What Qualifies as a Bonded Wine Warehouse?

Due to our passion for bonded wines and cellarage, you will often hear us talking about wine duty and storage here on the Octavian site, but many customers who are new to the scene may find all of this terminology somewhat confusing. As such, our wine experts have put this handy guide together, explaining just what qualifies as a bonded warehouse and how this differs from your average space.

Wines in bond, or sometimes simply referred to as ‘in bond’, are purchased wines held in a bonded warehouse, such as the ones you will find at our specialist units here at Octavian. These are wines which have not passed through customs, and have no duty or VAT paid on them.

The advantage of this for wine brokers, merchants or even the beginner enthusiast, is that they can buy wine in bond because it saves having to pay VAT and Duty on the wines. This obviously has a big fiscal benefit if you are going to be buying large amounts of expensive vintage wines, but not necessarily selling them on, or using them in the foreseeable future.

However, under current UK law, they must be stored in a bonded warehouse approved by HM Revenue and Customs. So, you can’t just buy vast amounts of expensive wine, store them anywhere and expect to make the required savings on your duty or VAT. This could get you into serious trouble and result in penalties or even the loss of your stock.

Like any kind of investment, these things are well worth taking your time over in order to guarantee you are free from penalisation, and can make the most out of your fine wines. But what is a bonded warehouse? Read on to find out more about wine duty and just why you should be considering facilities like these for your stock.

Again, like many aspects of investment, finding the right facilities when it comes to wine cellarage can be a bit of a minefield, and it is worth using high calibre facilities such as those available here at Octavian and our Wiltshire base.

This not only means that you will be exempt from paying large amounts of duty and VAT, but we are able to guarantee that our bonded wine warehouse keeps your wines in the perfect condition. From the way it is stowed to temperature to the angles of your bottles, our specialists have years of experience, and often your wine will end up at its destination in a far better condition that when we received it.

As you have probably gathered, you can’t just decide to become an official bonded warehouse and start storing wine. Facilities such as ours need to be approved by HM Revenue & Customs and this means passing rigorous quality tests and regulations, to qualify as a bonded wine storage.

So, as a final note – what other advantages are there for storing your fine wines “in bond”.

• If you choose to have the wine delivered at a later date, which is often the case for wine brokers across the UK, the VAT is payable on the original sale price. This can be a great advantage depending on how market prices fluctuate, but this will obviously come down to your own talent in the wine investment sector.
• Any of your wine stored in this way will be far more attractive to prospective buyers and brokers. Merchants or brokers will usually give you the same price whether or not the wine is duty and VAT paid. Therefore, if you sell your wine in bond, you will save the equivalent VAT and duty charges.
• Provenance – Due to traceability, wines stored in bond at places such as Octavian are much easier to locate. This is due to the fact that there are not many bonded warehouses in the country. This gives a fantastic indication to investors and brokers that these fine wines have been stored and treated correctly, and dramatically increases the chances of a sale or deal.

If you wish to learn more about bonded warehouses or wine cellarage in particular, then why not take a good look around our site as we have all sorts of resources available on everything including storage, news and views. And you can even request an information pack which will tell you all you need to know about what we offer here at Octavian.