A have one bottle of brand spanking new Saint Clair Wairau Reserve which I paid £23.95 for from Wine direct.

I made up the order with 5 bottles of Saint Clair's basic

Ireland v Wales on the Beeb on Saturday afternoon and then off out to a dinner party with SC WR.

Sunday......nothing, hopefully.

My kinda weekend

I believe Sunday is a special day for the ladies. I shall roasting a hog for the wife and Mother-in-law.

Homemade pizza's tonight, hot, hot!

I have my eye on an '04 Tim Adams Semillon and something Rhoney.

Someones making some money - the 2007 was £9.25 at the winery last year.

We know this Mr P, factor in Quantas flights to Aukland and then local to Christchurch and the maths is different.

CB decided to see what the market could stand a long time ago. Now, other than CB, Astrolabe comes in at £15 at Waitrose.

That particular St. Clair was about $34 NZ dollars, some time ago, at 2 nz to 1 sterling, we are talking £17 before shipping and wind-up costs

I Suspect they can't give Monkey Bay away in New Zealand now - The Americans will take it to mix with Blossom Hill or that Gallo stuff. Who knows - whatever it says on the shipping label appears to be enough.

_________________
Duncan

Which particular? Goosegogs doesn't name a vintage.

According to the St Clair website today the 2009 Wairau Reserve SB is $NZ 30.95, which works out at around at £14.45 according to XE.com

But the UK merchant doesn't have to pay NZ taxes neither do they pay the cellar door retail price.


If Goosegogs paid £23.95 for this wine then someone made a hefty wedge.

BTW -- Slurp.co.uk has St Clair 2009 Wairau Reserve SB at £18.85 (incl VAT)

Mr P, CB = Cloudy Bay

I'm surprised Goose had to shell-out that much - but then, he may not have been able to afford a whole case of this wine - singles are always wound-up

There are a load of rip-offs. The UK price fixures look at the vintage, then wind the thing up. Astrolabe is 19 dollars in NZ and 15 quid here.

Pontac - what do UK folks have to do, to get away from this dillemna ? The only way, is to do what we do here, at the prices ruling in the last 3 months or so, and sort out the trash, from the expensive, but decent. Sometimes we find an absolute bargain - but that is rare, or a distress parcel, or a temporary crash in merchant prices.

The figures I quoted for the xchange rate are a little out of date.

I take your point. The wine dealers who are coining it, know damn well we are caught with margin / mark-up as well on changing sterling on smaller amounts, amounts less than a grand. You dont get near the proper rate until you're changing £10k

Yes, of course, if I were on business, I'd pick-up some, but hand luggage is out now. Wrap in your case and they hurl them on the conveyor belt - smash.

I am assuming Goose has bought the 2009,he says, "A have one bottle of brand spanking new Saint Clair Wairau Reserve" buying the lesser '08 at that price would be very dumb.

When I last saw the NZ price for Saint Clair Wairau Reserve '09 it was bigger money, perhaps shortly after release.

I see no point in making Goose feel crap about the price of one of his fave MSB wines when compared to the cellar door price at the winery in NZ last year.

I can buy beautiful wines, clarets and burgundies in France for half the price, and on the vintages I want - I'm not there, I'm stuck here with the lousy UK regime - so I don't beat myself up every day- OK

_________________
Duncan

The SC WR was 2009 hence the comment ' brand spanking new '. Also, Slurp insist on 6 bottle minimum and I only wanted the one plus 5 SC MSB basic which incidentally is 70p a bottle cheaper at Wine Direct than it is at Slurp so that's £3.50 to add to the price of the SC WR @ Slurp.

That said, the SC WR was worth every penny of the £23.95.

And the SC basic is by far the best sub £10 MSB of the new vintage.

I'm happy and all this pedantic point scoring, Pontac, is water off a duck's back.

Btw...Oddbins have the 2009 Villa Maria Clifford Bay for £9.99.

Bob gave it 91.

Goose, how does the SCWR compare with the Wairau Cove SB at Tesco for £4.99?

The 09 WC is superb, GK. Grapes were picked at perfect ripeness so no tartness from under ripe grapes or too much body and sweetness from over ripe.

Th flavour is wonderful. Every sip is enriched with gooseberry, elder, blackcurrant, mineral, passion fruit, grapefruit pith and parsnip.

I suggest you rush off to Tesco now and buy every bottle in store and then order more online before this wine runs out.*

G
* Nobody else do this

Wot, no compost? Forget it.

Anyway, Bacchus has cleared the UK out.

Still, at least he paid a fair price..........

Actually he didn't....£4.99 is more than the wine is worth. It's just alcoholic water with yellow dye and a bag of sugar.

That said though, drinking the SC WR has taught me that it's time to give up drinking ok wines for £6 or so and stick to wines that for me at least have a WOW factor.

Obviously ( when possible ) for less money than £23.95.

Btw envious at your allotment tales i've decided to have a bash at growing a few things.

Rhubarb, Maris Pipers, beetroot, runner beans and my gooseberry plant which in it's first year gave about a million goosegogs and literally sod all the last two years.

I have moved it.

You want to get your spuds chitting now, put them somewhere cool and light. The runner beans can go straight in the ground but not until all threat of frost has gone, mid-May onwards, get plenty of muck dug in now, prepare the soil.

Morrisons are selling 10kg of organic chicken manure pellets for £6, thats a very good price.

Give Kale a go, easy to grow and delicious.

We are now eating the first spring cabbage, lightly cooked, toss in a little butter, ya cant beat it.

I have decided to grow a million chillis this year.

I take a expanded polystyrene winebox and check that in. Not had any breakages ... yet.




I thought Goosegog was only happy when moaning about something.


It is a useful exercise to check cellar door prices -- some wines are cheaper in UK than at cellar door...

I've been told by more than one person ITB that cost of transporting wine is very much the same no matter where it comes from. Seems hard to believe that shipping wine from e.g. Spain costs the same as from NZ...