BACCHUS
b Mixed blessings from Budget From page 1
“Your business rates are only a function
of what you pay in rent and pretty much
every shop on the high street has upwardsonly clauses in their leases. It’s set up for
greedy landlords, and nothing is going to change that.”
Oli Gauntlett, of Eynsham Cellars in
© JackF / stockadobe.com
Witney, Oxfordshire, says: “The third off
business rates is good but the relief that
we’ve had means that we don’t pay huge
negative. I’ve had two price increases
has been put up by 60% in the past year,
… that kind of thing.
business rates anyway. But the fact is we
could pay higher rates because our value so it is much needed and a very positive thing.”
Gemma Welden of The Jolly Vintner
in Tiverton, Devon, adds: “I have small
business rate relief anyway – I’m glad that it’s potentially helped other people, but it doesn’t affect me, unfortunately.”
Welden is one of many independents
who are angry about the 7p increase in still wine duty and the 9p hike on sparkling wine – rises effective from February 1
and described by the Wine & Spirit Trade Association as “grossly unfair” and “a hammer blow”.
She predicts that the duty increase will
be magnified by the time it is applied
to retail prices. “That 8p on the bottle translates to between 30p to 50p on
the shelf, and that’s huge for customers because if you’ve got a bottle of wine at
£8.99 and suddenly it’s £9.50, that’s a huge mental jump for them – especially if it flips it over that £10 barrier,” she says.
“I hate to say it, but I do feel quite
already this year from various suppliers,
because of the exchange rate, poor harvests “The amount of duty that our
government gets from wine compared to any other country in Europe is just
ridiculous. Brexiters can’t claim that is
another thing Europe is doing us over on,
because that’s not down to Europe – that’s our government doing that.”
Gauntlett at Eynsham Cellars adds: “I feel
that raising the duty on wine is poor timing because of the further pressures and taxes that might be placed on wines when we
leave the EU next year. I feel that maybe
they should have held fire and waited until after March before looking at raising duty.” Gerard Richardson of Richardsons
of Whitehaven in Cumbria strikes a
philosophical note. “I think the budget was OK overall,” he says.
“In terms of the duty increases, I
don’t think it’s too bad and we will
just be absorbing the duty increase on this occasion rather than passing it on ourselves. I guess the Chancellor has
noticed the growth in the industry and
thinks he can squeeze it a little without too much damage unlike the beer market.
“The business rate support is welcome
but the devil is in the detail and I guess it depends on how complicated they
make the process. Personally, I’d rather they focused solely on increasing duty
on tobacco and I would also welcome a
minimum price per unit as in Scotland.”
Wine importers contacted by The Wine
Merchant say they will pass on the duty increases in full. But Nik Darlington of
Red Squirrel tweeted: “The Chancellor’s decision to single out wine for an excise duty rise is crass and crude logic.
“Wine merchants, bars and restaurants
Merchants may have to ask customers to face price increases that are bigger than the duty hike
THE WINE MERCHANT november 2018 2
have enough challenges at the moment.
Red Squirrel Wine won’t pass on the duty rise.”