It was a bad sign for wine lovers when this year’s arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau was given an unexpected diversion from Shrewsbury to Leeds.
Tanners Wines was expecting to receive 12 cases of the first 2007 French vintage – but when the lorry arrived it was carrying the wrong cargo.
Alf Horton, warehouse manager at Tanners Wines in Shrewsbury, had arrived at the depot in Birmingham to collect the new wines fresh from the port last Wednesday.
Beaujolais Nouveau is famously the first wine of the new vintage to be released and cannot go on sale until after midnight on the third Wednesday in November.
But Tanners’ customers almost went thirsty after the curtain of the lorry was drawn back to reveal a load of road signs instead of bottles.
After a few frantic phone calls, the wine was tracked down in Leeds, where Alf said council workers ‘must have thought Christmas had come early’.
He drove halfway to meet the lorry on its way back to Shrewsbury and the wine was in Tanners’ cellars in plenty of time to make its debut.
Tanners marketing manager Alison Chadwick said each bottle was priced £5.50 and around half their consignment had already been sold.
Alf, who has more than 30 years’ service with the company, said: “Our wine comes a long way , but usually arrives without a hitch. I would love to have seen the faces of the council workers in Leeds when they found our shipment of Beaujolais Nouveau.”