Rising cost of wine o’ clock

You can’t deny any parent a glass of vino in the evening to unwind, when the kids are tucked up in bed and ‘wine o’ clock’ strikes.

However, staying in is proving to becoming increasingly expensive.

Alarmingly, Irish consumers pay €3.19 on tax per every standard €9 bottle of wine and €6.37 on sparkling wine, recent research shows.

According to the latest ‘Irish Wine Market Report’ from Drinks Ireland, Irish excise on wine is the highest in the EU.

“Effectively this is a tax on celebrations,” highlighted Jim Bradley, Chair of Drinks Ireland | Wine and Chairman of wine distributor Febvre Wines.

The research showed that following Ireland, Finish consumers pay €2.83 tax on a standard bottle of wine, British consumers pay €2.43, Swedish pay €1.83, and Lithuanian consumers pay €1.24.

14 EU members charge no duty

The report highlighted that of the 28 EU Member States, 14 of them charge no duty on wine, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany and the Czech Republic to name but a few.

Wine remains Ireland’s second most popular beverage with a 27% market share in the alcohol drinks market.

The report found that in 2018 total wine consumption decreased by 2% compared to the previous year, while per capita wine consumption decreased by 3.6%, which reflects the general trend of declining alcohol consumption in Ireland.