Every year, from late August to mid October, France hosts ‘La Foire aux Vins’, the great rendez-vous for wine lovers.

The Wine Fair takes place across the country at stores and supermarkets and offers wines at low prices, so this is your chance to pick up some tasty bargains.

The larger retailers have made great efforts on the storage conditions of the wine during the fair and some even have a dedicated real cellar.

With the average price of a purchased bottle of wine going from about 8 euros down to only 3 euros, the Wine Fair is an excellent opportunity to stock up your cellar with good quality French wine. Overall, given the constraints of conservation, there are quite a few older vintages available.

How to choose? Retailers’ sourcing strategies differ, but we can safely say that the wines are well-selected.  Although many department heads have no formal training and only stay time of the event wine fair, many are skilled like true sommeliers, therefore you can be sure that the wine on offer is excellent across the board.

For some advice as to which wines to buy it is useful to attend opening evenings held by most retailers where the wines on sale can be tasted, sometimes in the presence of winemakers.

Find the schedule for the wine fair at shops and supermarkets here vins-calendrier-foire