Merry Christmas from the drinks business
A year that began with arguments about health and ended in duty rises has nevertheless revealed a trade still rich with ambition and sheer bloody-minded charm. The db team would like to thank all of our readers on thedrinksbusiness.com and supporters of the publication for a fantastic 2025.
It has been a dramatic year with big stories for the trade. November’s Budget confirmed that alcohol duty will rise in line with RPI from 1 February 2026, a move the government said would maintain duty’s real terms value while balancing the economy and harm reduction. Small producer relief will be uprated so eligible producers keep their relative reductions, a crumb of comfort offered with a straight face.
The reaction from the trade was anything but straight. Miles Beale, chief executive of the WSTA, called the decision “disappointing and shortsighted”, warning it would prolong what he described as an economic doom loop. His frustration chimed with a wider sense that evidence is offered up like a decent claret only to be sniffed and pushed aside.
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Let’s make drinks fun again
Against this austere backdrop, the trade did what it has always done best and got on with it. Jamie Ritchie arrived at Berry Bros. & Rudd with a mission to make fine wine fun again. Business loves certainty, he said, but it also needs charm, wit and timing. He, like many, has not forgotten that wine occupies people’s fun time.
Elsewhere, England quietly carried on growing up. The release of Marbury Chardonnay 2023 marked Jackson Family Wines’ first English still wine, crafted by Charlie Holland from Crouch Valley fruit. At 12.5% abv, barrel-aged with restraint and priced at £38, it made a persuasive case that England can rival fine Chablis on its own terms. Holland spoke of ten years of fun ahead, a phrase worth clinging to.
So this has been a year of raised voices, duties and eyebrows. It has also been a year in which the drinks trade fought its corner. Christmas finds the sector leaner, perhaps wiser and still stubbornly creative.
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