So this time, I thought I would take and employ a very clever carrier, which has little compartments to hold six bottles – separately, and silently. It’s made out of recycled bin liners or something, and is as tough as old boots. In fact, it may even be recycled old boots. But unfortunately, though perhaps predictably as it was sold by them, it bears the Majestic logo.
Which was doubly embarrassing. First, because I had to stand at a Sainsbury’s checkout loading up a Majestic carrier like some kind of turncoat. The looks! Coming in here when the 25 per cent offer’s on … This whole reusable bag thing is all very well, until you try loading one up in a rival shop.
And then, I had to walk up the High Road, looking like the kind of idiot who would go shopping at a wine warehouse like Majestic without a car. It’s one thing to be overcome with self-indulgence at a supermarket, and emerge with half a dozen bottles of wine when you only went in for a loaf. We’ve all done that. Surely.
But to go to a wine warehouse, which has a minimum purchase of six bottles, without a car? What, you visited Majestic absentmindedly, and suddenly felt you’d forgotten something … spectacles? … credit card? … ah, car!
Anyway, I finally struggled home on foot from Sainsbury’s, lugging my six bottles – silently. Since you ask, I got a lovely mature Chianti Classico Riserva from their Fine Wine selection, with 25 per cent off an already reduced price. Even though it sounds like something which footballers are caught doing in hotel rooms, I believe this is called a ‘double dip’. As they say, job’s a good ’un.
But I had to make the decision to shop as either a clanking compulsive alcoholic, or a silent forgetful idiot. I chose the latter. (Were it true, I would of course have forgotten the whole experience …)
Either way, I appeared to the world as a stooped figure with elongated arms, as if I had only made it halfway along the evolutionary scale.
Which, now I come to think of it …
CJ
I ordered this stuff from Virgin Wines on the back of a special offer that came with a broadband router gadget. It’s true. Trying to get your router to work? Have a drink! It’s the logical next step.
Naturally enough, this mail-order wine, dispatched to our house in the London suburbs, with good road and rail connections, didn’t arrive, even though Virgin emailed me two days after the order to ask how I was enjoying it: ‘I trust everything went well with your recent order,’ wrote someone called Jay. ‘We’d love to hear from you.’ So they heard from me that the drink hadn’t come, at which point David, the Priority One Senior Advisor, like a US Air Force officer, got back pretty much instantly – ‘Unfortunately it would appear your case has gone missing in transit.’ I could have told him that from the outset, given that most of our wine goes missing in transit, but anyway.
No sweat, though, as they ordered up a fresh case of Mixed Essentials, followed by an email from Christopher (Priority One Advisor), advising me that ‘Rest assured either myself or a member of the delivery team will be tracking this new case for you to ensure that any issues that arise are swiftly dealt with.’ What do you know, but the stuff turned up the next day, present and correct, followed by a phone call from a guy announcing himself as Dave, to check that it was actually there. Now that’s service, sort of.
Not only that, but the case contained a nice black envelope with the legend Go on, open me, you know you want to … printed on the front, and within, a voucher for a clothing and, yes, lifestyle store, plus £25 off a food-delivery company’s first order. A surfeit of good things.
The wines themselves? To be honest, a bit of a blur. Eight different varieties, half-and-half mainstream white and red, Malbec, Merlot, Chardonnay, all sorts. I simply don’t have the mental clarity to hold an opinion on them all. Even now, I have a bottle of Le Clos Gascon on the go – Merlot and Tannat, apparently, the latter a grape I had never heard of, big in Uruguay – and a Barossa Valley white. I opened this one up without looking to see what it was, took a mouthful, said to myself, Hmm, a Sauvignon Blanc? But not as sawtoothed as usual, only to discover that it was a Sémillon Sauvignon Blanc. Which I guess makes sense. And it’s a perfectly approachable drink, as have they all been, especially at the discounted price of around £5 a bottle. If I’d paid the notional full price of around £7? Less convincing. But since we know that wine pricing in the UK is as transient and unpredictable as ironic laughter, then fair enough.
The only dealings I can recall having, ever, with Virgin, before now, were when the whole family (years ago) flew Virgin Atlantic to San Francisco. At one point it was about 3 a.m. London time on the plane, almost everyone had passed out – when the Virgin cabin crew, in their smart red uniforms, woke us all up to offer us a mint’n’choc ice cream. We were too fuddled and exhausted to say No or For Christ’s sake. We humbly accepted our ices, ate them, and were, in some cretinous way, grateful for having been woken up in the dead of night and required to eat an entirely inappropriate snack. Well, we said, you don’t get that on BA. A woman in a red uniform woke me up with a mint’n’choc ice! Who cares about the rest of it? Who, indeed, can remember?
So thanks, Jay, Dave and Chris. It’s been fun. It’s been about the people. And, to some extent, it’s been about the wine.
PK
This wine delivery business – it’s such a palaver …
Oh, they make it sound easy. Give your address, name the day, pick your time. But it’s so much more complicated than that.
At one time, when I worked in an office, I would have my wine delivered there. Its clanking announced its contents to all and sundry across the open-plan, and no doubt other employees thought this was evidence of a profligate lifestyle typical of senior management.
I’m luckier now, as I often work from home. But it’s only a marginal improvement to have a delivery van arrive outside one’s house, proclaiming its provenance in its paintwork. Every curtain-twitcher in the street can see you’re having a load of wine delivered, and can assemble their own little bundle of judgements as to your wealth, lifestyle and alcohol consumption. (Later confirmed, of course, by examination of your recycling box …)
However, I can now theoretically name a day and pick a time when I will be home. And, significantly, when Mrs K will be out. So as not to trouble her, unnecessarily, with concerns about infelicitous expenditure, and overindulgent consumption. The wine can then be spirited into the cellar, where its presence will not be detected amongst the bottles which are Not To Be Touched.
I have now had experience of completing several sets of merchants’ instructions for wine deliveries. Sometimes they make supposedly helpful suggestions, like ‘Is there a shed or garage where we could leave it if you are out?’ No, there is not – because if the shed or garage had open access for deliveries, I would not be spending my money on wine, but on replacing all of my stolen tools.
Some also offer a two-and-a-half-hour window during which the delivery should occur. This is all well and good, but at some point during that time I am going to have to visit the lavatory. Dare I? The last time I tried it, no sooner had business commenced than the doorbell rang. I had to yell loudly enough to be heard down on the pavement that ‘I’m in the toilet!’, an announcement both surprising and unnecessarily informative to several passers-by and next-door’s nanny.
This time, I was sent a very nice text, to tell me that my wine would arrive between