The real thing

We are indebted to French research (L'Institut National de Consommation, since you ask) which has established that Coca Cola is alcoholic! There is only 10mg of alcohol in every litre but alcohol there is. In these quantities you'd probably die of sugar poisoning long before any effect from the alcohol, but it seems to have upset the world's leading 'soft' drink that not all Colas were found to be alcoholic. Surely it can't be a spiked drink?

Fun and games continued

It seems that the initial fears of delivering in Postcodes affected by Olympic events are not as serious as feared and that good arrangements to mitigate delays are in place. We have a very positive communication from Business Post who undertake most of our London deliveries. They say that although delivery times will not be guaranteed and are likely to be earlier or later than usual they anticipate that with a combination of early starts and using smaller vehicles they should be able to cope with the vast majority of the usual delivery schedule. We'll cheer to that!

The etiquette of labelling

Was how the English version of a French email that landed in the WineDrop inbox was headed. A lovely pun of course because étiquette is French for a label. (It is intriguing to note that that the origin of the French word is from the English "a ticket". The English then borrowed the French to mean correct manners.) The article actually concerns the EU requirement, which reverses an earlier decision, that from1st August 2012 wine made from organically grown grapes can, indeed must, be called organic wine and display the EU logo. As the wines are still permitted to contain significant levels of sulphites this seems an odd decision. But that must indeed be the etiquette of labelling.

The language of wine that cheers

We learn from Vinexpo (the Bordeaux wine exhibition) of the league table for wine consumption. This is by country and is the country's total consumption of so called 'light wine' - that means fortified wines and sparkling wines are excluded. The UK comes in half way down the top ten at number five. First is the USA, but with five times the UK population that is not a great surprise, more so is that China, with four times the population of the US comes in only at number six. Europe takes the other three top places with Italy at number two, France number three and Germany at number four, whilst Spain (with admittedly only about half the population of Germany) is beaten into eighth place by its Spanish speaking ex with about the same population, Argentina. Russia, with a population about half the size of the US comes in at number nine, while plucky Romania with a population about a third of the size of the UK comes in at number 10. Fascinating that the UK is the highest placed of the 'non-wine-producing' countries. Looked at another way, the biggest markets by language are English speaking...

Fun and Games

The Olympic games take place between 27th July and 12 August and the Paralympics between 29th August and 9th September and - forewarned is forearmed - it seems that disruption to delivery services is likely if the delivery address is near a venue where competitions will take place. We imagine that most affected customers will be well aware of this but those of you sending presents and bearing gifts should be conscious that that difficulties may be significant on or around these dates in both London and Weymouth. London details are sketched out on the transport for London website at http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/london2012/21677.aspx

Two Cheers from France

The French wine trade has particularly high hopes of their newly elected President, François Hollande, because he actually drinks - whereas his illustrious predecessor was famously teetotal. They hope he revisits the Loi Evin (France's alcohol advertising law) and will be more supportive of wine exports. At WineDrop towers we fear he may be too locked in to negotiations with Angela "Europe can only be built together" Merkel to notice...

Time to be hard on soft drinks - continued

Our prices are gradually reflecting the duty escalator increase imposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the end of March. The alcohol trade has to be realistic and accept that it is a relatively easy target and taxes are better levied on discretionary purchases. But two discretionary purchases that still remain completely untouched by anything more than VAT are confectionary and soft drinks. These are both heavily implicated in poor health outcomes and rising rates of obesity. It has been done elsewhere in the EU so isn't it time they shared some of the UK pain?