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Carry on Calais

Festive lights are on and the trolleys are off. Anthony Rose beats the very British rush across the Channel for wine warehouse bargains

Saturday 18 November 2000 01:00 GMT
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As Christmas beckons, Calais is normally awash with channel-hoppers taking advantage of the negligible duty rates on alcohol to stock up for the festive season. Two-fifths of Calais' annual drinks turnover is Christmas trade, but this year the influx is slower than usual and the bulging trolleys not quite as platinum-plated. Post-millennium hangover, fuel crisis and dreadful weather have all conspired against Cash-and-Carry City. Most telling of all though, there are fewer boozecruisers because the ferries put fares up last year to recoup their losses from duty-free, which ended on July 1st 1999.

As Christmas beckons, Calais is normally awash with channel-hoppers taking advantage of the negligible duty rates on alcohol to stock up for the festive season. Two-fifths of Calais' annual drinks turnover is Christmas trade, but this year the influx is slower than usual and the bulging trolleys not quite as platinum-plated. Post-millennium hangover, fuel crisis and dreadful weather have all conspired against Cash-and-Carry City. Most telling of all though, there are fewer boozecruisers because the ferries put fares up last year to recoup their losses from duty-free, which ended on July 1st 1999.

'It's highway robbery', groans Dave West of Eastenders, referring to the ferry operators hiking the fares. 'You got Dick Turpin in one corner and Jack Straw in the other.' No stranger to infamy himself, you've got to give Dave West credit. After all, his suppliers now do. Compared to the numerous dodgy cash-and-carries sprinkled around Calais, Dave West has morphed into Mr.Clean, the new whiterthan-white image re-inforced by the massive boxes of Persil stacked alongside the Dog's Bollocks, his own wine range.

Eighty-five per cent of his sales are now wine, with beer the province of the bootleggers. Pointing to a locked display cabinet containing 1997 vintage Château Lafite, Cheval Blanc and Margaux, he proudly declares 'I used to be the beer king of Kally and now I'm the wine king of Kally'. And it's not all window dressing at the round-the-clock warehouse that's made him a multi-millionaire. There's a gluggable chablis selling for £2.50, some reasonably-priced clarets and good Australians like the 1995 Jamieson's Run Coonawarra for £6.25.

Across the road from Eastenders, in the unlovely Marcel Doret industrial park, Pérardel looks from a distance like any other pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap wine warehouse. Once inside though, there's a treasure trove of estate burgundies, rhÿnes, alsace and loire wines, not to mention good value growers' champagnes.

This family-owned chain, one of six throughout France, is a must for the serious wine shopper. Because it's in the cash-and-carry zone just off the motorway, over 90 per cent of its customers are British. Even the French think Pérardel is British, and dismiss it accordingly, choosing not to realise that Calais probably has the best selection of wines from around the world. They'd rather spend their francs at more familiar haunts like Auchan and Continent, even if the ranges, with the possible exception of Carrefour, are more limited and generally fairly mediocre.

Alternative French-sounding options are improving. As well as Luc Gille's Bar à Vins, a favourite local watering-hole, and Le Chais, which has opened a new branch in Cité Europe, Michel Morvan's Le Terroir in town has expanded this year - though parking is still a problem if you're planning to fill the boot here. With a range of 3,200 products from wines to pâtés and chocolates, Morvan specialises in older, mature vintages of Bordeaux at supermarket prices and he's excavated a basement which is full of ancient, dusty bottles.

Still, for the best selection of French wines, none can quite compare with Nick Sweet's Mille Vignes, 20 minutes away in Wimereux, a haven for anyone who's remotely serious about wine.

At the new, expanded Sainsbury's, a big improvement on the cramped premises in Auchan, each "shelf barker" duly tells you how much you're saving. At 10 francs to the pound though, it's missing a trick because the savings are even greater now that the pound is closer to 11 francs. Wines which cost around a fiver in the UK are the best value in France; thanks to lower duty and margins in France, they work out at around half price or less. Cava and Sainsbury's French vin mousseux are half price, while a £5.49 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz-Cabernet on promotion costs less than £3 a bottle. In the £6-£10 UK bracket, the saving drops to between 25 and 50 per cent, and the more you spend per bottle the less you save. On fine wines, a bottle of Laurent Perrier Champagne costs £8 less, and at around £6.50 a bottle Château la Vieille Curé works out at £4 less.

Unlike Sainsbury's, customers at Tesco Vin Plus, situated at the heart of the Cité Europe shopping mall, are playing trolley-dodgems. The store is about to go into the Guinness book of records for the highest amount ever taken by an off-licence in Europe, possible the world, in a single day (£600,000) and the highest amount (£2.72 million) in a week. Tesco Vin Plus' tills ring up as much as 45 Tesco drinks departments back in the UK. Watching Tesco customers stockpiling, as if against prohibition, you'd never know that business is not quite as good this year.

Where to buy

Le Terroir 29 Rue des Fontinettes, Calais (00 33 3 21 36 34 66). 9am-12.30, 2-7.30pm Tues-Sat, 9.30am-1pm Sun.

Southern French winemaker Michel Morvan has trebled the size of his wine shop near the Grande Poste into a storehouse of luxury goodies from wines to regional patés and chocolates. Open every day in December.

Mille Vignes 90-94 Rue Carnot, Wimereux (00 33 3 21 32 60 13). 10-1.30pm, 2.30-7pm Tues-Sat, 10am-1pm Sun.

Englishman Nick Sweet's Wimereux wine shop justifiably prides itself on its estate-bottled French wines, especially from the Rhÿne, southern France and Burgundy, with discounts for bulk buys. Well worth the detour.

Best buys: 1999 Sancerre Clos du Roy, Paul Millérioux, 62ff/ £5.80.Classic dry Loire Valley white made from sauvignon blanc with a penetrating, blackcurrant leaf aroma, and intense grapefruity character.

1998 Gigondas, Domaine de Font-Sane, 75ff/£7. Super-spicy, heady southern Rhÿne red with lovely blackberry fruitiness and spice, needing another two to three years to come into its own.

Champagne Le Brun de Neuville, 109ff/£10. Stylish champagne in an elegant, apéritif style with textured richness, a creamy mousse of bubbles and a citrus-crisp aftertaste.

Pérardel Rue Marcel Doret, Marcel Doret Zone, Calais (00 33 3 21 97 21 22). 8am-8pm daily.

If you only have time for one Calais visit, make this your port of call. Avoid the New World and go for wines from a mouthwatering selection of growers' wines and champagnes. Delivers more than it promises.

Best buys: 1995 Domaine Courbis, St. Joseph, 64 ff (£5.99). Smokily aromatic northern Rhÿne syrah with a perfumed cracked pepper character infusing this stylish, mellow red.

Champagne De Sousa et Fils Tradition Brut, 100ff (£9.35). Rich and savoury from a little-known champagne grower; a malty nose and rich halva-like flavours carried along on a soda stream of bubbles.

Bar à Vins 52 Place d'Armes, Calais (00 33 3 21 96 96 31). 9am-7pm, 9.30am-3 pm. Closed Wednesday.

Far from the maddening bustle, Luc Gille's oasis of calm in the town centre offers bulk wine in five or 10-litre plastic casks or excellent growers' wines. Wine advice, solicited or not, on tap.

Best buy: 1999 Muscadet sur lie Cuvée des Lions, 34 ff (£3.17).

Juicy, fresh and crisp with mouthwatering flavours and crisp appley fruitiness, this fine muscadet is made for shellfish such as moules mariniÿres.

EastEnders14 Rue Gustave Courbet, Marcel Doret Zone, Calais (00 33 3 21 34 53 33). Open 24/7.

If you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the great ex-Romford costermonger Dave West, whose massive cash-and-carry warehouses offers some surprising wine bargains.

Best buys: 1998 Mapocho Merlot, £3. Lovely supple Chilean red with a slightly grassy character like a soft and succulent everyday claret, but a fraction of the price.

1997 Château de Belcier, Cÿtes de Castillon, £4.99. Rich in blackcurrant fruitiness with a stylish veneer of vanilla oakiness, this flavoursome merlot-based claret from Bordeaux' right bank is as close to a bargain as you'll find in Calais.

Tesco Vin PlusCité de l'Europe, Calais (00 33 3 21 46 02 70). 9am-10pm Mon-Sat.

Probably Europe's biggest and certainly one of its busiest off-licences, this well-placed store at the heart of Cité Europe heaves from dawn till dusk with trolleys dangerously loaded to the gunwhales.

Best buys: 1999 La Copine Gaillac, 18 ff/£1.68. From an obscure south-western French blend of grape varieries, this juicy, quaffing beaujolais alternative is made for everyday glugging.

1996 Vintage Cava. At £2.50 a bottle (for six) compared to the UK price of £6.99, it makes sense to stick a couple of six-packs of this attractive Spanish vintage fizz for festive occasions.

Sainsbury'sAuchan Centre, Route de Boulogne, Calais (00 33 3 21 82 38 48). 8.30am-10pm Mon-Sat.

Not as busy as Tesco, but the new store is a good place for loyal, if unadventurous, customers to shop for New World brands and some good value fine wines.

Le Chais40 Rue de Phalsbourg, Calais (00 33 3 21 97 88 56). 9am-12, 2-7pm daily.

An enthusiastic operation run by Dutchman M. Vanheeckhout, operating on pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap wine warehouse principles, and specialising in French wines, with a smart, new store in the Cité Europe (00 33 3 21 36 12 25).

Most open on Sundays in December, phone ahead to check.

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