Drinks Package Questions

[NE John]

43 minutes ago, maggielou362 said:

Pushpit, is there anything you DON'T know about Cunard?

I salute you.

Yes, one of the MVP’s on this board. 

[Carnevale]

@Pushpit you truly are a CC MVP! The info you provided is exactly what we need. Thank you very much!

[Welshie1]

Hi, I have a drinks package / wine package question. We are travelling on the 12 night over Christmas voyage and working out the drinks options. We both drink, more than we should probably and like coffees etc. Anyhow we are considering maybe doing the wine package and then just buying the odd cocktail etc. If we have 12 bottles of fizz for example how does that work in the bars? Do you have to cart your bottle with you?? Thanks all

[Donsyb]

On 8/18/2024 at 1:38 PM, Megabear2 said:

English sparkling wine is not a cheap drink to purchase anywhere.  Around here we have several producers and the starting price per bottle is between £25 and £30 a bottle.  Prosecco on the other hand can be bought for half that price.  The well known wine warehouse in the UK lists English sparkling wines from £19.99 to £185.00, with most being around £30-40.

 

Despite being a growing market it needs to be remembered that production of all English wines is fairly small and the vineyards do not mass produce.

 

With most wines in the Britannia restaurant being outside the $13.50 bracket any English sparkling wine would I assume automatically be outside the limit as well.

The main reason English sparkling wine is more expensive is tax. We went to a tasting at our local vineyard a few years ago and found out that wine produced in England is taxed MORE than imported wine (which makes no sense to me). They did tell us the amounts and it was very high (although I can’t remember the actual numbers now), once you add that to higher production costs as well there is no way they can compete.

[Onescoop]

1 hour ago, Donsyb said:

The main reason English sparkling wine is more expensive is tax. We went to a tasting at our local vineyard a few years ago and found out that wine produced in England is taxed MORE than imported wine (which makes no sense to me). They did tell us the amounts and it was very high (although I can’t remember the actual numbers now), once you add that to higher production costs as well there is no way they can compete.

They might be referring to the overarching tax regime of running a business in the UK but wine duty and VAT are applied in the same way to wine produced here or imported. I think this is also a bit of an ESW marketing technique to justify pretty high prices.

Edited Saturday at 05:28 PM by Onescoop

[Donsyb]

9 minutes ago, Onescoop said:

They might be referring to the overarching tax regime of running a business in the UK but wine duty and VAT are applied in the same way to wine produced here or imported. I think this is also a bit of an ESW marketing technique to justify pretty high prices.

 

Prosecco is cheaper because it is produced in a tank method as opposed to ESW which uses the Champagne method. Basically the second fermentation is done in huge tanks rather than individual bottles. It's much cheaper and less labour intensive. There's also no reserve wines used (though that won't be the case with vintage ESW either), which also adds to costs.

They lied then, because they specifically said there was an additional charge on English produced wines - as you say, standard alcohol duty is the same for English or foreign wine.