Darling Goes over the Top
June 7th 2008, by GQ
By our man in the trenches
Times are tough for the UK wine trade. The pound has slumped against the euro, the cost of wine at source and fuel prices have shot up, and consumers face the credit crunch.
If that wasn’t enough, the anti-alcohol lobby is winning the media battle, with middle-class binge-drinkers being portrayed as a drain on the nation’s resources. So the same government that brought in 24-hour drinking (for health reasons?) softened the way for the assault on responsible wine lovers.
Britain now boasts the highest rate of duty on wine in Europe. The Chancellor of the Exchequer slapped a record 14p on a bottle of wine in the Spring budget and pledged to increase duty above the rate of inflation over the next four years.
Duty on a bottle of wine is now nearly £1.50, plus VAT on the duty as well as the wine, while there is no duty at all in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany, while France fleeces its citoyens for all of 2p a bottle. And yet we manage to remain sober - well, most of the time.
Captain Darling even claimed that wine drinkers are better off under this Government: ”Alchohol has become more affordable. In 1997, the average bottle of wine bought in a supermarket was £4.45 in today’s prices. If you go into a supermarket today, the average bottle of wine will cost about £4.00.”
Perhaps, but what he didn’t say was that the government has trousered 37p more per bottle in duty in that time, before the new rate came into being. Producers have been forced to cut costs, and two thirds of wine sold in Britain today is on ’special offer’.
50% tax on an average bottle
On a £4.20 bottle on sale in the UK, which is the average price paid for a bottle of wine, £2.10 goes on duty and VAT, then there’s shipping, storage and distribution, plus the agent and the retailer’s margin. After the bottle, cork, capsule, label and packaging (we spend 50p on all these) that leaves rod all for the wine inside the bottle.
14,565 New Vines Planted
May 31st 2008, by GQ
Last week we planted a single parcel of nearly 3 hectares, or 7.5 acres, with a zillion new sauvignon blanc vines, just behind the winery (or chai) at Château Bauduc. A specialist team of 14 people did the whole job in a few days, from tracing out the block, knocking in the small supporting posts, digging the holes and planting the baby vines.
We had ripped the old vines after the 2006 harvest, and then worked hard to get the terrain in the right condition for the new plants. The plan was to plant earlier in the spring but it has been so wet it’s been difficult to prepare the ground properly. It turns out that this has worked in our favour, in that several growers have had problems with vines going in too early and having problems with too much rain or late frosts in April.
The Best Wine List in the World?
May 29th 2008, by GQ
And a steal for €600 a bottle
When I was a young man growing up in London, my friends used to squirm in trepidation when I had my hands on the wine list in a restaurant. Their fears were justified: to paraphrase George Best, I spent most of my earnings as a 25 year-old computer salesman on fine wine, football and a fast car - the rest I wasted.
Those happy, yuppy days are gone but some things - and men, I suppose - don’t change. So it was a real joy to be back in the toy shop yesterday when I was presented with the greatest wine list I have ever seen. And this wasn’t in Bordeaux, or Paris, or even in London, but in Girona, 100kms north of Barcelona in northern Spain and a short drive from the French border. (I drove the 500 kms from Bordeaux in our Toyota Previa, so something’s had to give.)
I was lucky enough to be invited to this celebration dinner at El Celler de Can Roca by a group of old friends from England, Belgium and Holland, and even more fortunate that (a) I wasn’t paying and (b) was given instructions to order only the best. The same group, minus me unfortunately, had eaten at El Bulli the night before and had ordered only Spanish wines, so their preference this time was for reds from Bordeaux.
Bauduc in Restaurant Price Shock - Telegraph
May 25th 2008, by GQ
Yesterday I took a call from Rupert, the general manager for Rick Stein’s group of establishments in Padstow, Cornwall, saying that Rick had been asked to comment by the Telegraph about the high price of wine in restaurants. Apparently, an investigation by the Daily Telegraph had revealed that both Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay were charging a lot more for a bottle of Chateau Bauduc than they were paying for it. And?
It then dawned on me that I had been set up by a chap on the phone, a few weeks back, who was trying to chisel a good price out of me for a new venture. The person ‘posing as a potential buyer’ in the article - he said he was called David - was going to start up a new establishment, and it was clear that he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. (Even the calculations in the article don’t add up.) I felt rather sorry for him when I wished him good luck at the end of the call. As stings go, it was hardly Sven and the fake sheikh.
I said to Rupert that, on the contrary, our wine was too cheap in the restaurant. After all, top restaurants need to make a 66% gross margin. The refurbishment of The Seafood Restaurant earlier this year cost a seven figure sum which didn’t start with the number 1. £19 for a bottle there for a wine that’s sold by the vineyard for £8? ‘No wonder it’s so popular in the restaurant’, I said. Victoria Moore, the Guardian’s wine correspondent, cited Château Bauduc Bordeaux blanc as being good value for £18.50 at The Seafood more than three years ago. More to the point, try booking a table.