I’m not a political kind of guy and I try and make the articles on the blog fun and light-hearted, but the amount of tax we pay on wine in the UK is so far removed from the rest of Europe that I want to tell you about a new campaign that all wine lovers should certainly consider supporting.

The budget is less than two weeks away and it spells danger for wine drinkers. That’s why anyone in the UK with an interest in wine, producers, distributors and retailers and consumers, need to speak directly to Gerorge Osborne and ask him to freeze the duty on wine and spirits… It’s time to CALL TIME ON DUTY!

You can send your own message by clicking on the link below, and why not keep up with the campaign on Twitter by following @calltimeonduty.

http://calltimeonduty.co.uk

But why should you care? Well take a look at some of the facts and make up your own minds:

UK consumers currently pay more alcohol tax than consumers in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland combined

Wine in France is taxed at 20% whereas in the UK 57% of an average priced bottle of wine is accounted for by tax 

The average drinker in England pays £198.33 in alcohol tax per year compared to only £43.17 in France – more than four times as much, despite drinking less.

The alcohol duty escalator has meant that since 2008, tax on wine has increased by 50% and on spirits by 44%

Not many people know that 79% of the cost of a bottle of spirits in tax and 57% of the price of a bottle of wine is tax

If the tax isn’t scrapped at this year’s budget (19th March 2014), tax on alcohol will increase by another 2% above inflation

The wine and spirit industry is worth £20 billion annually to the British economy and supports nearly 2 million jobs.  There are 448 commercial vineyards in the UK and 131 wineries producing over 3 million bottles of wine a year.

A study by Ernst and Young has found that scrapping the alcohol duty escalator would generate £230 million for the public finances, allow industry to contribute £1bn more to Economic Activity, and create 6,000 new jobs.

That was certainly all of the evidence I needed to pledge my support – click on the link if it deserves yours:

http://calltimeonduty.co.uk