Amazingly, there is more to say about the UK government’s £3.8mn wine cellar

Please choose your own article intro based on the following question: how familiar are you with FT Alphaville’s previous coverage of the UK’s Government Hospitality Wine Cellar?

Hallowe’en was a good day to bury bad news for the British government.

Gilts yields climbed and sterling slid as markets digested chancellor Rachel Reeves’ tax-and-spend Budget: the first by a Labour government in nearly a decade and a half.

But as Treasury officials gathered around their (alleged) single Bloomberg terminal and prayed to the market gods, a far greater story was unfurling elsewhere in Whitehall.

From within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, somebody was publishing wine stats.

Part 1: Popping off

Here are are some things that have happened, in the order they happened in:

— From 2013 to 2018, the FCDO published an “Government Hospitality wine cellar: annual statement”, covering the latest year to March.
— On 15 July 2021, the FCDO published its “Government Hospitality wine cellar: bi-annual statement 2018 to 2020”.
— On 11 January 2024, the FCDO published its “Government Hospitality wine cellar bi-annual report 2020 to 2022”.
— On 31 October 2024, the FCDO published its “Government Hospitality Wine Cellar: biennial report 2022 to 2024”.

Bi-annual can be quite a confusing word, given it can refer to something happening either twice a year or once every two years. Biennial is somewhat less confusing because it always means once every two years.

The FCDO declined to comment on this, but a person with knowledge of the Cellar’s operations told us:

‘Biennial’ is a description of the report and the time period it covers. There has been no change in regularity with the publication of the report.

Statement and report are less confusing words, but given these include annexes and data, switching to calling them reports seems more appropriate.

So here are some good things:
— It would appear the FCDO may be once again publishing these reports promptly.
— It appears the FCDO is getting a bit better at using words.

And here are some bad things:
— The apparently permanent swap to biennial reporting means it takes longer to get this sweet, precious data.
— They’re getting less transparent.

Before we expand on that last point, here’s a somewhat neutral one: the latest report includes, for the first time, the Government Wine Committee’s terms of reference.

You may recall that Alphaville requested this document under Freedom of Information laws earlier this year, and was told:

This information is exempt from disclosure under Section 22 (1) (a, b and c) of the FOIA (2000). For, the information is intended for future publication as a part of the next Bi-Annual Report on the GH Wine Cellar 2022-24, which will issue before the summer recess…

…given that there is a planned reporting and publication procedure in place for the information requested, to release the information via a Freedom of Information Request would not prove a cost-effective strategy.

Well, summer came and went, nominal bi-annuality became bienniality, FTAV grew a little older, but we finally got it!

Let’s dig.

Part Deux: The terms of reference

“Excellence”.

There’s no information on when these terms of reference were drawn up, but we’d speculate that it must be pretty recent. That’s because a review calling for Cellar to be self-financing (“value for money”) only occurred after the 2010 election, and the tilt towards widespread use of English and Welsh wines has been a fairly recent development.

Two points here:

— We mentioned in our most recent coverage that the wine minister, until recently, was Andrew Mitchell, a man possibly compromised by a moral commitment to the promotion of Burgundian wine. With the government having changed, the new wine minister is Labour’s Catherine West. West has previously spoken in the House of Commons about the dangers of alcohol abuse, which we’re sure must somehow matter here.
— The chair from at least 2013 to August 2023 was Sir David Wright, a former ambassador. Since then, it has been Lord (Peter) Ricketts, whose previous chairing experience include the UK’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Quite the trajectory.

Two points here:

— Again, we don’t know when these terms kicked in, but Sir David Wright’s tenure as chair was a LOT longer than five years. Did nobody else qualify? Surely someone else might have been keen? The FCDO declined to comment on this, but a person with knowledge of the Cellar’s operations told us:

Whilst the principle is one term of 5 years with the option to extend, it is possible to serve as Chair for longer and this is viewed on a case-by-case basis. Other Chairs have served longer than five years.

— “appointments will be voluntary”… well OK then 😧

Two points here:

— “convene the Committee 3 times a year”. As we previously noted, minutes released to us under FOI suggest this hasn’t always been achieved:

— the FCDO is paying for the GWC’s “working lunch”, which explains how the zero-budget committee was managing to feed its members. We asked the FCDO to clarify this back in April, and they refused to comment. We’re… really not sure why?

One point here:

— We knew from our previous reporting that the GWC has been joined for lunch by people including Mitchell (seemingly before he was the wine minister), the former minister of state for the armed forces and at a lobbyist from WinesGB. Now we know that was all above-board! Whether these attendances are justified is another question.

Act 3: The death of transparency??????

Onwards. The wonderful thing about January’s report, and those before it, were the spreadsheets: breaking down exactly what was held in the Cellar, and what had been sold:

Using this data was basically the entire basis for our article in January, allowing us to make charts like this:

And this:

Unfortunately, that seems to have been a little bit too much transparency for the FCDO gang — the latest release doesn’t include any spreadsheets.

The FCDO declined to comment on this, but a person with knowledge of the Cellar’s operations told us:

The report provides the same level of detail as previous reports re consumption. On stocklists, we are reviewing how we might release further information in due course.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Some other elements have also been dropped — including, most notably, the cost of used stock. We hope you’ll join us in booing loudly.

Section 4: OK, so what other new information is there?

Some!

First of all, here’s how the value of the Cellar has shifted, to an estimated market value of £3.8mn as of the end of March this year — far higher than cost, a reflection of the apparently excellent purchasing decisions the GWC has made in the past:

Wine sales (to outside buyers and to other departments) were also resurgent after the pandemic-era collapse:

We should note that the £5.5k in revenue from stock sales during 2022/23 should include the five bottles of prestigious Quinto do Noval 1931 port sold in 2012/22 (mentioned towards the end of our original article). As we wrote then:

Quinta do Noval 1931 is no ordinary port. It is, per Decanter, “regarded by some as the Port vintage of the 20th century”. The Government Wine Committee’s notes say “Drink on very special occasions only”. Bottles rarely come to market and price sights vary hugely, from four to five figures. Wine-searcher puts the average at £5,863 excluding tax, while Wine Market Journal says a bottle was last auctioned for £1,115.

Five times £1,115 is roughly £5.5k, just saying.

More interesting is an apparently major pivot away from English wines during 2023/24 — admittedly on some quite vague figures. From Annex B, here are the purchases over recent years, coloured by rough national vibe where applicable:

We don’t know why the GHWC used to specify Chapel Down in the raw data and now doesn’t. Either way, it looks like the masters of wine weren’t loving last year’s English and Welsh offerings.

Annex A offers a breakdown of what was consumed — voilà (we’ve used the GHWC’s categories here, but readers will probably notice that Chapel Down Bacchus 2018/21/22 could be in the “England” section instead). Click to explore:

Chapel Down takes pole position, but obviously the really interesting wines are the ones not being drunk in vast quantities, including:

— 3 bottles of Quinto do Noval Port (perhaps £1.1k a bottle, as we noted earlier)
— 6 bottles of Echezeaux Dom. Dujac 1988 (just under a grand a pop last time we checked)
— 4 bottles of Château Margaux 1983 (just under £600 a pop last time we checked)

Ambassador, we’re really spoiling you!

There is also a list of wines used at tastings. Notably, tasters partook of the Chateau Latour 1961 (probably the most expensive thing in the cellar, at an auction value of just under £3k a bottle), and the Krug Champagne Vintage Brut 1982 (about £2.1k per bottle). Lovely stuff if you can get it, we’re sure.