Virgin Wines vows to hold prices until Christmas

Online wine retailer Virgin Wines has vowed to hold its prices in the run up to Christmas, despite the volatility of sterling.

It follows Naked Wines announcing it was raising the price of half of its most popular wines by 5% from November, and Bibendum reportedly put up prices for trade customers.

Earlier this week the WSTA warned that the price of wine may increase by around 29p a bottle for wine from inside the EU and 22p from countries outside the EU, due to the volatility of Sterling and falling pound. Former deputy prime minister Nick Clegg also pointed out that leaving the EU and single market without trade agreements was likely to jack up the price of some wines by around 14%.

Virgin Wines CEO Jay Wright admitted the cost of sourcing wine had gone up by 20% and it may take a hit on margins, but customer loyalty remained its primary focus and it was “business as usual”.

He said he wanted customers to “enter the busy, and expensive, Christmas period knowing they could carry on enjoying their favourite wines at the same great value prices”.

“Pre-Brexit the Euro was at €1.32 against the pound and the Aussie Dollar was sitting at $2.05. Now they are €1.11 and $1.60 respectively which has, in effect, increased prices to us by up to 20%,” he said. “But we are used to dealing with volatility in the markets, increases in duty and cost pressures in general so it’s just business as usual for us.”

“I believe businesses have a responsibility to their customers to ride out bumps in economic conditions in the short term and if that means taking a hit on margins then that’s what we’ll do.