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What makes one wine bottle more expensive than another? And is it worth spending a little bit more? What tricky questions … how long is a piece of string? My name is Cécile Bergart and as a sommelier, wine tutor, champagne expert and owner of the Hampshire Wine School, I am probably asked these two questions more than any other, so here is what influences the price of a bottle.
Let’s use the example of a wine that sells in the UK for £4.99 to illustrate where your money goes. Working backwards, we must remove the VAT at 20%, leaving us with just over £4, then the duty on alcohol (well over £1 per bottle). At least £1 goes to between importer and retailer, while another £1.50 goes on packaging, labelling, transport and fuel. The wine producer thus ends up with less than 50 pence to make the wine itself. Oh dear.
Consequently, as shocking as it might sound, a wine that costs you £6.99 will more likely be twice the quality of the £4.99 wine! Point made.
Obviously, there are various factors that also influence the price of a bottle, such as where the wine comes from (as production costs vary greatly worldwide), the name of the producer and the perceived quality (established reputation and big brands’ marketing come at a price), the grape variety (when becoming in fashion, their price shall go up accordingly), the vintage (the quality of the year plays a big role), the rarity and age of the wine (as a rare wine gets older, the number of bottles left in circulation will have a big impact on the price).
To conclude, I would like to compare wine to cars: four wheels and an engine. Essentially, cars exist for the same purpose, to drive us from A to B. But as we all know, there are cars and there are cars. And price varies dramatically depending on what it is, where it’s from, who made it, etc. You get what I’m saying. Wine is exactly the same … worth every single penny you can spare.
To sum up, consider the following factors when looking at price tags:
- grapes
- winemaking
- labour
- excise duty
- VAT
- packaging
- advertising and promotion
- transport
- retailer's markup
- restaurant markup
- rarity
- demand
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