Sunday, October 13, 2013

Why pay more for wine?

Simply because you'll be getting more wine for your money.

If you think about a bottle of wine, there are many costs involved before you buy it... The wine itself (growing the grapes, making the wine), and then there's the bottling, label design, transportation, storage, marketing, distribution and taxes, plus a load of other costs depending on what the business model for that wine is.

The part of the process that you, the consumer, appreciates most is the actual wine, the stuff in the bottle. So how much wine are you paying for? Here are some examples:

  • Spend £5 on a bottle and you are getting 20p worth of wine
  • Spend £7.50 and you are getting £1.66 worth of wine
  • Spend £10 and you are getting £3.13 worth of wine
  • Spend £15 for £6.04 worth of wine

Shocking isn't it?

This will of course vary depending on various factors including where the wine has come from (transportation or import taxes), to who is distributing the wine (direct will have lower fees than through the big wine & spirit companies, any middle men will add to the cost), to who sells the wine (you'll get more for your money from a wine merchant than from a big supermarket chain), but the figures can be used as a guide.

Thanks to @ozclarke and @Condor_Wines and @robersonwine for sharing.


2 comments:

  1. Fascinating. Does that mean if you are buying cheap you should stick to big brands as they presumably get economies of scale on some of those fixed costs (so you get more wine as you put it)?

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    1. Yes, you can certainly get more "wine" for your buck if you go with the big brands, but also bear in mind that one of the ways that big brands can produce wine at cheaper prices is by buying all the grape stock other producers don't want or use. One of the main reasons I would advise sticking to the big brands if you're buying cheap wine is that you know what you're going to get. It's a much more stable/predictable product. What this blog shows is spending 50% more on wine means you get more than 50% more wine. So it's worth spending that extra pound or two.

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