Sourcing Unbottled French Wine

noelma

During recent trip to the Toulouse region of France, we enjoyed buying excellent table wine (red & white). This was stored by the restaurants in cask or barrels. On occasions we asked to take away bottles of it, and this was carefully then bottled for us. No idea of the %/vol.
It was explained to us that this was natural wine and had almost no additives or extra sulphates. I know that this will have limited shelf life.
My question is whether it is possible to buy barrels or casks of this wine - is it called cave? Or Caveau? If so, from where in France would I buy it?
I can sort out the transport and the excise - it's just the source I can't find!

Melendez

This post has been deleted.

enda1

Vin en vrac is what you're looking for (though that includes bag-in-box) in terms of what the restaurant was doing.

It depends on the wine but some appellations allow the wine to be sold in this manner, some don't, and some do but are never found like this. Some of the wine is not AOC also, some is VDP or VDT.

Many however will buy a barrel of a reasonably good wine, in particular Bordeaux. This you could do but the costs associated are prohibitive unless you plan to make it an annual affair.

You need to find bottles, corks, labels and a corking device. You'll need space and good storage conditions. You'll need to arrange transport which must be self transport. The good point is that you DON'T have to pay any excise or vat as long as you can prove/convince customs (assuming you're stopped) that's it's not a commercial import. (You can arrange 3rd party transport but then you'll be liable for customs). Best bet is to split a barrel or three amongst a group of friends to offset costs.

noelma

enda1 wrote: »

Vin en vrac is what you're looking for (though that includes bag-in-box) in terms of what the restaurant was doing.

It depends on the wine but some appellations allow the wine to be sold in this manner, some don't, and some do but are never found like this. Some of the wine is not AOC also, some is VDP or VDT.

Many however will buy a barrel of a reasonably good wine, in particular Bordeaux. This you could do but the costs associated are prohibitive unless you plan to make it an annual affair.

You need to find bottles, corks, labels and a corking device. You'll need space and good storage conditions. You'll need to arrange transport which must be self transport. The good point is that you DON'T have to pay any excise or vat as long as you can prove/convince customs (assuming you're stopped) that's it's not a commercial import. (You can arrange 3rd party transport but then you'll be liable for customs). Best bet is to split a barrel or three amongst a group of friends to offset costs.

Thanks Enda! Making some headway here!! Maybe someone will actually know a specific appellation from where this can be bought!