BA is on the hunt for a new MW
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THE BURNING QUESTION
How good or bad are you finding the service from couriers right now?
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I think on the whole the couriers have been fairly decent. I get on well with the local guys but ones who are not familiar with the area can often be intimidating and stressful. That’s all probably down to them being under pressure. ‘Fragile and handle with care’ means absolutely nothing and you have to have extreme protection afforded to any packages. Our main courier is good on the phone and email so when things do go wrong we do have someone we can at least sort it with.
Bosses at British Airways are turning to fine wine to get the beleaguered airline through the turbulence of the pandemic. Until 2010, BA employed top wine writer Jancis Robinson as its consultant. But
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she resigned after the airline’s then boss, Willie Walsh, cut costs by appointing a
Alan Irvine The Scottish Gantry, Milngavie & Stirling
single supplier for the airline’s three cabin classes. The flag carrier, which has faced criticism over plans to make passengers order food and drink from an app, is recruiting another Master of Wine in an effort to lift its game. Daily Mail, December 4
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We didn’t realise that the greatest bane of our lives would be sending things and it not arriving in one piece. We were so excited when we sent out our first order. We’d lovingly boxed it up and handed it over to the smiley collection guy and it was never seen again. That was our wake-up call. Every time a box goes out we cross ourselves like Catholics and just hope it’s going to make it. We changed couriers three times during our first year.
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Alex Griem H Champagne winner H Chilled & Tannin, Cardiff
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We had a situation yesterday where the courier had a breakage and for some reason they managed to return it to a private individual, who isn’t even a customer. So this 85-year-old lady received this breakage and it leaked all over her floor. It’s one thing to break the wine but to send the return to a completely random person – it’s just bizarre. Most of the time things are OK, but I think they are all under pressure and they don’t have enough staff.
Mega winery faces local opposition
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Plans for Britain’s biggest winery have been put on hold over concerns about
Francis Peel Whitebridge Wines, Stone, Staffordshire
traffic – and badgers. An almost three-hour planning committee meeting was held at Medway Council in Kent to determine the fate of a proposal to build what would be Britain’s biggest winery and visitor centre. This vast, and contemporary, £30m project – named Kentish Wine Vault – would be built on green belt land located in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural
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We work with Parcelforce and they’ve been brilliant. There’s a members’ forum on the Vindies website and I think the consensus was that Parcelforce was the most reliable. We use the three-stage pulp packaging, you could almost drop it from 20 feet and the bottles would be fine. I think if you get the packaging right, you’re halfway there. We don’t label it with our company logo so it’s not blindingly obvious that it’s a box of booze.
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Simon Hill The Artisan Wine & Spirits Co, Salisbury
Beauty, surrounding the small village of Cuxton, on the North Downs. Many councillors were concerned over the impact of the winery’s visitor centre.
Champagne Gosset The oldest wine house in Champagne: Äy 1584
wine-searcher.com, December 11
THE WINE MERCHANT january 2022 23
