Consultation on changes to legislation relating to alcoholic drinks in Great Britain
We are seeking your views on the likely impact of 3 changes needed to implement the UK-New Zealand free trade agreement.
The UK signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with New Zealand on 28 February 2022 (‘the UK-NZ FTA’). Annex 7A to the agreement concerns wine and distilled spirits.
To implement the agreement, the United Kingdom will make 3 minor changes to domestic legislation on how wine and alcoholic drinks can be described and marketed on labels. These changes allow producers and sellers more flexibility in the information they choose to include on alcoholic drink labels and will be optional for producers to adopt.
This consultation seeks your views on the likely impact of 3 changes needed to implement the UK-NZ FTA. The UK government proposes that:
- wine products should be allowed to show alcoholic strength to one decimal place
- when several grape varieties are used in the production of a blended wine and are shown on the label, the named varieties must total at least 95% of the volume of the wine
- the term ‘alc/vol’ may appear directly after the alcohol content figure displayed on the label of any alcoholic beverage