UK Access to Good Wine at Risk as Post-Brexit Taxes Rile Buyers

Thousands of flames flickered in pre-dawn vineyards across the Burgundy region of France in early May, pots of paraffin warming the air to protect delicate buds from an unseasonably late frost.

Extreme weather can destroy much of a crop, dramatically impacting surviving grapes that produce a wine that could carry a slightly different alcohol content from last year’s vintage. And bottle by bottle, that can vary depending on how long the wine is aged in a barrel.

“Wine is an agricultural product,” notes Kim Wilson, managing director of UK-based North South Wines.

Wine growers say the tax writers in England ...