Wine: Irish wine drinkers are too polite

Irish wine drinkers are far too polite. I doubt any other consumer sector in any other country would take the same level of abuse from their government so placidly.

Together, us wine drinkers contributed €635m to the exchequer last year — a third of the tax take on alcohol — yet wine represents only a little over a quarter of alcohol consumption.

We drink a modest 16.6 litres of wine per capita (compared to 55 in Portugal and 53 in France) yet wine is taxed higher in Ireland than in any other EU country.