Food ‘n Drink

At Christmas I got a voucher with an online purchase for Virgin Wines. The voucher was £40 off and the deal was if I joined their Wine Bank I could get an additional £20 off their £100 top 12 selling wines case. So 12 bottles of wine for £40 plus delivery, can’t complain with that! My brother and I went in 50/50 for it (as the voucher was half mine and half his anyway), he gets the red wine I took the white. The wine that came was a mix of Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay and others. I’ve had a few bottles of the white, most need a good meal with them though.

The deal on this voucher however was to join the Virgin Wine Bank. This means you can choose to pay X amount per month (eg. £20) into your wine bank account. After 3 months of payment they’ll give you another X amount for free. So for the past three months I’ve had £20 go off my credit card and then once I had £60 in there they gave me another £20. So £80 to spend on wine (like a kid in a sweet shop!).

I ran through the wines available and chose 10 different cheap dry whites (no Chardonnay thanks!), oh and when I say cheap we’re taking £5-8. I duplicated one bottle as I liked the sound of it, and I also got a Rose to try. 12 bottles plus delivery came to just over £80. Can’t complain when it’s delivered to your door though!

However, while that’s all well and good here are the real facts.

1. I wouldn’t usually spend more than £3.50-4 on a bottle of wine. The cheapest on this deal has been £5 less 25% so £3.75.
2. I can’t really afford £20 a month to go out of my account/credit card.
3. I don’t drink enough to get through 12 bottles every three months.
4. I’ve now got over 20 bottles of wine and no space for half of them!

It’s a good deal if you want to go for slightly more expensive wines, or get a nice selection to keep for dinner parties or special times, but I tend to like light dry whites which are easy to drink without soda water and with or without food. Plus, these days you can pick up so many deals on wine in the local supermarkets or wine shops. Sure, you could sign up to just receive a mixed box of wine each quarter and you get to try new wines, but usually these are 50/50 red/white and by not drinking red I’d lose out, and most of their mixed boxes had 3 or 4 bottles of each, which means if you don’t like one particular wine you’re stuck with at least 2 more bottles! (I guess they’ll come in handy for presents!).

So Virgin Wines, a good idea, especially if you like both reds and whites and fancy saving up for a little splurge every quarter, or once a year (you don’t have to buy after each quarter, you could save up for Christmas), but if you’re a less serious wine drinker and just prefer a nice easy drink then stick with the offers in the supermarkets or Costco

On that note, I’m off to finish some Torres Vina Sol