Two pound Chuck?!
Inspired by HRH Jancis who wrote over the weekend about value wines in the UK, I thought I would point out why there will never be a “two buck chuck” (aka Charles Shaw) wine in Britain. Even though many supermarket retailers stock custom labelings for their own brands, taxes in what has historically been a beer drinking country make it hard to find “extreme” values.
Because retail prices include all taxes, it is difficult to find a good wine under £5 (about $10). To wit:
VAT = 17.5%
Plus per bottle flat tax of £1.24
Retailer mark up is 25-30%
Importer mark up is 25-30 % (but retailers can be importers)
Plus transportation costs
So a £4.99 wine thus breaks down something like this:
4.99 retail
4.24 pre VAT
3.00 pre flat bottle tax
2.25 retailer cost
1.60 importer cost
1.40 pre shipping cost
0.99 ex-cellars price, which includes bottling, fixed costs of winery, etc. So that’s about 50 p worth of wine!
Poor things. No wonder the Brits love going to the continent. Buy direct!
(Thanks, Gary!)
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