What makes up the price of a bottle of wine?

A 0.75 litre bottle of wine with more than 8.5 percent alcohol carries 0.72 euro in excise duty.

The rate is per hectolitre in the Customs tariff list: 95.69 euro per hectolitre above 8.5 percent alcohol and 47.95 euro per hectolitre below. Since 2017 it no longer matters for excise duty whether the wine is sparkling. Intermediate products such as port have their own rate, namely 161.80 euro per hectolitre above 15 percent alcohol.

Wine is subject to the high VAT rate of 21 percent, so you divide the shop price by 1.21 to find the price excl. VAT.

For a bottle of 9.99 euros, that is 8.26 euros without VAT, and 1.73 euros goes to the Dutch tax authority. For a bottle of 24.99 euros, the VAT is 4.34 euros. VAT is calculated on the price including excise duty, so you also pay VAT on the excise duty.

For a bottle of 9.99 euros, after 1.73 euros VAT and 0.72 euros excise duty, 7.54 euros remain for everything that comes before.

That amount pays for: the grapes and the work in the vineyard, the winemaking, the bottle, the cork or screw cap, the label, the box, the transport to the Netherlands, the importer's margin and the retailer's margin. The higher the bottle price, the larger the share that goes to the wine itself, because the excise duty and the packaging stay roughly the same.

Of the 10 euro difference between a 5 euro bottle and a 15 euro bottle, 1.74 euro goes to VAT and 8.26 euro to the rest.

The excise duty is namely a fixed amount per litre and not a percentage of the price. Both bottles carry the same 0.72 euro. The bottle, the cork and the transport also cost about the same. The difference therefore ends up almost entirely in the grapes, the yield per hectare, the maturation in wood and the margins in the chain.

Every drink with more than 1.2 percent alcohol by volume must state its actual alcoholic strength, together with a sulphite declaration above 10 milligrams per litre.

That obligation comes from Regulation (EU) No. 1169/2011 on food information to consumers. The label must also show the country of origin, the nominal quantity in centilitres or litres, the name of the bottler or importer and the lot number. What does not have to be on it is a breakdown of the price, and precisely for that reason it is invisible to the buyer.