Wine collections in France today, Buzzer
Buzzer:
Wine collections in France today, Buzzer
I used to like wine collections in France. You’d always get a decent bottle for the cab with your paperwork. Multiple rural collections was not everyone’s cup of tea; but you got far more free wine for the cab! Some of the collections I did were from tiny farms and small-holdings where you’d only load half a pallet or even less. Then it was clink-clink in the cab all the way home! 
And why is it when you have a brilliant wine in a truck stop in Italy, Spain, France or Portugal and locate the maker of the wine to buy in bulk to give to family or friends, by the time it gets back to England it never tastes the same as did before and have to bin the lot ?
Buzzer that wasn’t you on the old tractor with the hay twirlers This afternoon on swanick lane who wave me past on the M27 over bridge ?
If it was thanks again
Sent while from gods know where
Hi all, Yes i had a few year’s doing wine collection’s for STS then R&A Freight they were good day’s most collection’s i did was 38 around the Bordeaux area down as far as Toulouse, the Medoc, Bergerac and any village in between. The multi collection’s were mainly France if we did wine from Itaaly that was normally 1 collection. Had a day doing 9 collection’s around Sancerre asked direction’s at the first for the second he said he would take me ended up going round all day with me as they are all mate’s both ended up the worse for wear and having dinner at the last collection. Really good day’s, Thank you MR & MRS Evans for paying me all that money to do a job i loved. 
When I was doing Traction for GBE we used to do a lot of collections for Oddbins, France,Italy, Portugal and Spain,as said a bottle or more at every collection.
Tarmaceater:
And why is it when you have a brilliant wine in a truck stop in Italy, Spain, France or Portugal and locate the maker of the wine to buy in bulk to give to family or friends, by the time it gets back to England it never tastes the same as did before and have to bin the lot ?
I think it was to do with quotas. Certainly, in France they were only permitted to export so much wine; after which the rest had to be disposed of locally. This meant that when a local winery had dispatched its last consignment abroad it was free to bestow often really excellent high quality wine on its local villagers, including Les Routier truckstops. I often ran the gauntlet of low-quality ‘Poulenc’ (Plonk) wine at places like Castets, but enjoyed amazingly high-quality wine at some of the little Relais stops for drivers, where they blended the ‘good’ with the plonk. It was totally Russian roulette, of course, because you could never plan when the decent wine would be bestowed upon drivers. This may no longer be the case, of course, as I speak of the '80s, '90s and early '00s.
While we are on the subject of wine collections in France you have all jogged a memory cell, once many moons ago I loaded wine around Bordeaux and was handed the papers at the collection point and the chap gestured to me a stamping motion with his fist clenched as if he was actually stamping the papers, could not fathom what he was on about so stopped for a coffee and asked a couple other drivers what to do and lucky for me one knew what the score was and told me to stop at the big routier’s on the top of the hill on the N10 cant remember the name and in the porch entrance was a time and date stamp machine where you had to put the papers in and get them stamped, apparently this was to prove the goods had left the province they were produced in.
Can anyone else shed light on this procedure, cheers Buzzer.
Hi all, yes john if i remember rightly if you cleared custom’s in the area you loaded it was ok if not you had to stop as you say at certain places i believe in router and post office then you could do customs any where as we would when working for STS if you finished loading late run to Le Havre drop the trailer ship home under another one then Alan in STS office would clear and ship that trailer at a later date. funny what you remember.
Buzzer, maybe the big Routiers you mentioned is the Vivonne truck stop and it’s famous fresh sea food buffet, my secret if I had time off was to walk or cycle to the river a few Km’s outside the village, a glorious spot with a shaded wood .
For the wine in the Routiers ,it was hit or miss to get a good one and the table wine could be too acidic to drink so I watered it down .
GBE , that’s a blast from the past and their Pegaso Troners with a terrible reputation for breaking down but the Spanish loved their Pegaso’s especially the really old rigids full of vegetables or fruit with Pablo at the wheel puffing on a huge cigar or black tobacco cigarettes that choked you in the first inhale, and his numerous cafe con leche stops .
Bacardi and Cola Grant had one for Freight Transfer but unfortunately someone he trusted to do his owner driver accounting ripped him off big time .
GBE had an office in Bournemouth with some very expensive cars lined up in their car park, possibly borrowed money.
Today was very hot down here which I am not a fan of but a little breeze as well which was nice, had a chap in power washing the crap of the barn roof and its looks like new again now. Put on the flail topper and did one of the home paddocks which tidy’s it up after the steers have grazed it off, always like to do that as it makes it look smart.
Work progresses with the warehouse refurb at Tracy Island with the centre partition wall now gone it looks huge once more, new LED lighting in and the rest of the racking to go in next week, all the interior walls have been painted white for a clean image, after that the floor is having a new hard coating screed to complete the job, then the new fork lifts and we ready to rock, Buzzer.
Andrew Morrison went into a bar today and in his words met a Dutch Master, no less than Rinus Rynart and he has had a few trucks in his time, what a coincidence, Buzzer
Tarmac eater:
GBE had an office in Bournemouth with some very expensive cars lined up in their car park, possibly borrowed money.
99.95% I expect, but they bought all my Blue Books and I was paid up 100% when GE Capital foreclosed.
Evening Buzzer
Well it’s been a busy couple of days up ere mown for hay and we had a our two heifers down at the Yorkshire show, very pleased as we had a second and a third place in the show…
Cheers Wrighty.
Wrighty nice bit o sun to mek ur hay lad, me Ime sitting in the shade watching the golf as far to hot for me, gran kids been up for a swim in the pool followed by bacon rolls for lunch. Might take a stroll round the cattle when it cools down a bit later on, Buzzer.
my mate always had a saying,“ya don’t eat between ferries” … 
Saw this tidy Claas tractor in The New Forest.
Dean that tractor probably belongs to a forestry contractor. Had an overnighter in Tracy Island last night in the name of Jodie, he was doing a job for DIT today.
On another note I went for me annual medical today with an agency doctor on the same estate as our yard, only in there 15 minutes all good for another year but 72 on Friday so you never know if its going to be ok or not, Buzzer.
