2026 Budget and increases in UK wine duty

October 30 2026


It’s a rare thing for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to mention the increase in UK wine duty in a Budget speech, and this week was no different.

Only a few in the media have picked up on the ‘alcohol duty uprating’ in the small print. The UK duty on a bottle of wine will go up by between 9p and 16p a bottle plus VAT (ie 11p to 19p inc) from 1 February 2027, depending on the level of alcohol on the label. For example, duty will be exactly £3 plus VAT for a bottle at 12.5% abv (‘alcohol by volume’) and £3.48 plus VAT for a bottle at 14.5%. It will cost 12p – either more or less – for every increment of 0.5% abv.

There is some good news, however. The exchange rate for sterling against the euro is favourable for Brits for once, so there’ll be a valid push to sell wine in the run-up to Christmas.

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Red harvest around Bordeaux 2026 photo journal

September 30 2026

We had the earliest harvest on record this year, beginning in early August in some places. But it’s also been a long one, with Château Pavie in Saint-Émilion still harvesting their Cabernet Sauvignon this week. The photo above was from last Friday, 25th September, as they picked their Cabernet Franc.

So here’s a September photo journal of the red harvest at some randomly chosen vineyards across Bordeaux, starting with our own.

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August harvest photo journal 2026

August 27 2026

When we moved here from London in good time for the September and October harvest in 1999, it all seemed rather idyllic. Everyone took August off in France, allegedly, and then you started preparing the winery just as the grapes were starting to ripen.

As we all know, times have changed. But I don’t think we ever imagined that we would have brought the whites in, both for making Crémant and for still wine, and that all the reds for making rosé would be picked before the last weekend of August. Or that most of the grapes for the dry whites and rosé would be harvested before dawn.

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The fires and the vines – July 2026 photojournal

July 30 2026

Many thanks to everyone for all the kind messages about keeping safe from the fires that have raged for more than a week near Bordeaux. We’re very touched.

Mercifully we’re just over 20 miles from the nearest blaze and hopefully we’d have some protection thanks to the river Garonne and a very different landscape on this side compared to the tinderbox of pine forests beyond the far side of the city.

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The end of an era… as Daniel retires – part two

July 08 2026

Daniel our vineyard manager – a photo journal 1999-2026, part two

Our vineyard manager Daniel retired at the end of June, having started at Bauduc way back in 1985. We have put together a photo journal of his time with us, and we sent the first part out last week – click here if you missed it.

Here’s the second part. Above is a photo of Daniel and Nelly with us five years ago during the 2021 harvest. We’ve all worked together since our first harvest in 1999 – we took Nelly on as a trainee then.

If you have any comments or questions, please email Georgie, Angela and Gavin by clicking this link, or reply to this email and Georgie or Angela will get back to you.

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The end of an era… as Daniel retires

July 01 2026

Daniel our vineyard manager – a photo journal 1999-2026, part one

Tuesday, 30 June 2026 was the last working day for Daniel, our vineyard manager. Remarkably, he’s been at Château Bauduc for over forty years and of course he’s been with us since our first harvest in 1999. We said our goodbyes this morning (below).

2025 was his final harvest and when people talk of Bordeaux 2025 being another in the series of excellent vintages that end in five or indeed zero, it is extraordinary to think that Daniel was here at the very start of that sequence in 1985 (1980 not having been a good year).

We celebrated his last day with a fine lunch in our garden with his partner Christine, a few Quinneys and some of his closest colleagues. We kicked off with our Crémant de Bordeaux 2021, and it’s appropriate that our photo at the top of the page is of Daniel with the baskets of grapes for that wine. It’s also timely that Victoria Moore described our 2021 as ‘excellent’ in her review in The Telegraph last weekend of ‘the best (and worst) crémants of the summer’.

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May 2026 – a photojournal

May 29 2026

Mid-thirties for the whole of the last week of May is utterly bonkers. During the first fortnight, we were asking how we translate ’ne’er cast a clout till May is out’ as it was chilly and wet, and then it was all change.

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Tom Gilbey’s videos and other nonsense

May 01 2026

As we head into the Bank Holiday weekend – Friday 1st May in France, Monday 4th in the UK – below are the links to not one but two videos uploaded by our great friend Tom Gilbey on YouTube in April.

Angela and I are in the Médoc today, north of the city of Bordeaux, after a long week. We’ll return to the serious stuff of running the vineyard another time.

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Bordeaux 2025 weather and crop report

April 02 2026

This report was published on Jancis Robinson’s fine wine website and also on Liv-ex – the fine wine market site.

For the Easter weekend, there’s nothing better than an in-depth report on Bordeaux 2025. To be fair, and the weather last year apart, the production statistics are quite something: half the amount of wine produced than in 2016, the lowest crop since 1991 (again) and 20,000 hectares of vines (50,000 acres) along with 1,000 growers gone in three years. Crikey.

Crémant is on the up though…

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Start of the year – a photo journal

February 26 2026

This month’s news review is a meandering journal of images to scroll through at your leisure. The vineyard, fallen trees, floods, the bottling, various trips and family snaps – life’s rich tapestry.

We’ll leave the spring sales pitch for the not too distant future.

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