This terminology relates to the tax status of a wine. In bond (IB) refers to a purchase of a case of wine which includes the cost of the wine, packaging and delivery to Abingdon Fine Wine’s storage account in the UK, but excludes duty, VAT or onward delivery costs. In order for a wine to remain in this In Bond state, it must be kept in a bonded warehouse, whether our own customer storage or can be delivered to your own storage account (fees apply). At the point that a wine is withdrawn from storage to be delivered to you, duty and VAT would be due at the prevailing rate, but based on the original purchase price.
Duty paid refers to a wine which has already had duty paid on it (duty is paid just once), but is still subject to VAT. Prices quoted duty paid may be quoted exclusive or inclusive of VAT. On this website, all prices quoted Duty Paid will also include VAT unless stated.
Duty is a fixed rate per ml based on the alcohol content and style of the product. A concise summary of duty rates as below:
All Wine: >5.5% abv to 15% ABV
Per bottle: £2.67
Per case of 6x75cl: £16.02
Per case of 12x75cl: £32.04
Duty is added to the in bond total, then VAT at 20% (currently) is added to that IB total plus duty. So for a case of 12 bottles of still wine at 13% ABV which cost £200 per 12 IB, the calculation would be as below:
IB Bond Cost: £200.00
Duty for 12x75cl: £32.04
Sub Total: £232.04
VAT at 20%: £46.41
Total Due: £278.45
Duty and VAT rates are based on the rates at the time of paying the tax element, not based on the rates at the point of purchase. Hence duty and VAT cannot be quoted definitively until the wine is ready to be despatched.
Buying wine en primeur is a principle steeped in history. If a wine was made, but in barrel ageing at the winery, it may be a number of years before they were able to sell it. To aid cashflow, these wines were sold in advance of bottling at a concessionary price versus what would have been expected to be charged in the future.
En primeur purchases are purchases ‘in bond’ made months or even years before the wine is to be delivered. You pay for the bonded value of the wine at the point of reservation with a delivery date forecast when the wines are bottled. At the point of delivery to the UK you can store the wine ‘in bond’ or at this point you can pay the duty and VAT to have the wine delivered.
It is crucial that any wine purchased is stored correctly, whether that purchase was made with the intention of your own consumption or with the possibility of reselling that wine in the future.
We store our own wines at LCB Burton Gateway, one of the newest facilities in the UK, opened in 2019. Temperature and humidity controlled and managed by LCB’s latest logistics. Deliveries are made to customers using LCB’s network. All wines are insured to replacement value.
Customer storage costs are £8 per case up to 6x75cl and £16 per case in excess of 6x75cl per year or equivalent. Prices are inclusive of VAT.
Abingdon Fine Wine acts as a wine merchant and as a broker. If you have wine that you would like to sell that’s currently held in a UK warehouse, we’d be happy to broker the wines on your behalf or in some cases offer to buy them outright. Please contact us for more information.
Drinking dates on this website and in any correspondence from Abingdon Fine Wines are simply a guide based on our own, significant experience or that of the key critics. Wine is a very subjective topic and while we like to be able to provide as much information as we can to ensure customers make the most informed decisions as to when to drink their wines, we cannot be responsible for wines opened and not enjoyed which may be as a result of them being opened as per our guidance.
Packaging is not just a means of securing wine for safe transport, but can also add to assurances over provenance of a given wine. It can therefore be essential to keep wine in the original unopened packaging (whether wooden cases or cardboard cartons) to maximise its value and/or saleability. For each product Abingdon Fine Wine offers, we make it very clear what the packaging is for each case.
Original Wooden Cases (OWC):
Wooden cases as supplied by the producer.
Original cardboard cartons (OCC):
Cardboard cases as supplier by the producer.
Repacked (RPK):
A case repacked into a generic cardboard case.
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