Mine has been fine until today
I bought a few crates of wine for my clients which I dished out with the blithe generosity of the honest local businessman, doing his best in a competitive market and many thanks for all your orders and instructions during the year and I forgive you, you cheeky scamps, for sending me on 70 mile wild goose chases and all the best and I'll see you next year ha ha more of the same, eh, bigger and better.

They weren't TOTALLY cheap - I tend to use my Nectar points off the years diesel towards Sainsburys wine crates. Specifically, there were 18 bottles of Pinot Grigot and 18 bottles of Shiraz.

There were three spare bottles - my reward for taking them - and an hour ago I decided to have a little treat and scoff one of the Shiraz.

It is fucking FOUL. I know a bit about what wine should be and I know a bit about red diesel and this stuff is definitely the latter. I had half a glass and an hour later my mouth still tastes like I've been chewing a gull after an oil spill.

I've given 16 bottles of this to people upon whom I rely to keep me in a living and I'm going to have to look them in the eye sooner or later. I suppose a few of them will just hold their noses and scoff it out of the bottle but I do have - did have - an element of respectable, discerning clientele who have received from me a present of fence preservative masquerading as Shiraz.

Cock.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Thu 26 Dec 2013, 18:44, 7 replies)

Ooops!
Maybe you just had a bad one. Or it's as bad as you say in which case you're screwed 2 ways - if you call and apologise the ones with tesco value tastebuds will think you're mental and the ones who threw it away will tell you it was alright (very British) then bitch to themselves that you knew it was bad and sent it deliberately.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Thu 26 Dec 2013, 19:20, closed)

Wine's fucking shit.
My brother's a wine geek, and sent us a couple of bottles for Christmas. They're probably quite expensive, but wine tastes like wine or vinegar to me. This stuff tasted like wine. It's my anniversary soon, and we have a bottle that cost £150-my generous brother again- I bet it tastes like wine. It's all wasted on me. He may as well have bought a bottle for a tenner, or shit loads of IPA, that's what would make me really happy.
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Thu 26 Dec 2013, 20:24, closed)

I agree that wine is generally shit, but somehow it always tastes better when it's been given a gift

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sun 29 Dec 2013, 0:15, closed)

been there
A very good friend, and supplier to the tune of about £250k/pa to me, and I'd guess ~£50m locally gives out 3.5% wine to his valued customers. It isn't even antifreeze.

It's an embarrassment to us all, and I am a good enough friend to tell him.

I haven't.

A cracking bottle of wine is less than £20, a passable Bollinger is less than £40 if you buy it right.

You can do 16 personal visits in 3 days (so, that's your weekend sorted).

less than a grand to secure your livelihood, make a personal impression on your clientbase and make yourself out to be a good guy with a sense of humour and the self-awareness to fix a problem? Why wouldn't you?

They'll remember you forever, but in a good way.
(pounana Slept well, and dreamed of large women, on, Sat 28 Dec 2013, 0:25, closed)

As a company we are one suppliers' biggest customer in the UK- Bar none.
We probably spend between four and five million pounds per year with them. Our present from them this year, to share around the salesforce and the applications dept - a total of eight people?
Nothing. Zip. Diddley-squat.
Great bit of PR there guys - well done.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Sat 28 Dec 2013, 9:45, closed)

..
..some companies have strict ethical rules about gifts. My company (a mahoosive multi-national engineering company) rules it gross misconduct to give anything to anyone for anything. We do send out xmas cards though.

All the gifts we get from subbies goes into the christmas raffle, which usually makes it pretty much impossible not to win something. Some years there's more prizes than raffle tickets...
(inflateable, Sat 28 Dec 2013, 11:05, closed)

Never used to be like that though.
In the 90s, we'd usually get enough booze to last till Easter from clients. The two weeks leading up till Christmas, I used to take a wheelie suitcase to work with me to haul it all home.

Some of them had our home addresses, and would have hampers delivered.

Now we get fuck all. I have to say, unusually, this year someone sent me two bottles of champagne, but last year it was zero.

Bah. Humbug.
(username failed moderation, Mon 30 Dec 2013, 11:30, closed)