En Saga

 

Everyone agrees that importing small quantities of wine from small European producers is the main casualty of Brexit as far as the UK is concerned. We have been testing the waters ever since January 31st with mixed results.

Case #1. 19.1.21. 12 bottles of Schiava from Bolzano, Alto Adige.

H & H Shop sold us Sonntaler's Schiava Grigia for E.15 a bottle, didn't charge for shipping and no tax or customs duty was applied.

Case #2. 4.2.21. 12 bottles Schiava/Vernatsch (10 mixed) plus 1 Portugieser and 1 Chambourcin all from Alto Adige

Again from H & H Shop despite the Sonntaler above coming in at 13% Abv instead of the advertised  11.5%. These things are very important to Sltovino because we reckon grape typicity gets homogenised the higher the alcohol. We specified that no wine should be sent if higher than the Anv listed on the website. All but one bottle were higher. After much gnashing of teeth Mr. Summerer of H & H Shop advised us to add water!

Nevertheless, again no shipping or customs charges were levied, so no complaints on those subjects.

Case #3. 16.3.21. 10 bottles of Frittmann Portugieser and 2 bottles of Egri Turan from Italdepo, Budapest.

This operation was curious in some ways. First of all it was impossible to find a Hungarian wine merchant ready to ship the wine to us. It was even difficult to find someone willing to have the wine picked up from their shop by a courier company engaged by us. Even payment was a problem because practically no Hungarian winemerchants offer any other language than Hungarian on their websites and usual translation options are not adequate. When we offered to pay by bank transfer we were told no because deductions their side meant they would never get the right sum.

We had used a friendly winemerchant in Sopron previously (when we were still in the EU) but they didn't even reply now we are non-EU. What is going on?

Here we would just like to make the point that whatever obstacles governments put in the way of their populations it is up to us to find a way round, and keep contacts going surely? Remembering the time we in the UK were not in the Common Market, we went through all necessary hoops to deal with whomsoever we wanted to deal with. We remember in the musical world, we had to obtain a work permit for every French pianist or Italian violinist we wanted to invite to perform in this country. Sometimes these cross-border arrangements were deliciously clandestine such as the movement of grapes and maybe also wine over the Italian/Slovenian border in the former Yugoslavia.

Fortunately, Hungary is full of more helpful people and we inveigled one of these to act as a staging post for our case of wine. He was even kind enough to pay for the wine under the agreement that we would pay him back, which we of course did. He also agreed to print out the Airway bill and stay at home all day on the day we arranged for the courier company to pick the package up. Happily they came towards the end of the morning. For this we had a nice bottle of Hungarian wine sent to him from another merchant that did accept credit card payments.

Transit time? 3 weeks. Duty? None. Taxes? None. The reasons for this may have been that the wine was super-inexpensive (about £40 for the case) and the courier service we selected was very much not express. Transport was apparently by road although via the East Midlands Airport and Heathrow.

Case #4. 16.4.21. 12 mixed bottles of Hungarian wine (rare grape vareties) from Tasting Table, Budapest. 

Encouraged by the lack of Duty or other taxes, we decided to import a case of wine from a wonderful company in Budapest called 'Tasting Table, Hungary,' The super courteous and efficient Gabor and his colleague Tamas were happy to have monovarietal wines with the following grapes collected from their shop;
 

Rozsakô

Pozsonyi Fehér

Néró 

Budai Zold

Generosa

Kabar

Turan

Burger

Fekete Jardovany

and a Portugieser.  

On this occasion, Import Duty of £32.18 was levied. 

There were similar compliactions on the Hungarian side as had occurred in our first import from Italdepo via a friendly staging post in Hungary (see #1 above). Tamas wrote;

A day after DHL collected the parcel from us, I received an email from DHL requesting this document I attached to this email. This is basically an authorization form for custom procedures for DHL.

After exchanging some emails with them, I filled out this form with our details. On the form there were some questions about the purpose of export: I marked it as a sample (áruminta).

On the top of the second page I had to write the name of the goods and the value of the goods and a tariff code (which I just copied from the doc you sent me about the first shipment from Vászoly). The invoice total included Hungarian VAT, which in the future may not need to be charged...and you would only need to pay for the UK import duty which depends on the amount on the invoice.

I also handed over 3 copies of invoices to the DHL driver who collected the parcel (and put the 4th one inside the box) with the airway bill that was later placed into the transparent pocket. It seems that those 3 invoices were used for custom procedures.

Case #5. 24.5.21. 2 cases (24 bottles) of Dellafiore's Zucarello Croatina from Dellafiore, Provincia di Pavia

Emboldened by modest duties or even the lack of charges altogether we decided as an experiment to buy 2 cases instead of one. The shipping charge was £56.61. Sadly import and duty charges came to £111.32 on this occasion - £4.63 per bottle. The bottles by the way cost only E.3 each. We have noted previously the excellence of Dellafiore's Croatina. It was our pick from 100 others at the Festa del Bonarda, Rovescala in 2019. It seems disproportionate that the shipping and customs charges were £167.93 and the wine only £61.92.

Case #6. 11.5.21. 1 case of Philippe Vandelle Poulsard from Vins Philippe Vandelle, L'Étoile, Jura, France.

By now, duty and customs charges were regularly applied although they were never exactly the same. On this occasion the amount was £60.35. Shipping charges were £33.83.

Case #7. 12 bottles of Italo Cescon 'Il Tralcetto' Raboso from Cescon Italo Storia e Vini Srl. Roncadelle di Ormelle, Treviso,

Shipping £38.26. Customs duty £66.82.

This shipment was complicated by the fact that it came in two boxes each of 6 bottles. Annoyingly only 1 box was delivered initially. The second box followed days later and was sent to the original address after DHL had agreed to change the delivery address. When we complained, DHL said that any promises to make such changes were not binding!

Conclusions

1. It would have been better by far to remain in the EU.

2. It is cheaper and simpler to buy wine from UK winemerchants. they obviously have the advantage of having amortised the shipping costs and there is probably still plenty of stock remaining from pre-Brexit times. We ourselves bought a marvellous Trepat (El petit Carlania) from Decantalo for £12.40 per bottle inclusive and an outstanding Grignolino by Migliavacca from Vinissimus including delivery and a handy discount for £16.48, not to mention a fantastic Bardolino (Gorgo)from Quality Wines of Somerset for £11.28.

3. If you can find a shipping company that is efficient and reliable as we did, you can pay far less than if you go straight to courier companies' websites. For example DHL's France/UK prices start at E.134.29  whereas our company of choice, Parcel Broker (www.parcelbroker.co.uk) charged onl £33.83 and guess what: delivery was made by DHL. This allows you to shop for wines directly from the producer or from winemerchants willing to print out labels and have wine collected from them.

4. That allows you to buy a far greater range of wines than are available in the UK. The costs are higher because you have to pay the shipping and duty but the wine is cheaper.