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Get 10% off 6 still wines. Enter code SAVE10 during checkout. Excludes some fine wine and Sparkling.
Get 10% off 6 still wines. Enter code SAVE10 during checkout. Excludes some fine wine and Sparkling.
In her last Budget (Nov25), Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed that from 1 February 2026 alcohol duty will rise yet again, increasing in line with RPI at 3.66%.
While a few pence here or there may not sound dramatic, these incremental rises have a cumulative effect. Over time, they significantly reshape what we pay for wine and, crucially, how much of the price of a bottle is actually wine.
Alcohol duty is a tax charged by the government on alcoholic drinks sold in the UK. For wine, it is levied at a fixed rate based on alcohol strength, not on the value or quality of the wine itself. That means the duty on a carefully farmed, low-yield vineyard wine can be exactly the same as on a mass-produced bottle made to a tight budget.
Add VAT on top of that duty and you begin to see why tax plays such a dominant role in the final shelf price.
According to the Wine and Spirit Trade Association, this latest increase will add around 11p to a bottle of Prosecco, 13p to a bottle of red wine, and as much as 38p to a bottle of gin. On its own that might seem manageable, but it comes after years of repeated duty rises and structural changes to how alcohol is taxed.
To understand what wine is truly worth at different price points, it helps to look at where the money actually goes. Let’s take a simplified view of a standard bottle of still wine sold in the UK.
The price on a shelf is not the price of the wine. A large part of what you pay is tax, and that matters far more at lower price points.
At £10, nearly half the bottle is tax.
£3.10 goes straight to alcohol duty
£1.67 is VAT
After packaging, transport and retail costs, just £1.66 is left for the wine itself
That means the grower and winemaker are working with less than £2 of your spend.
At £15, the balance starts to improve.
Duty remains £3.10, but now makes up a smaller share
Around £4.70 goes into the actual wine
This is often where quality becomes more noticeable, as there is more budget for better fruit and careful winemaking.
At £20, you are mostly paying for what is in the glass.
Duty is still £3.10, but now only around 15% of the price
About £7.50 goes directly into the wine
Here, the extra spend goes into vineyards, time, skill and character, rather than tax.
Alcohol duty is a flat charge, so it hits cheaper wine hardest. This is one reason why genuinely good value wine at lower prices is becoming harder to find, despite improvements in winemaking globally.
As you spend more, a much greater proportion of your money goes towards the wine itself. That is why spending a little more often delivers a disproportionately better bottle.
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