Duty fix

It has been pointed out by Steve Parfett of the wholesaler of the same name that instead of minimum pricing it would be much more logical to standardise duty and bring it into line with the spirit system. Here alcoholic strength is multiplied by volume to work out the duty payable. Other alcoholic duty rates are based on bands and styles. This change would standardise the rate per unit of alcohol. Currently cider and perry pay easily the lowest rates of duty whilst wine at the top of the wine duty rate band (5.5%-15%) pays less per unit than the lower alcohol wines at the bottom. If minimum pricing is the aim then the duty rates should be sorted out first. This would also have the added advantage of not being able to be considered (so far at least!) an EU restraint of trade and avoid the legal shenanigans that would be involved. We live in hope..

Marriage Guidance

We should obviously promote marriage if we want wine drinking to flourish. An American Cincinnati university sociology study has shown that whilst men consume a little less alcohol when married this is more than made up for by the extra that women consume when married. Watch out for 'Relate' sponsored by WineDrop!

Probably the best lager description in the world..

We certainly cannot improve on "Mass-produced lagers taste like corporate cardboard and have the aroma of market research rather than hops". Frazer Thompson, Chapel Down’s CEO - after winning gold for his own lager!

Cows, Wine and moos

The Independent has revealed that some French wine farmers have been feeding their cattle wine! We are told that it gives the meat a unique texture and an improved taste such that the farmers are hopeful that Michelin starred restaurants will take it. Apparently the system has also been practised in Canada. A litre and a half of wine for a cow is supposedly equivalent to a human's 2-3 glasses and according to French scientists wine consumption may also increase a cow's sense of wellbeing, though quite how they detect this they do not reveal. To us this sounds like anthropomorphism - or perhaps the cows moo in a particular way..

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.