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 €).
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.)
Bauduc 2010: A Dry Old Party
August 27th 2010, by Gavin
Too much rain in the Summer of 2007, frost in April 2008, hail (twice) in May 2009 and, yes, drought in 2010. “What next,” asked a friend, “rivers of blood?”
Welcome to viticulture, Bauduc-style, and 2010 will be remembered as the year of the drought. (Cue monsoons during the harvest.)
We’ve seen half the normal rainfall in the five months since the beginning of April compared to the 30-year average in Bordeaux (see weather graphs in this article). Remarkably, the young vines have kept up with their older counterparts and look surprisingly healthy: with the lack of damp in the air, the risk of mildew has been reduced – unlike in humid Augusts like 2007 and 2008, for example – so most of the leaves look green and verdant with minimal spraying. But yellow leaves around the fruit zone tell a part of the story, as some of the vines have effectively shut down and the grapes have stopped ripening in certain parts of the vineyard.
Of course, these problems resulting from the lack of rain are avoidable. Firstly, choosing to rip out crappy old vines and replacing them with young ones lead to this. Guilty as charged, but I’m glad to see the back of 3 metre-wide rows of Cabernet Sauvignon on vigorous rootstock (SO4 to be precise) pumping out bunches of grapes that never ripened properly and tasted of green peppers. I’m fond of our new Sauvignon Blanc (featured in all these photos taken today), planted on low-yielding rootstocks in 1.8m wide rows.
The Tipping Point
March 26th 2010, by Gavin
Duty on wine in the UK has gone up nearly 30% in three years (to £2 a bottle from this weekend), compared to 15% over the previous seven. Only Finland, Sweden, Eire and the UK have duty over 50p a bottle, and there’s no duty at all in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Portugal and 10 ten other EU countries. France, with just 3p duty, is not far away – literally.
Will Middle England have to put up with being fleeced by the Government for wine at home for much longer? Watch this space…
Feel free to comment, as we’d like some help in shaping our cunning plan.