Are You Drinking Less Wine?

With the current economic climate, cutting back on non-essential purchases is a fact of life; that’s certainly the case at my  house.  And in my monthly budget, the wine line-item is not exempt from the budget cutting axe.

However, I’ve cut the wine budget- not by buying less bottles of wine- but by buying less-expensive bottles of wine.  And my research up to this point had told me that most of the folks out there were doing the same.

Not so, at least in Ireland, acording to this article at IrishTimes.com.

Due to the economy, pubs have closed, less people are employed by pubs, and alcohol sales are down across the board.

“All four alcohol drinks categories suffered volume declines with cider down 11 per cent, spirits down 7.7 per cent, beer down 5 per cent and wine down 4.1 per cent”.

The numbers were compiled by the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (Digi) in order to show the government that increasing taxes on alcohol would be devastating to an already depressed industry.