I went to our local supermarket this morning to find that some of the empty shelves were being filled up with wine. Overseas readers may not now that there is a shortage of heavy lorries drivers owing to Brexit. Thousands of lorry drivers from the EU have left the UK because of the C19 pandemic and Brexit, and they are not coming back either because they feel un-welcome or they need a visa to come to Britain now to work. They are considered to be unskilled workers so not many visas are being handed out.
This is one of the victories of Brexit, and perhaps the only one, with supermarkets over-flowing with wine - it's a pity about the prices.
The supermarkets must have enormous stocks of wine if they are able to replace the empty food shelves with wine. However, the price of wine is now so high that I doubt if it is shifting quickly, but luckily it has a long shelf life. Brexit resulted in the cost of imported wine shooting through the roof because the pound fell so heavily against the Dollar and the Euro.
I don't buy wine now unless it is discounted, but this morning I bought a bottle of one of my favourite wines, "Château Pey La Tour 2019 red", from Dourthe: this wine is typical of a good AOP Bordeaux. It was GBP 7.99 instead of GBP10.69. This is not a bargain though compared to the prices in France.
I noticed in the aisles that the cost of a discounted Crémant de Bourgogne sparkling wine was GBP13.99; this is as costly as a bottle of good quality Champagne that I can by directly from the suppliers in France.
https://www.waitrosecellar.com/red-wine-offers/chateau-pey-la-tour-885888
