Let’s start by rewinding 12 months to July 2023. Our current Prime Minister (note this was written in June 2024, and I suspect will be very quickly out of date!), had announced the most significant change to the alcohol duty scheme in a lifetime. The vast majority of wines went from £2.23 to £2.67 of duty – a whopping 44p increase!
He claimed it was a simplification of the existing scheme … I can unequivocally confirm this was not a simplification! Firstly the scheme, which relies on a different duty level for every 0.5% of alcohol, was given a phased start with all wines between 11.5 & 14.5% put into one classification. And secondly, because our bonded warehouse IT system, which had served us well for 20 years, was not capable of dealing with the complexities of the new system…
Our first concern was implementing a new IT system ahead of the change, which thankfully went smoothly. Then we looked at whether any of our range could be brought to 11% ABV, which attracts a staggering 32p/bottle less duty than wines at 11.5%.
Achieving 11% (or below) is easy, but doing it without negatively impacting quality is much harder. The risk is that with lower ABV, there is more residual sugar. Alternatively, if grapes are picked too early, so that there is less sugar, they lack ripeness.
We have tasted a lot of wine with lower ABV over the last 18 months and have come to the conclusion that South West France and Northern Italy offer the best areas to source lower ABV wines from.
The first wines we looked at were our Pinot Grigios from Veneto. They were previously 11.7% (labelled at 11.5%) so we only needed to get to 11.4% which was easily achieved with careful selection and no change to the residual. The 2023 harvest was actually quite helpful with a relatively cool August helping keep brix levels down.
Then from Gascony, a couple of Sauvignons (Le Charme & Big Beltie) along with Jean Didier Colombard-Ugni were also dropped to 11% without any adverse impact on quality. Finally Prosecco reduced half a degree to 10.5% along with a rose Zinfandel to 10%.
Looking further afield, the supermarkets have certainly used lower ABV wines as a way of keeping prices down and price promoting wine. Dare I say it at the expense of quality, with previously dry wines now with quite a bit more residual. I’ve also seen quite a few Chilean & Aussie reds, Merlot & Shiraz at 11% ... I’ll leave you to make your mind up on that!
So what does the future hold? Well as it stands, next February the temporary grouping of wines between 11.5 & 14.5% ends, which means the difference between 11 & 11.5% is only 11p. But in turn wines at 14 & 14.5% will increase even more so that a wine at 14.5% will have a staggering £3.10 of duty applied.
It will be interesting to see what happens over the next 12-months. I just pray that regardless of the outcome of next week’s election the wine industry is given a more sympathetic ear by the new Government.
David Archibald,
Sales Director
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