Wine with Leslie Williams: We need to stand up for our favourite drink

I wrote last week about the fact that Ireland is by far the most expensive place to buy wine in the EU with over 50% of a wine that costs €10 going to the government.

Wine sales are every so slightly up on last year and in 2017 wine contributed €382m in excise to the exchequer — up €2m on 2016 — and Irish wine drinkers contributed a multiple of that amount as the figure does not include the cost of the actual wine or the 23% Vat dumped on top.