Calais Collection
April 26th 2011, by Gavin
Given the current and planned future increases in UK duty (currently over £26 a case), we’ve had more demand for a Calais collection service. See my rant called ‘13 unpalatable truths about UK wine duty‘.
We have just delivered lots of stock to our new warehouse there. Details of the location, which is just a few minutes from the Channel tunnel, are available on request.
Our Calais Collection website will be up and running this summer but in the meantime, please email us at team@bauduc.com with your requirements. The prices below, available from 5th May, show a saving on UK delivered prices of at least £2 a bottle (unless sterling falls below 1.11 €).
“Top Speakers Lined up for London International Wine Fair Conference”
April 25th 2011, by Gavin
The headline from an article in Harpers Wine and Spirits actually says
Top speakers lined up for social media conference at LIWF on May 16.
But I wasn’t sure that the acronym LIWF means very much to our customers, as it’s a trade thing. However, I need your help.
“Anyone interested in communicating or making money through the internet is urged to attend the London International Wine Fair’s pre-conference event on May 16,” writes Richard Siddle, editor of the magazine.
“The half day event will include a line up of expert online speakers on how to develop your communication skills through the internet and the best way to invest in and make the most of social networking sites.
“The event, which is being chaired by wine writer and producer, Robert Joseph will include: Dan Jago, head of beers, wines and spirits at Tesco; Angela Mount of YourFavouriteWines.com; Rowan Gormley, of Naked Wines; Gavin Quinney of Château Bauduc; Sophie Jump of the International Wine Club Association; Antonia Branston, senior retailing analyst at Euromonitor International; and Guy Levine from digital marketing agency, Return On Digital.
“Key areas for discussion will include: the International experience; selling wines direct from the winery online; brands vs boutique wines online sales; how to engage the consumer online and keep your community interested; an overview of the current alcoholic drinks retail distribution landscape; how existing wine distribution channels are influencing online trends; opportunities across the price spectrum; how to build an effective website.”
Any feedback or ideas will be gratefully received, either as a comment below, or email me at gavin @ bauduc.com or on Twitter @GavinQuinney
Neighbour’s £120,000+ Loss to Oddbins: a Drop in the Ocean
March 28th 2011, by Gavin
Fortunately for us, it’s not Château Bauduc that’s owed £152,000, but Château Lauduc. Hervé Grandeau, whose vineyard is 10 miles up the road from us, will have to accept 21p in the pound if the beleaguered chain survives a creditors’ vote this week, or less if not. Over 500 creditors are owed over £1000 each, including 100 wine and drinks suppliers who risk losing between £10,000 and £310,000. (Update, 4th April. As HMRC – see ‘The executioner’ below under CVA: will Creditors Vote Against? – refused to back the survival plan, Oddbins will enter administration today.)
Everything seemed fine last October and November, when Hervé supplied Oddbins with 50,000 bottles, or 15% of the production from his 59 Hectare Bordeaux vineyard. As a small-time negociant, he’d also bought wine from neighbouring Châteaux – about 20% of the total bill of €180,000 – to supply the chain.
‘Much better health’
There seemed little cause for concern towards the end of last year for outsiders, even if some people say that the writing was on the wall. Tim Atkin MW, one of the UK’s most authoritative wine writers, noted as recently as 24th November 2010: “Oddbins has not yet returned to its glory days of the late 1990s, when it was arguably the best wine retailer in the world, but it appears to be in much better health than it was two years ago, when the French company Castel sold the business to its current British owners.”
You can imagine Hervé’s dismay at the beginning of March, following weeks of not having his calls returned, when news broke that Oddbins was to close 39 of its 132 stores. “The business is being restructured,” read the ominous public statement.
13 Unpalatable Truths about UK Wine Duty
March 24th 2011, by Gavin
Psst. Don’t mention the wine.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, didn’t say the word once in his UK Budget speech yesterday, on 23rd March. He simply said that there would be no further increases to alcohol duty beyond the measures already in place.
The media relayed the apparent good news as ‘no increase in alcohol tax’ but a few tweets later and a quick glance at the HM Treasury budget statement (page 61) showed that wine has gone up 15p a bottle, from this Sunday. Even a 4p annual increase used to get mentioned in every Budget overview. Now, a 15p rise doesn’t even get a look in. So, forgive me, but this calls for a rant.
It is, of course, all the previous Government’s doing:
“The government will continue with the plans announced in the March 2010 Budget (i.e. Labour’s last) to increase the rates by 2 per cent above inflation each year to 2014-15.” Budget June 2010
So we now have a situation where none of the three major parties will criticize the policy towards alcohol duty.
Here are 13 unpalatable truths about UK duty on wine:
1. The UK now has the highest duty on wine in Europe.
2. Only four countries (UK, Ireland, Finland and Sweden) have duty of over 50p a bottle. In France, it’s 3p.
3. From April 2000, our first spring here, to March 2008, UK duty on wine went up by a total of 15%. In the last three years, duty has gone up a whopping 36%.
4. Duty will increase by 2% above inflation each year until 2015. It went up 7.2% in this budget from £1.69 to £1.81. It is misleading though to say that wine has gone up 12p + VAT to the consumer, because every retailer, merchant and restaurant treats duty as part of the cost, just like the wine. Duty is charged upfront by HMRC, when the wine is taken out of customs, so it’s a real cost. Every merchant I know, except of course those that are selling ‘In Bond’, takes the cost of wine, plus the cost of freight/distribution and the duty as the basis of the cost of the wine, before adding their gross margin to cover their costs and to make a profit.
5. UK duty, and VAT on the duty, is over £26 a case at £2.17 a bottle. It will be £30 a case in two years at the current rate of inflation. VAT, which also went up in January of course, is charged on duty and the wine, so there’s a double whammy. (Update: in fact, the double tax increase in Q1 means that a £5 bottle on 1st Jan is up 25p to £5.25, a £7.25 bottle is 30p up to £7.55 and there’s 36p more tax to add to a £10 bottle.)