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Top Champagne discounts: Waitrose, Majestic and The Wine Society lead the charge
The strong discounting on Champagne prices in the grocery sector is being echoed in other parts of the off trade too.
At Majestic, where champagne has always performed well, the range has been extended and the single bottle price cuts are more generous, though you still have to purchase six bottles of wine in all to get the largest discount. A recent visit to my local Wimbledon store in south-west London showed the Pol Roger Réserve Brut stocks decimated with the mix-six price dropping from £60 to £42 currently, a 30% reduction.
Among the grocers only Waitrose stock Pol Roger and their current single bottle price is down £12 a bottle from £54.99 to £42.99, they are also discounting vintage Pol Roger (4th Dec-1st Jan) currently, down £15 from £94.99 to £79.99, for the excellent 2018 vintage, at least in Waitrose Cellar if not the shops.
While we reported last week some of the deep cuts made by the supermarkets were due to end on 2nd December, in fact those at Tesco are continuing at the moment with 25% off six bottle purchases still available and we understand it’s running until 15 December. Waitrose, although ending its 25% off deal, has introduced some attractive single bottle offers including Pol vintage and NV. But some of its larger ‘featured’ single bottle reductions, running from 4/12/2024 to 1 January 2025, are larger than 25%. Bolinger Special Cuvée drops £18 from £57.99 to £39.99 a bottle (30% off).
Majestic features quite a few champagnes that the main grocers don’t carry including five different cuvées from the house of Boizel, whose excellent wines haven’t previously been widely available in the UK outside The Wine Society. Their Blanc de Noirs ‘La Montagne’ which all comes from premier cru vineyards is down £10 from £55 to £45 under the ‘mix six’ deal and definitely worth seeking out. And their 2014 Grand vintage, also down £10 to £55 under the deal is an impressive 50/50 Pinot/Chardonnay blend, from a fine, cooler vintage. The new packaging for the whole Boizel range is also very smart.
Retailers extend festive discounts
Devaux, based in Champagne’s most southerly Côte des Bar region, where Pinot Noir is widely planted, is another fine exponent of Blanc de Noirs styles and theirs is down £4 to £28 a bottle under the ‘mix six’ deal. If you are looking for another, Pinot Noir dominant style, Bollinger’s Special Cuvée price at Majestic matches the discount at Waitrose, dropping from £18 to £39.99 a bottle if you buy six bottles of wine or more.
Lanson’s longer aged and well sourced Le Blanc de Blancs style is down in price by £26 to £50 a bottle which compares very favorably to most other Blanc de Blancs styles of this quality. Moët & Chandon’s just launched 2016 Grand Vintage, which they have cut £20 off the price to £50, is an attractively rich and complex alternative. These two wines do make the Runart Blanc de Blancs NV look rather expensive, even at a discounted price of £80 a bottle.
There are now two Billecart Salmon wines which are new to Majestic with the delightful, subtly fruity, creamy textured Brut Rosé down £10 to £68. The Brut Réserve, in its last incarnation based on the excellent 2019 harvest, has a very attractive mix-six price of £46, down from £53. This wine, for some time among the best multi-vintage offerings in the market, is in the process of evolving into Le Réserve NV, the first bottles of which based on the 2020 harvest will soon be available in the UK.
Grower Champagnes
The multi-vintage category in Champagne has over the past decade been divided into many sub sections and now, admittedly at significantly higher price points, offers some wines of considerable depth, complexity and quality, previously unseen outside the vintage category.
Ayala’s ‘Brut Majeur’ Extra Age is a good example. Originally made for Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants, it’s a longer aged version of their well-made NV cuvée that offers more complexity, and has a very attractive price of £30 (down £20) a bottle. As is the all-Grand Cru Taittinger Prélude, down £8 to £57 a bottle.
If you can find any Piper Heidsieck 2012 left in any Majestic stores, reduced from £60 to just £38 a bottle, that’s definitely worth snapping up. As is Piper’s richly dark pink ‘Sauvage’ Rosé down £15 to £35 a bottle.
The Wine Society, while only open to its members, has some great deals on six bottle cases, with wines like Castelnau Brut, which gets considerable lees and bottle ageing, reduced from £202.86 to £150 per case of six (equivalent to £25 a bottle). The Wine Society’s own champagne made by the excellent Alfred Gratien drops from £202.86 to £144 per six bottle case (equivalent to just £24 a bottle). Or buy 12 half bottles as I have, great stocking fillers, for just £168 which works out at just £14 a half instead of £17.41.
Elsewhere in the off trade, Jeroboam’s shops are promoting wines from excellent growers like Georges Veselle based in Bouzy, whose rich Pinot Nor based wines are worth seeking out (£49.95 for their 2016 vintage). While their own Layton’s Brut Réserve is a decent party offering, made by the BCC group that owns Philipponnat and Lanson, at £32.95 a bottle.
Harvey Nichols has the new impressive cuvée of Pommery’s Brut Apanage 1874, a multi-vintage assemblage of three top harvests — 2018, 2015 and 2012 –- blended with their perpetual reserve to produce a complex, textured wine with considerable finesse at £70.
The Whisky Exchange has for some time boasted a very decent range of champagnes, thanks to the fine buying of Dawn Davies MW, with many more obscure producers and some fairly tiny growers represented in the wide selection.
In the current offering there are deals to be had on the excellent Mumm RSRV 4.5 Brut sans Année at £41.94, a saving of £3 on this wine that’s a blend of five grands crus vineyards – Verzenay, Bouzy and Aÿ for Pinot Noir; Cramant and Avize for Chardonnay — based on the 2014 harvest. A bottle I tasted recently was disgorged in May 2023 and it really benefits from this extended less ageing and 18 months or so post disgorgement time on the cork, developing a lovely texture and palate richness.
Mumm’s sister house Perrier-Jouët’s Grand Brut is also on a deal at £37.50, a saving of £10.45. You can get either of these two wines engraved with a (20 character) message for your loved one for an extra tenner. While Bollinger’s recently launched and very attractive, forward and richly nuanced La Grande Année 2015 is down £45 to £130 a bottle.
Fine growers’ champagnes include: Pierre Peters Extra Brut Blanc de Blancs (£62.50); Paul Déthune Princesse des Thunes NV (£69.75); Lelarge-Pugeot 1er Cru Blanc de Blancs NV Champagne Extra Brut (£58.50), Berêche & Fils Brut Resérve (£59.95) and the relative bargain Gallimard Père et Fils Cuvée Prestige 2017 (£39.25), to mention but five.
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