[vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image="115"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]You may or may not be aware that wine duty is set to rise on 1st August. The spring budget added 44p (53p if you include the VAT – yes, there is tax on top of tax!) to the cost of every bottle of still wine. This is the most significant increase in duty since the 1970s. For wines of 15% alcohol, quite a few Italians achieve that, the increase is 98p (£1.18 inc VAT). This now makes the duty + VAT on the duty on a wine less than 15% ABV £3.20.
The total tax on a bottle of wine that sells for a tenner under the new regime is £4.33.
We will do our best to mitigate the cost as much as possible, but rises will be inevitable. After all, this is a tax on the wine-drinking public, not on wine merchants.
With my salesman’s hat on, I would advise stocking up before the deadline, as anything we ship or remove out of bond after that date must reflect the changes.
This year we have already seen inflationary rises, primarily down to the cost of dry goods (bottles, corks, packaging, labels) and the exorbitant rise in shipping costs due to fuel and added red tape and documentation of Brexit. We trust that customers appreciate that these increases are beyond our control. Every retailer is in the same boat.
If there is any silver lining to this, you’ll be pleased to hear the duty on sparkling wines will be aligned with regular still wine duty. Since I have been in the wine business and longer, the public has been taxed extra if they want bubbles.
The most significant duty increases threshold starts with wines with a declared 11.5% ABV on the label. The increase is a mere 12p (14p inc VAT) for wines less than this. It is scarce to find quality wines - outside of classic styles from Germany and perhaps a few others - at this level. Any grapes harvested at 11 degrees will be unripe, resulting in grim, joyless wines. On the other hand, we have heard rumours about large-scale (mostly southern hemisphere) producers who are either removing alcohol by technical methods such as reverse osmosis or vacuum distillation or, God forbid, diluting the wine with water. Needless to say, these kinds of wines will never appear on the shelves or pages of Noble Grape.
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