Foire aux vins wine sale posterIf you are planning to stock up on wine while in France, the nationwide Foires aux vins (wine fairs or wine sales) are a major date for your diary. They're held twice a year, in spring and autumn.

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During these periods, wines are on sale at heavily discounted rates at supermarkets all across the county. They can vary from modest everyday wines to top vintages costing hundreds of €uros.

Most of them will come from Bordeaux, Languedoc, the Rhône valley, Provence or the Loire. (Burgundies are harder to come by.)

Supermarkets also use the Foires as the opportunity to sell wines from interesting small producers who can't supply them with enough bottles to stock all year round. You'll see a few overseas vineyards represented too.

Stores can achieve up to 15 per cent of their annual wine sales during these Foires and the bigger outlets go all out to create a party atmosphere.

Sometimes they lay on free nibbles and make sure that their wine buyers are on hand to advise customers. It's a good idea to fix your budget before you go along, as it's only too easy to get carried away and spend far more than you planned!

Auchan wine fairThe Foires aux vins aren't fixed feasts and the dates and duration vary from supermarket to supermarket. In autumn they're held around the period of the traditional open-air grape harvest festivals and can run from anything from a single long weekend to a full month.

A few outlets start in the last week of August, others in October. But September is the best time to catch the Foire at a wide range of stores.

These autumn sales feature the heavy-hitting wines and are the best time to snap up a meaty vintage Bordeaux as a special treat for Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Year.

News for French wine fairs 2019These are the dates of the autumn 2023 sales in the main French supermarkets. Note that larger and smaller branches of the same chain (Carrefour, for example) are likely to have different dates.

25 Aug-10 Sept Casino; 28 Aug-10 Sept Géant; 5-17 Sept Petit Casino, Spar, Viva; 5-24 Sept Intermarché; 5-24 Sept Auchan supermarchés; From 6 Sept LIDL; 15 Sept-1 Oct Monoprix; 18 Sept-8 Oct Franprix; 26 Sept-9 Oct Carrefour hypermarchés; From 30 Sept Leclerc; 5-22 Oct Carrefour Market.

The spring Foires - which are much smaller - tend to be in March, with some spilling over into April, depending on when Easter falls. They have the upcoming season of weddings and summer picnics in mind and are more likely to be dominated by whites and lighter reds.

Plus the essential vin rosé de Provence, which should generally be drunk young and will be represented by the previous autumn's vintage. Champagne never goes out of season, of course.

Even the national supermarket chains stock a good range of local food and wine, and this varies widely in stores from region to region. So you're bound to find a decent line-up of Provence wines at the Foires in Provence.

winetasterThe Leclerc supermarkets first had the original idea of doing this back in 1973. They are generally regarded as still staging the best Foires aux vins, though this particular chain holds them in autumn only.

In any case it's always useful to visit several stores and compare the promotions, if you have time.

Many offer a "seven bottles for the price of six" or other similar deals at this time, which can be very good value. Various wine retail websites such as Mondovino or Wineandco also get in on the act.

A word of caution. One of the main reasons for the Foires is to clear space in the stores for the upcoming autumn vintage. But they can also often be a way of getting rid of hard-to-shift second-rate wines which have been languishing on the shelves for too long.

Real wine snobs only buy from a caviste (wine merchant or cellarman), and look down their finely developed noses at the mass-market Foires.

But this is certainly not to say that you can't find some modest bargains whether you're a dedicated oenophile or an ordinary consumer,.

Many stores hold congenial preview evenings - soirées inaugurales - with advance tastings of some of the bottles on offer, and a chance to buy them ahead of the rush.

Locals keep an eagle eye out for these: you can find out about them from the newspaper or simply by chatting to staff on the shop floor. Expect queues outside supermarkets on the morning of the first day of the sales themselves.

red wine smallIt's not unusual for an exceptional wine to fly off the shelves within hours, and you'll need to arrive on Day One if you have this in your sights. But we've generally found decent everyday wines, even right at the end of the Foires.

If you read French and are planning on some serious wine buying, it's well worth checking out both national and local newspapers and magazines such as La Revue du Vin de France, which publish special issues reviewing the most interesting wines and keenest prices in the weeks running up to the Foires.

Be wary of the shiny foil medals sported by many bottles boasting of a "Best Wine" win. France has many of these competitions, some of them quite small.

For the medal to be meaningful, it should be awarded at a major event such as the Vinalies Nationales.

After the wine sales start, the larger supermarkets should, as mentioned above, have a buyer on the shop floor, to help you choose.

But we've found that in Provence, where people are rarely too busy to stop and chat, even the assistants at our small neighbourhood discount store will be happy to take a moment or two to talk about their favourite wines and share their non-expert - but nonetheless passionately held - opinions.

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