Wine in the United Kingdom

PRE-COVID-19 PERFORMANCE

Wine declining in volume and value terms as higher duty rate hits sales

Wine sales were falling in 2019 after the duty rate was increased in February of that year, in spite of the beer and spirits duty rates being frozen. This most recent increase in duty on wine has led to the establishment of Wine Drinkers UK, an organisation made up of manufacturers, retailers, trade associations and consumers, that aims to prevent the wine industry from being further taxed in comparison to domestic beer and Scotch whisky, which are local products and therefore not taxed at such high rates as wine.

Other sparkling wine remains the most dynamic product despite slowing growth rates

Prosecco was showing the first signs of a slowdown in its growth in 2019 as it sees increasing competition from other categories and a growing interest in French crémant and Spanish cava as well as, to a lesser extent, English sparkling wine. However, Prosecco is still benefiting from the mixology trend with the ongoing success of Aperol Spritz.

Accolade Wines Ltd remains the leading company; Henkell and Freixenet merge

Accolade Wines Ltd continued to be the leading player in 2019. Leading brands are facing fierce competition from private label, which again increased its share in 2019.

2020 AND BEYOND

COVID-19 impact

On-trade volume sales of wine are expected to fall by 39% in 2020 in light of the impact of COVID-19. This compares to the 2% decline forecast for 2020 during research conducted in May 2019, ie before the spread of COVID-19.

Affected products within wine

The products already doing well in 2019, such as other sparkling wine and port, will continue to be among the better performers in 2020. Equally, those already seeing sales declines in 2019 will generally be recording even steeper falls in 2020.

Recovery and opportunities

At the height of the UK’s lockdown, e-commerce was seeing a surge in overall sales in general, and it is therefore safe to assume that alcoholic drinks were also part of this sales surge, although this will, to a great extent, have been down to the well-established delivery services of grocery retailers’ online operations. However, in the early days of the UK’s lockdown, online retailers were actually being overwhelmed by the strong demand.

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