CALAIS

Off the shuttle or the ferry, Calais looks like a jungle, because it is. There are, though, two key zones to head for. If you seek the best in cash-and-carry warehouses, make for the ZA Marcel Doret industrial estate, to the east of town (A16-A26 to Paris for two miles; exit No 3; left at first roundabout, right at second roundabout).

Here, on Rue Gustave Courbet, EastEnders (00 33-3 21 34 53 33, www.eastenders-calais.com) puts the wide in wide boy. Its owner, Dave West, may recently have closed down his Belgian tobacco operation, but in Calais, the booze is still pouring, 24/7. Here, you can buy a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé (£6.95) at 4am on a Sunday. That’s right, Pouilly-Fuissé.

EastEnders is indeed a vast, ill-lit, pile-’em-high hangar. Certainly, it stocks Dog’s Bollocks reds at £1 a throw. But it also has an engrossing range of quality wines and spirits, and is cheaper for more famous brands — Moët & Chandon, Guinness, Mouton Cadet — than its rivals.

The neighbouring Wine & Beer World (03 21 97 63 00, www.wineandbeer.co.uk) is classier-looking, as you’d expect of Majestic’s Calais outpost. Its range is wide, and it is particularly good on champers, with Brossault Brut at £8.99. And if you place an order of £300 or more on the website or by phone, you get a free ferry crossing to pick it up.

The French-owned Perardel Wine Market (03 21 97 21 22, www.perardel.com), on the next block, has a Gallic seriousness of wine intent, with excellent coverage of French appellations... and if you haven’t got what you want between these three, then I’d say you’re very difficult to please.

The other key zone is to the west of town, towards Coquelles and the Eurotunnel terminal, thus particularly handy for shuttlers. This zone is also split into two centres. First is the excessively immense Cité Europe mall, home to the Carrefour hypermarket (03 21 46 75 55, www.carrefour-calais.com). Drinks-wise, Carrefour is exhaustive on French wines — up to Bordeaux grands crus, at £500 or more per bottle — but less impressive on new-world plonk. Narrow aisles also require scrummaging techniques at busy times. It compensates by stocking just about all the food in France.

Nearby, Tesco Vin Plus (03 21 46 02 70, www.tesco.com/vinplus) has a reassuring presence, lots of new-world wines and very keen pricing: Jacob’s Creek at half British costs, a fiver off Bell’s and Gordon’s, and the cheapest Teacher’s of any shop tested.

But don’t ignore the pint-sized Oddbins (03 21 82 07 32, www.oddbins.com), along the mall opposite McDonald’s. The place has a grand selection of really interesting stuff, including wines found nowhere else in town (Dancing Monkey torrontes from Argentina, Rift Point merlot from Macedonia). It can sometimes beat the big boys on price, too. Currently on special offer, its Gordon’s is, at £7.85, the cheapest we found.

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