July 1 (Bloomberg) -- Franglais, a warehouse of discount wine built for British day-trippers, had one shopper parked outside on a spring Saturday. Neighbors on the retail strip near the Calais ferry terminal were also deserted, including the only French outlet of Tesco Plc.

“All in Calais is bad, bad, bad,” says the owner, Thierry Bijotes, who says he’s lucky to get 150 customers a weekend instead of the usual 400. “They buy less, and they ask for more specials. If the British don’t come, there’s nothing.”

The stores were bustling earlier this decade, when Britons avoided U.K. taxes by hauling home trunkloads of Chateauneuf-du- Pape, inspiring the 2003 TV movie “The Booze Cruise” and two sequels. Two decades of boat rides for low-price wine made Dover, England, the busiest ferry port in the world, even as the Channel Tunnel and discount airlines eroded its traditional role as the main gateway to continental Europe.

The U.K. taxes wine at rates 65 times higher than France does, and has increased levies on other alcohol as well. With the U.K. in recession, low-price French wine might appeal if a 19 percent decline in the value of pound didn’t wipe out the savings.

Britain is the largest foreign market for Burgundy and Bordeaux, importing 1.4 billion euros ($2 billion) of French wine last year, or about 260 million liters. In 2008, exports to the U.K. dropped 14 percent by volume, French wine group Sopexa says.

Bryony Edmunds, a veteran of 1990s booze cruises with her parents, was tempted by a 20-pound ($33) ferry offer before scrapping the idea, depriving Calais retailers of 200 pounds.

Mercedes With Wine

“The plan was to drive to Kent, pick up my boyfriend’s mother and take her to France for a day trip, and fill up the back of the Mercedes with wine,” said Edmunds, 29, who owns a food boutique on her family’s farm near Stonehenge.

“We worked out that all of the wine and beer we had our eye on was going to cost the same as they would at our Tesco five minutes down the road,” Edmunds said. “It would have been fun, but it wasn’t enough of a draw knowing we weren’t going to get our money back. When I’d gone with my mum, I think it was about half the price to fill up an entire Range Rover.”

Her parents caught on to booze cruising in the 1980s, when the Sun newspaper began promoting 1-pound day trips on P&O Ferries Ltd. The European Union’s single market took effect in 1993, greatly reducing duty-free limits for individuals, and cross-Channel liquor hunting boomed. Four ferry lines now make the 21-mile (34-kilometer) trip between Dover and Calais up to 72 times a day.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape

Tesco and British grocery rival J Sainsbury Plc opened Calais stores to recapture the lost revenue. Ferry companies got in on the act too, offering deals where passengers buy on board once the vessel is in French waters, and never disembark.

Excise on beer in France is 2.64 euros per hectoliter percent of alcohol, compared with 16.15 pounds in the U.K. On wine the difference is even greater, with England’s 1.57 pound levy per 750ml bottle some 65 times French taxes.

For some booze cruisers, even a trunkload wasn’t enough. According to a BBC report in March, a U.K. health official was suspended after he commandeered one of his employer’s mini-vans in 2001 for trips to Calais, ripping out seats to fit more wine.

The savings wouldn’t be worth getting fired over in 2009. At Franglais, a bottle of 2005 Domaine du Vieux Telegraphe Chateauneuf-du-Pape cost 44.90 euros, the equivalent of 38 pounds. The same bottle is sold for 60 pounds online in Britain at EveryWine. Bijotes said the average Franglais visitor spends an average 100 euros, compared with 150 euros two years ago.

Shift Away

“We’ve seen a bit of a shift away from the traditional booze cruise,” said Michelle Ulyatt, a spokeswoman for P&O, the largest ferry company making the crossing. Passenger numbers are “slightly down on what we’d expect,” she said, declining to give specific numbers.

In the last 3 months of 2008, the pound tumbled 19 percent and nearly reached parity with the euro on concern Britain would have a worse recession than its neighbors. A rally since then has seen sterling rise to 1.17 euros this week, still below its 12-month high of 1.29 euros in October.

That means Britons who pay the 25-pound cost of a round- trip ferry ticket find they have to spend 10 percent more than they did nine months ago to get the same amount of alcohol in France.

The Dover Harbour Board says some 300,000 fewer day-trip passengers passed through in the last three months of 2008 compared with a year earlier, representing a 6 percent decline.

Boxed Wine

“The effects of the weak pound are evident,” said Gerard Barron, a spokesman for the Calais chamber of commerce, which estimates that half the town’s 16 million British visitors each year come for the day. “We have fewer day trippers, and those who come spend less. Restaurants and store owners are complaining.”

Chris James, a retail manager visiting Tesco’s alcohol-only Calais store in April, said he and his wife have taken the five- hour trip from their home in Gloucestershire, western England, three or four times per year since 2005.

“This place used to be heaving,” said James, 31, surveying about 40 fellow shoppers as they perused cheaper, boxed wines. His wife Caroline, 26, said their 300-pound booze- cruise budget is running out more quickly than it used to, prompting the couple to scrutinize the special offers.

A 20-bottle case of Leffe Blonde beer in their cart sold for 14.20 euros, or 12.25 pounds, a saving of about 10 percent on the average U.K. retail price. They could have bought the same case for under 11 pounds six months previously.

Sea Air

Fortunately for Calais, some Britons are still willing to make the channel crossing for some French charm.

“It’s really good to just get out of London, get some sun and sea air, a day out and have lunch in a nice village outside Calais,” said Luke Buzaglo, a 34-year-old human-resources manager, who said he picked up a few bottles of cheap wine and a case of beer on the way.

On P&O’s Pride of Dover, yellow signs advertise two 1-liter bottles of Diageo Plc’s Smirnoff vodka for 22 pounds and 4-liter cartons of wine at “30% off U.K. Prices!” A single bottle of Smirnoff in a London shop would cost about 18 pounds.

The ferry line, now owned by Dubai’s DP World, charges only 10 pounds per ticket if booze cruisers agree not to leave the ship, which undercuts Calais retailers. During a trip three months ago, a 750ml bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne cost about 24 pounds at Franglais and 22.49 pounds on the boat.

“It’s still cheaper, but we watch what we buy more now,” says Paul Cahill, 54. The Londoner estimated he and his wife saved about 50 percent as they paid less than 70 pounds for 48 cans of Stella Artois beer, six bottles of red wine and eight 4- liter casks of wine. They make the trip several times a year, and say it’s better value to stay onboard and stock up.

For Franglais’ Bijotes, losing English customers to the ferry lines has prompted a change in his strategy.

“We don’t know how long it will be slow, but for now we have to work more with advertising to the French.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Cleary in London at acleary7@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 30, 2009 19:01 EDT