Many years ago back in the summer of 2005 I married my beautiful wife Anna. Our wedding breakfast was a sumptuous hog roast in a marquee in my parent’s garden in Kent . The weather glorious and there was wine and beer a plenty. By the time the Elvis impersonator came on our guests were in very merry spirits.

In those heady days we dinkies (double income no kids) and the pound was riding high in the international money exchanges. Given the strength of the pound I went with my dad and a friend to Sainsburys in Calais and purchased a 100 bottles each of Torres Vina Esmeralda and Penfolds Rawson’s Retreat Shiraz Cabernet, two very quaffable wines and the cost approximately £2.50 a bottle.

Since these days the pound has lost much of its value against the Euro and with the big supermarkets squeezing the margins of the producers to offer more competitive prices to their consumer, the booze cruise has seemingly become a thing of the past. Although every bottle of wine is taxed £2 tax in the UK this is can easily be eaten up by unfavourable exchange rates even more so with the expensive varieties; not to mention the expense of getting over to France with petrol so expensive. I dropped into Sainsbury Calais on a day trip to La Touquet a couple of years ago and other than a checkout girl I was there only person in there. Back in 2005 the aisles were bristling with people from the UK making bulk purchases. It came as no surprise when I heard Tesco, Oddbins and Sainsburys have since closed their Calais operations. Oddbins of course since having closed all their operations (but this is a different story!). Majestic are the only UK retailer left standing.

Having just returned to the UK from a village called Angles 20 or so miles north of La Rochelle I realise I was perhaps a little premature penning the obituary of the booze cruise. Browsing the wine aisle of the ‘Super U’ supermarket in La Tanche Sur Mer, I was quite taken aback by the good value of the wine on offer.

Other than a few varieties of Jacobs Creek and a few Blossom Hill presumably for unadventurous Brits abroad, the wines on offer were not the same as those on offer in the UK. Aside from these branded wines everything thing was exclusively French; the French seemingly unable to recognise the merits of any wine from outside their own borders.

A familiar wine I did spot was Les Armes Des Chablis at €5.50, so about £4.80 a bottle. A quick Google on the iPhone reveals a the same wine albeit a different vintage was selling at Tesco for £8.99 a bottle. Chablis always carries quite a high price tag and in my opinion does not always offer value for money. This however was a good clean crisp Chablis and under a five I wasn't going to argue. On the next visit I filled up my trolley.

Angles is very close to the Loire Valley and Nantes famous for the Muscadet grape. Figuring where better to find decent Muscadet since the prices ranged from as little as €2.75 to a giddy €3.50 I took the opportunity to put a few varieties into my trolley to find the best on offer. Muscadet has a reputation for lacking complexity, so I only selected Muscadet Sur Lie. The ‘Sur Lie’ bit meaning the wine was left in contact with the lees (dead yeast) to add body and complexity, a similar process also used in the production of Champagne . These were all good quaffing wines perfect for a hot day in France and or a UK wedding. The best on offer I would say was Domaine de la Jousseliere Sevre & Maine sur lie 2009 at €3.15.

I tried a few more expensive varieties. With memories of the impressive M&S Burgundy Mersault 2008 still in my mind I selected a bottle of Mersault 2009. This was not quite as impressive as the M&S offering but at €18.50 over £10 less expensive than the M&S Mesault.

In the UK I will drink far more red than white, but in the French sunshine around a private pool drinking white is far more conducive.  This said I we did purchase the odd reds to go with the steaks on the barbecue. A nice Mercurey I purchased roughly half the price of a similar UK version, so too a rather nice Gigondas from the Rhone region.

One thing I will give a word of warning on, UK supermarket wine buyers in my opinion are better than their French counterparts and a few duds were encountered alongside these bargains. If you're buying wine in bulk for a wedding then make sure you taste first.