With Dry January well and truly over, our evenings are once more filled with dinner and drinks, but our bank balances still haven’t quite recovered from the end of year madness. This makes it the perfect time of year for inviting friends round for dinner, and what makes the best dinner parties? That’s right, wine!
Le Petit Ballon is a well-established wine subscription service in France, and has started offering their expertise here in the UK. The idea is simple, you pay a monthly fee and receive two bottles of wine in return. So far, so normal. The difference with Le Petit Ballon is that they want to make choosing and learning about wine fun. Every bottle sent out to their subscribers is chosen by master sommelier, Jean-Michel Deluc, former head sommelier at the Ritz Paris – so you know the wine is going to be good.
Le Petit Ballon’s website also allows you to take a short quiz and learn about your wine preferences. Once you have this information, it’s possible to tailor your monthly wine to your tastes. Feedback about the wines you receive is encouraged and all feeds into Le Petit Ballon sending you wines they think you will enjoy.
As well as championing great wines and wine producers, Le Petit Ballon also wants to make the tasting experience fun. Each box comes with ‘The Gazette’, a small magazine packed full of information about each wine, tasting notes from Jean-Michel, recipe ideas to pair with the wines, and much more. The theme of The Gazette changes each month to suit the wines and is intended as an easy, accessible way into the wider wine world, which if you’re like us, can seem a little overwhelming!
One of the best things about the service is that there’s no contract, you can cancel at any time, and if there’s a wine you particularly enjoy, you can go onto the website and order more at a discounted members rate. And again, there’s no minimum order so you can buy one or 10 depending on the occasion! Non-members can also buy wine direct from the site, they just don’t get the benefit of the discount.
If you like wine and would like to learn more, this is a great entry point into the wonderful world. It would also make a great gift for any wine-loving friends or family. We don’t know about you but we’re going to memorise the tasting notes and then casually drop them into conversation over our dinner!
