Post 229: Bargain Lathwaites Mystery Wines

Post New Year, like many people I've tried to lay off the old larup for a little while. Since New Year, my total alcohol consumption has been 2 bottles of beer which were most enjoyable and 1 glass of cheap red wine, which was rubbish. I understand that for some people this may be nothing at all out of the ordinary. For me though it is most unusual. I have another week of this being nearly on the wagon to go and then it's both my and Mrs VegBox's birthdays. At which point I shall bid the wagon a not terribly fond farewell.

All this is a long and slightly contrarian introduction to say that today I've had delivered a mighty 42 bottles of plonk. Laithwaites currently have an offer on for 'Mystery Cases' of wine. The offer is that they'll include wines which would cost at least £87 for 12 Red or White or £55 for 6 Sparkling. They are selling these for £69.99 for the first case and £59.99 afterwards for the 12's. For the fizzys it's £44.99 for the first and £39.99 for any subsequent. This appeals very strongly to three things I like very much:

1. Getting something cheap
2. Surprises
3. Booze

So, I decided I'd have a go at this deal, pausing briefly via vouchercodes.co.uk - where I spotted £40 off for new customers spending over £100. A fairly pain free phonecall later and I'd got the £40 off (despite being an existing customer) and agreed that all the cases would be priced at the lower level.

I'm not sure if I couldn't have got a bit more off if I'd tried harder. So, all in my order came to (2 x 12  Red, 3 x 6 Fizzy) £200.

The reds that arrived were: Red wine list, the price of each case to buy individually being £93. The fizzies: Fizzy Plonks, to buy individually would have cost £60. Clearly Lathiwaites aren't going to put £100's of pounds worth of wine in each case, with my cases only just being above the stated minimum values. This still though leaves me with wine for which I've paid only just above half price.

Happy and slightly drunken days to come indeed!