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Read Susan's BlogSelect an item:
Duty goes up again!! 4p on a bottle - 24th April 2009
Well you'd think all us wine merchants would be sobbing into our wine glasses with the latest inexorable increase in duty in the Budget (4p a bottle). Do you know how much tax goes to HMRC when you buy a £5 bottle of wine? £2.25 - that's 45% and when VAT goes back up in the autumn it will be 47%. Is that moral when the producer is only left with pence? The producers end up cutting the quality of the wine to keep the same retail pricepoint. The UK wine industry is suffering and has been for years because of swingeing duty increases - people are being made redundant left, right and centre from well respected, long established companies. Good people who are passionate about wine whom the government will now have to pay as unemployed. It doesn't even make financial sense. What I don't understand is why the responsible retailers and consumers are made to suffer when we actively encourage and support winegrowers who are leading best environmental and social practice. We also promote quality over quantity. A glass of wine a day has proven health benefits - so if you're just going to drink a little, make sure it's good wine! Some people have called for Fairtrade wine to have a lower duty rate. I agree but would also want to include those vineyards who practise sustainable or organic viticulture as people don't realise that the wine industry is such a heavy user of pesticides and we need to get more vineyards to clean up their act. We should also help our own domestic production much more. It's simply not right that English wine is cheaper to buy in France! Apologies for the rant! Anyway, I'm not going to sob into my wine glass. I'm going to send out an email instead with some great wines to enjoy because life is too short to drink bad wine (as somebody famous said but I can't remember who!). By the way, I'm not putting our prices up just yet but will have to soon, especially with the abismal euro exchange rate - so order now! Susan PS I'll cheer up tomorrow |
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