UK government spends £45k on wine

The UK government spent more than £45,000 on wine last year, according to a statement from Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds.

Govenment Hospitality Cellar: Photo Credit: Christie’s Images 2013

In total £45,866 was spent on wine in 2012/13, which is a slight decrease on £48,955 the previous year.

But the government did say that it was auctioning off some of the wine in its cellar and in total sold £63,300 of wine at auction in 2012/13, a 50% increase in sales revenue from the previous year.

The figures also showed that other government departments contributed a total of £22,129 to the cellar’s funds.

In a written ministerial statement Mr Simmonds said: “The wine cellar is now self-funding through the sale of some high-value stock and payments made by other government departments to government hospitality.”

English wine proved the most popular in the cellar accounting for 49% of consumption by volume.