Why we won't be drowning our sorrows with wine

Just about the only good news is that there should be some epic wine sales this month

After the worst Christmas trading in years, with furious discounting that included 40 per cent off at Wine Rack, £50 off at Berry Bros & Rudd, and Tesco halving the price of a quintet of champagnes and a lot else besides, it’s time to take stock. The wine trade started to feel the credit squeeze as early as last summer, with Tesco and Sainsbury’s wine shoppers defecting in droves to Asda and Morrisons, while the latter’s customers switched to deep-discounters Aldi and Lidl. Heading into winter, the recession forced supermarkets to resurrect £3.99 and even £2.99 wines in a bid to boost sales. And all, it seems, for naught: take-home wine sales dropped by 10 per cent in the run-up to Christmas, and champagne sales were down as much as 30 per cent.

Adding to wine merchants’ woes was the administrative nightmare created by November’s 2.5 per cent cut in VAT, plus the 8 per cent increase in duty on wine and beer, and 4 per cent on spirits. As one small wine merchant wearily explained, this further flattened sales and it took him and his team a day to sort out and re-price their stock. What Darling has done is make cheaper wines more expensive and, due to the VAT saving, more expensive wines cheaper.

The Government’s excuse is that raising the prices of good, ordinary, everyday bottles of wine will see a drop in binge drinking. I doubt it. All that has happened is that the hugely popular under-£6 wine sector, responsible for the vast majority of the wines we drink at home, has taken another beating. A £3.99 wine now has more than £2.09 in VAT and duty slapped on it, and if you take into account the cost of bottling, corking and shipping, there is very little left spent on the actual cost of the wine. Things look better at the £4.99 level, with VAT and duty accounting for about £2.22 of the cost. The £6-£10 wine bottle has had a boost, but few of us want to spend this sort of money on everyday wines. The big drop in sterling against the euro has further exacerbated the situation.

Drowning our sorrows in a recession is just not going to happen. Nor do I buy Berry Bros & Rudd’s argument that by enjoying cost-cutting romantic dinners at home instead of in restaurants this will somehow allow us all to “break the bank on something really special” in the wine department. My hunch is that the wine trade will have to work a lot harder to sell to British drinkers, and most of us will be trading down in order to continue to drink wine every day. Just about the only good news is that there should be some epic wine sales this month as merchants attempt to shift unsold festive stock.

More next week on what we should trade down to, where to buy it from and how much we should be prepared to pay for it. The under-£6 bottle has never looked so appetising.

2004 Finest Barbera d’Asti Superiore, Piemonte, Italy, Tesco, down to £5.49 until January 6. Still time to scoop up a superior bargain or two before new year bills and blues arrive, and this gorgeous, ripe, plummy, floral yet savoury barbera gets my 2009 vote.

2006 Vacqueyras, Caves Saint-Pierre, Rhône, France, Tesco, down to £6.99 until January 6. Vacqueyras, next door to Gigondas in the southern Rhône, is made from the same grenache-dominated blend, here topped up with syrah and mourvèdre. Lots of fat, bold, peppery, plummy spice.

Taste the Difference 12 Year Old Pedro Ximénez, Williams & Humbert, Jerez, Spain, Sainsbury’s, £7.19 (50cl). A cockle-warming sherry is something you can look forward to all day, and this delicious, rich, creamy, intensely sweet, smoke and moscatel raisin-licked PX, made from sun-dried grapes, is a great choice.

2001 Graham’s Crusted Port, Portgual, Sainsbury’s, £14.49. A glorious crusted port with lots of ripe, spicy rose and peppermint style. It needs decanting off its sludgy sediment and will continue to mature in the bottle for several years, provided you store it horizontally in the cool and dark.

2006 Piedra Azul, Estancia, Toro, Spain, Berry Bros & Rudd (0800 2802440), £7.75. You don’t have to spend a fortune at Berry’s, as this delicious unoaked Spanish red, made from 40-year-old tempranillo vines, proves, all smouldering, 14.7 per cent, spicy, beefy, plum and prune-like flavours.

2005 Puech Chaud Blanc, Côteaux de Languedoc, René Rostaing, France,Berry Bros & Rudd, £13.65. Côte Rôtie wizard René Rostaing combines vermentino, viognier and grenache blanc with great aplomb in this stylish, spicy, honeyed, crystallised glacé fruit-charged blend.