Why is this every day bottle of wine about to cost a lot more? One reason and it’s down to taxation. Today this wine would cost you on average £8.99. For an organic Syrah it’s a very good deal. However come August 1st that will change. @RishiSunak wants you to pay even more tax on wine. So excise duty for wine with an ABV of 13% is going up from £2.23 per bot to £2.68 per bot.

I was chatting to friends last night in Montpellier and the have told me about the worst effect of Brexit thus far. I am only posting this so that Brexit types know what they have done to some families. Before the referendum a guy from South Wales moved to Toulouse to become a healthcare worker. He met his partner and over the years had a couple of kids. Never married. His partner was from South East Asia.

Let me take you on a journey from 2016 to 2023. This wine remains one of my favourite wines in our entire range. It’s from North Western Spain and it Albariño. But how much has its price changed over the past 7 years. Well quite a bit… The label and bottle have remained the same over the last seven vintages, the price from the producers has also remained the same from 2016-2022, its just this year the price increased due to a shorter than normal crop. The increase was 0.50€ on the bottle from the winery.

Just a little recap on DRS Scotland. So far we have pretty much all small and medium Wine importers refusing to sign up to DRS, and many large importers have also not joined the scheme. Then a few weeks ago the UK Government pretty much said the scheme breaks the IMA and this was swiftly followed by the WTO also saying the same, if implemented it would be illegal.

So with combined efforts of both London and Edinburgh governments sales of wine is going to get a lot more expensive in the second half of 2023 (from August) Here is an example of how it will increase and that is actually government fuelling inflation. This is one of our best selling wines and frankly if you haven’t tried it please do. It currently retails for circa £11-£12 all over the UK.

It’s really striking in both France and Spain that you have to work quite hard to spend over 10€ on a bottle of wine. Quite the opposite in the UK. Such a shame UK consumers are totally beholden to governments defrauding them on every glass. Just for the record Wine in the UK is now the most popular alcoholic drink. This has been the case for some years now. So it’s not a middle or upper class beverage, it’s just wine and everyone across all of society like it.

So here is how the Tories have twisted the alcohol reform proposal and made not just unworkable but now very expensive. You may recall they boasted about how they were going to bring down Sparkling excise duty from £2.86 per bottle to still duty levels currently £2,23 per bottle. Yesterdays budget revealed the next twist of the knife. What they are actually doing is increasing still wine duty to £2.67 per bottle and matching sparkling wine at this price. So in actual fact that’s a massive increase for the consumer.

Allow me to tell you about about one of the distribution companies I used to work with and how they treat customers. This is a reflection of just how bad some companies are. Last year after 20 years of working with this transport company they closed our account because we claimed for stock they lost whilst in transit with them. I can’t name this company publicly but I can tell you what happened.

@Douglas4Moray it would seem you have written to a very sizeable chunk of UK business regarding DRS in Scotland. Your letter has been doing the rounds on social media so I see little point in posting a copy here. Im going to assume @WSTA_Miles & the @wstauk also have their copy. You want to hear from businesses that are affected with DRS and how it will disrupt business in Scotland. On this point I agree that DRS as it’s set out currently will destroy choice and small businesses in Scotland.

Dinner time. This will be tricky. 🍷 Amazing to be in a room with the global wine trade. @concoursmondial

According to @Circ_Scotland own figures 30000 products have registered. Sounds a lot doesn’t it. Well let’s put some context onto this. Wine is just one of the categories in DRS. I’m not going to list all of the but wine is one along with beer soft drinks and spirits etc… In France, just one producing nation there are over 27000 producers with an average range of 4 products. So that is 108000 products from France. You then have global wine market to consider. Let list the key countries for the UK…

So folks the “deadline” has past for CSL. If this poll is right (& I accept it’s a small slice of opinion) then DRS is in big trouble. Just 21% signing up would mean the scheme isn’t viable. Add the fact that UK government won’t green light it either, means it should be dead.

https://twitter.com/daniellambert29/status/1629947410268012549

We know @lornaslater is a liar when it comes to consultation as she didn’t consult SME, the backbone of business, we know the incoming SNP leader will also want this toxic plan gone. So one has to beg the question why Slater continues.

Here is my take on DRS as today is D-day. Firstly there is no real deadline for DRS. Think about it. If I was to set up a new company in April in Scotland then how would I operate IF I couldn’t register after the so called deadline. This is just common sense. Secondly it’s now clear the UK government it not going to allow it to roll out in its current form as it breaks UK law. Thirdly none of the SNP candidates back it as it is.

So @SkyNews you wanted to see if there are food shortages in the EU. So here are my photos taken on Tuesday in Bridgend Sainsbury’s and today in Intermarche in Jacou, Southern France. Now @theresecoffey may want to blame the weather, but I suggest you reconsider… Here is the photos I took from Bridgend ( I should say it was the same at Waitrose Cowbridge and Tesco in Cardiff).

After a few days earlier this week in Paris at one of the largest and best trade wine shows it really does bring it home just how vast the wine trade is. Moreover how confusing it must be for consumers. Wine is a luxury item, it’s also a product that gives consumers ‘break from reality’. Most consumers don’t know or even care how it gets from vine to shelf. Why should they. I often think that’s a bad thing for consumers because it can lead to poor choices.

Here is feedback for @dhlexpressuk @DHLExpressFr. Last week we contacted them to send 12 bottles from our warehouse (Uk) to Nantes in France. Very simple. We asked them to quote for the all in cost with all local taxes paid in advance to avoid any delays and delivery by Monday. We were told that would be no problem and we were pre charged £120 circa. Job done we thought. Parcel was collected and was in the Nantes area 18 hours later. There it has stayed, no delivery, three days with no communication, and now it’s missed the deadline for sending.

So as I thought @alliancewine @liberty_wines and I were not called, email, texted, posted or even sent a carrier pigeon regarding DRS. So that the largest Scottish, Welsh and English wine companies NOT consulted despite what @lornaslater claims. She has lied. So here the thing, when politicians lie they have already lost the argument. @lornaslater continues to maintain (lie) that she has consulted the drinks industry as recently as Sunday. So Scotland you have a minster you now know lies and can’t be trusted regardless of the policy.

When I campaigned to have Vi1 removed from UK wine imports the Uk Government told us they had spoken to industry and that industry supported their implementation. This of course turned out to be untrue and eventually the UK government u-turned. It seems to me exactly the same is happening with DRS in Scotland. @lornaslater is claiming that the drinks industry supports DRS and how it will be implemented. She claims she has spoken to drinks companies.

Here are a full headlines that everyone in the UK should be concerned about. This effects everyone in the UK because it’s now a UK wide problem.

scotsman.com/lifestyle/food… thetimes.co.uk/article/retail…

When a government talks this much bollocks I have to call it out. gov.scot/publications/d… Firstly most UK drinks businesses were not aware of this scheme until very recently and I know they certainly were not consulted. So that’s the first lie.

Here is an interesting link for everyone in the wine trade. Especially those getting samples from producers.

gov.uk/guidance/relie… I am putting this out their because companies like DHL and UPS (but in fairness all couriers are the same), love Brexit and the massively inflated costs they charge for clearance. The law as quoted says there is no charge.