who do that, but I'm not sure how compeditive they are.

Try to keep in mind also that a minimum of 10% wont take the wine as they will be driving, pioneers, just dont drink it etc!

Anyway best of luck

Clareman

I got mine from the Sunday Times Wine club, I wouldn't be able to recommend them highly enough, they went through the menu with me to match the wine, great prices, great delivery, threw in a nice gift, still have a bit of it left (got married in August) and it's lovely to drink on it's own.

Waesfjord

Clareman wrote: »

I got mine from the Sunday Times Wine club, I wouldn't be able to recommend them highly enough, they went through the menu with me to match the wine, great prices, great delivery, threw in a nice gift, still have a bit of it left (got married in August) and it's lovely to drink on it's own.

what's the delivery charge on wine as a UK based company yeah?

How Strange

Clareman wrote: »

I got mine from the Sunday Times Wine club, I wouldn't be able to recommend them highly enough, they went through the menu with me to match the wine, great prices, great delivery, threw in a nice gift, still have a bit of it left (got married in August) and it's lovely to drink on it's own.

I spoke to them and they were great. In the end we weren't getting enough wine to make it worth our time when they add in duty etc but I think they agreed to reduce delivery to £6 or something ridiculous.

Turbulent Bill

How Strange wrote: »

We've got 110 guests coming to our wedding and are allowing half a bottle per person so we needed 60 bottles. For that quantity it wasn't worth considering going to France as the ferry costs are high enough and it would require staying there for a day or two.

We looked at lots of different options i.e. the sunday times wine club, bennetts wine in NI, wine shops in Dublin, supermarkets in NI. In the end we bought our wine from superquinn. They are French from the Languedoc region and are very nice for €6.70 per bottle.

We were in Newry after we bought the wine and saw how cheap wine is up there.

I suppose the best thing I can say is shop around. Don't necessarily assume supermarkets and off licence here are too expensive to consider. Look out for deals in your supermarkets and in the newspapers. We really wanted French or Italian over New World so we're happy with what we got.

Do you just split the total no. of bottles evenly between red and white, e.g., 30 of each for your wedding? I'll have a similar number of guests at my wedding, and found a really nice red in Superquinn on special offer (works out as €7.50 a bottle), but don't have a white chosen yet. To avail of the offer I want to buy the red and get the white later, but obviously numbers are important. Thanks!

How Strange

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

Do you just split the total no. of bottles evenly between red and white, e.g., 30 of each for your wedding? I'll have a similar number of guests at my wedding, and found a really nice red in Superquinn on special offer (works out as €7.50 a bottle), but don't have a white chosen yet. To avail of the offer I want to buy the red and get the white later, but obviously numbers are important. Thanks!

Yes, we went 50/50 based on advice from a lot of people including wine specialists, friends who got married etc. I'd have been inclined to go 60/40 but we deferred to those more knowledgable on such things and did a 50/50 split.

Clareman

brian1976 wrote: »

what's the delivery charge on wine as a UK based company yeah?

I think it worked out at a fiver or something like that. I ordered 8 crates of red, 8 of white and 6 crates of champagne (well sparkling wine), I also got an introductory case of a selection of wines and a complimentary bottle of scotch, all in all it was less that €1100 delivered to my house.

The wine was of a very high standard and we still open a bottle of it from time to time, I think we had 3 crates of white, 2 of red and a crate of champagne left over, we gave a bit of it away as gifts