On Wednesday, the budget was announced, with the government adding 5% to alcohol duty and taking the level of duty paid on an average bottle to £1.90. As of Monday morning, once you add VAT to your bottle price, you’ll be paying £2.73 in tax on a £5.00 bottle of wine. Ouch.

As Gavin Quinney points out in his Bauduc blog , UK wine duty has increased 46% in just four years, and reminds us that the 11p duty rise in this budget is “more than the total duty on a bottle in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Austria put together”.

Tim Martin, chairman of the JD Wetherspoon pub chain, commenting on the duty rise this week, made a sobering observation: “the British people are now paying 40% of all the alcohol duties in Europe.”

Tim Atkin reasonably points out that if the government is using an increase in duty as a way of reducing binge drinking, rather than just raising revenue, then they should take a look at the 9 EU countries with 0% alcohol duty, where there appears to be no correlation between low taxes and alcohol-fuelled misbehaviour.

Duty rises are an appallingly blunt instrument being used to hit wine producers, retailers and consumers, since every increase in tax leaves slightly less of the bottle cost available for the actual juice inside. This comes just at the time when the industry is trying to re-engage meaningfully with the UK consumer and excite them about good wine: not a good combination of circumstances.

Just as we’ve had a day or two to get used to the duty increase, the government is now announcing its intention to introduce minimum unit pricing on alcohol in England and Wales – probably set at 40p. per unit, which would see an average bottle of wine start at £3.60 .

Of course, in Scotland we’ve already gone some way down this road – minimum pricing will come into force later this year, and other supporting measures are already in place (see my article for OLN from October here).

If you’re set on a minimum price strategy, to make it work you also need to stop retailers offering ‘buy one get one free’ deals and heavy multibuy discounts, which has happened in part already in Scotland, and will work more logically once minimum pricing arrives.

The wine and spirits trade has been quick to condemn the notion of minimum pricing, but I see it quite differently from a hike in duty. Duty goes straight to the government, while any extra cash from minimum pricing stays in the supply chain. If minimum pricing is combined with a curb on irresponsible, and unsustainable, deep price discounting on booze, then it might start restoring a public understanding of what a bottle of wine ought to cost, and a recognition of the value of the liquid inside.

(If you have an iPhone, you can check out the amount of tax paid on any bottle by using the UK Wine Tax Calculator – by way of declaring an interest, I should point out that I’m the publisher of that app: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/uk-wine-tax-calculator/id406308446?mt=8 )

Carol Ann Duffy, the Poet Laureate – effectively the UK’s official poet to the nation – has been visiting the bodegas of Jerez to choose her own favourite sherries, and recently took delivery of a specially bottled and labelled supply of fino and manzanilla, reviving a long-standing tradition.

Carol Ann Duffy's 'Laureate's Choice' sherries

Starting in 1619 with the appointment of Ben Jonson, the Poet Laureate received a “butt of sack” from the monarch as payment for their position. “Sack” is an old word for sherry which pops up in the writings of Shakespeare, and a butt (or barrel) contains around 720 bottles of the stuff. The tradition stopped from around 1790 until it was revived by the sherry shippers in 1986, when Ted Hughes became Laureate.

Carol Ann Duffy is the first woman to hold the Poet Laureate post and was invited to come to Jerez to make her own selection of sherry. On a second visit, she penned the following verse in praise of sherry:

AT J ERE Z

Who wouldn’t feel favoured, at the end of a week’s labour, to receive as part-wages

a pale wine

that puts the mouth in mind of the sea …

and not gladly be kissed

by gentle William Shakespeare’s lips, the dark, raisiny taste of his song;

bequeathed to his thousand daughters and sons,

the stolen wines of the Spanish sun…

or walk the cool bodegas’ aisles – where flor and oxygen

grow talented  in fragrances and flavours ­

to sniff, sip,  spit, swallow, savour…

Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy signs her chosen 'butt of sack'

The poem now graces the back label of the special bottling of Fino and Manzanilla which are being delivered to Duffy in batches, every year of her ten year tenure. The fortunate guests at the recent launch of her latest book of poetry, ‘The Bee’, were served the ‘Laureate’s Choice’ sherries, with their labels strongly reminiscent of a poetry volume themselves.

The revival of the tradition of the sherry butt comes as the drink is gaining a new following in the wine bars of London and elsewhere. So let’s raise a glass to poetry, and bottled poetry too.

In general, I’ve tried to display webcams that give some context to the images they show – a sense of place (‘terroir’, even). There are still plenty of major wine regions not represented here – I’ll add to this as I find more, and I’m always open to suggestions for additions to the list. Just leave a comment on this page.

These webcams only operate in daylight hours – the ‘Sunlight Map’ below will help you work out which parts of the world are currently in daylight.

  Americas    |    Europe    |    Africa    |    Asia    |    Australasia

  Australasia

Coldstream Hills

Coldstream Hills, Yarra Valley, Australia

A beautiful view over the vineyards of Coldstream Hills, and across the Yarra Valley, just 30 miles or so from the busy city of Melbourne.

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Tuki Vineyard, Hawkes Bay

Tuki Vineyards, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand

This view is facing north, from Havelock North across Hawke’s Bay to the Kaweka Forest mountains approximately 50km away. This page updates automatically every couple of minutes from dawn until dusk NZ time.

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   America

Napa Valley, California

Napa Valley, California, USA

This view in St. Helena looks across a vineyard growing cabernet sauvignon grapes. Trees in the distance surround the town of St. Helena while the 1,000 foot Vaca Mountains rise in the distance.

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Website: www.stockingerhof.com

Weingut Stockingerhof in the Wachau

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Website: www.oberkirch.de

Schauenberg Castle and vineyards

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Case discounts? - think again

Political discussion and press coverage have largely concentrated on the issue of minimum pricing in Scotland, so the wide ranging provisions of this Act have largely escaped public attention. John Drummond, Chief Executive of the Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF), says that the Scottish Government has done little to raise public awareness of the changes: “I think that on October 2^nd customers will get a real surprise when they come in expecting to pick up their usual, and they won’t be able to get, for example, their 3 for £10 deal.”

The largest retailers are also worried. A Morrisons spokesman says: “Colleagues in store will be spending a lot of their time for the first few weeks simply explaining why customers can’t get quite the same deals in Scotland that they can everywhere else.”

The main change in the legislation is a ban on quantity discounts. BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) deals, and 3 for 2 offers on alcohol are banned, and if a store sells a bottle or can of beer for £1.00, then a 6 pack of the same beer must be sold for no less than £6.00. However, there are anomalies in the legislation, so if the retailer doesn’t sell individual bottles or cans, then there are no restrictions on the pricing of quantity purchases. Likewise, if a store sells single 568ml cans of a beer, they could still offer discounts on multipacks of 500ml cans. As a result, some retailers are now looking at range adjustments to respond to the new rules.

When minimum pricing does come in, as it is expected to do, next year, some of the anomalies in the new legislation will be closed off – so selling individual bottles of wine for £3.33, just so you can still offer 3 bottles for £10, will cease to be an option.

Majestic Wine offers multibuy discounts as a key part of its business plan, and in response to the new legislation the company has opted for a solution that actually sees Scottish customers getting a better deal than their neighbours south of the border. Scottish shoppers now pay the multibuy discount price on a wine even if they purchase a single bottle.

Scottish shoppers now pay the multibuy discount price on a wine even if they purchase a single bottle.

Online, the company are basing its offers on the delivery postcode of the customer to reflect the changes in the law. Majestic says:  “We are continuing to offer the same service and the same price to our Scottish customers, but the mechanics involved have changed.”

The differential between Scotland and the rest of the UK comes sharply into focus in online sales. Retailers who deliver from warehouses in Scotland are covered by the new legislation, but those who ship from across the border are still able to offer case discounts and other multibuy offers. This puts companies like Edinburgh-based L’Art du Vin at a competitive disadvantage. Director Richard Bouglet said: “This has huge implications for us as we are selling online to customers in Scotland and to other parts of the UK. As licence holders, we have received no communication or guidance about these changes. We will of course comply, and find a way of being fair to both our Scottish and English customers.”

As a ‘bricks and mortar’ retailer, Morrisons also acknowledges that the changes have forced some major reforms to the way the company operates. The spokesman said: “We will now need to have a separate structure for charging in Scotland than we have in England and Wales. This has taken a lot of work and a system change has been necessary to accommodate it. At Morrisons, we’ve always been proud of our single price file. We have had to make big changes to comply with the law whilst offering our customers the value they expect across the store.”

Tesco also says it’s “working hard to implement the changes required for October”, and adds that the company  “will be monitoring closely the impacts that these changes have”.

As well as the ban on multiple discounts, the new law also places tight restrictions on the ‘irresponsible promotion’ of alcohol, and new restrictions mean that no advertising of alcohol will be allowed within 200 metres of a store. Even a delivery van carrying a promotion connected with that premises will not be allowed within 200 metres.

no advertising of alcohol will be allowed within 200 metres of a store. Even a delivery van carrying a promotion connected with that premises will not be allowed within 200 metres.

However, grey areas in the legislation mean that licensees are potentially open to unfavourable interpretations of the law by local Licensing Boards. Window vinyls displaying images of alcoholic drinks as a part of the store’s range of products may be deemed to be promoting alcohol and banned. Likewise, ‘meal deals’ containing a bottle of wine are still allowed under the new law, but it will be at the discretion of Licensing Boards to decide if in-store advertising of these deals constitutes irresponsible promotion.

Licensing solicitor John Batters, with thirty years experience in Scottish licensing law, says the legislation has been poorly drafted, and that different Licensing Boards are bound to make different rulings: “There is tremendous scope for confusion over the new rules. Unfortunately, licensing legislation also makes it difficult for licensees to appeal decisions of Licensing Boards. There are also considerations of cost: an appeal in the Sheriff Court would cost several thousand pounds. The result is that most smaller operators cannot afford to appeal and even very large companies are reluctant.”

What the new law means:

Multiple purchase:

• No discounts allowed on the bulk purchase of cans or bottles that you also sell singly – if you sell one can for £1, you must sell four cans for no less than £4.
• If you only sell single cans of 568ml., then you can still discount multipacks of 500ml. cans
• Alcohol supplied free, or at a reduced price, is not allowed, so no BOGOF and ‘3 for 2’ deals
• Discounting of single bottles or cans is still allowed. Any price change must be made before 10am and must last at least 72 hours.

Online purchase:

• If drinks are despatched from a warehouse in Scotland, then the new law applies.
• Retailers based outside Scotland will still be able to offer ‘by the case’ discounts on delivery to Scottish customers.

Promotions:

• Anything  which ‘promotes, or seeks to promote, the buying of any alcohol sold on the premises’ can now only be displayed within the store’s designated ‘alcohol display area’.
• Window graphics stating that beer, wines and spirits are ‘sold here’ may constitute a promotion in the eyes of individual Licensing Boards.
• Any advertisement which advertises alcohol ‘solely or primarily’ is not allowed within 200 metres of a store.
• If a delivery van is displaying a drinks promotion in connection with the premises, then it will not be allowed within 200 metres of the boundary premises.
• Exemptions are in place for promotions over which you have no control

Promotions combining food and alcohol:

• If an alcoholic product is packaged with a non-alcoholic product, like a wine and cheese gift pack, the new law does not apply, and the price can be discounted.
• ‘Meal deals’ that offer alcohol as part of the deal are not specifically banned. However, it will be at the discretion of Licensing Boards to decide if in-store advertising of these deals constitutes irresponsible promotion.

Age verification Policy:

• From October 1^st, retailers must adopt a ‘Challenge 25’ age verification policy as a minimum standard. Licence holders are advised to have this policy in writing and available to staff.

Source:  The Scottish Government’s ‘Guidance for Licensing Boards’, and the Scottish Grocers’ Federation.

This is a slightly edited version of an article first published in Off Licence News.

Website: www.bonairwine.com

Bonair Winery, Yakima Valley, Washington State

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Website: www.laibachwines.com

Laibach Vineyards, Stellenbosch, South Africa

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Website: www.wineviews.com/webcam

(NB – The webcam image below disappears completely in the hours of Napa darkness)

St. Helena, Napa Valley

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Website: www.tuki.co.nz

Tuki Vineyards, Hawkes Bay

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