Double capsule in Montrose 1995?

You can actually buy bottles without the TVA capsule, so long as the vintner writes you out a "quittance" to show the gendarmes if you get stopped. Sometimes Bordeaux is sold without the capsules, even at retail. As I understand it the capsules are purchased for the price of the TVA, avoiding additional declarations and paperwork for the seller.

I assume in this case the shop, or whoever re-capsuled them, found it easier to handle the formalities by paying the TVA up front. Anyway I've also seen this.

I've sometimes noticed that a very strong smelling cork does not always mean a TCA contaminated bottle.

cheers,

-E

Emery,

Just for clarification, TVA is Tax, Value Added, correct? I've most often seen it VAT, but that has been primarily in the UK, or from the UK.

Thanks, Hunt

Nope.

TVA is "taxe à la valeur ajoutée", literally "value added tax" = VAT.

M.

Just so. 19.6%, which is why you sometimes find the equivalent french bottle cheaper in the US than in France.

It would be a nice token gesture to lower the rate to 5.5% for things vinous, while doing it for restaurants as well. (Yes, every meal you eat out here, you pay an additional 19.6% TVA. Only one more reason why restos are so expensive here.) The gov is trying to lower TVA for restaurants, but it has been blocked at the European level for now.

-E

I have seen this quite often with Saint-Emilions - I thnk they all go through the capsuling process with an ordinary, tax stamp free, capsule on bottling so that those which go to export do not pay the French duty or wine tax which the cockerel tax stamp indicates has been paid and then those sold in the French market have the tax paid and the additional capsule added to show that has been done. It does not indicate that TVA has been paid - that is always shown as a distinct and separate transaction on an invoice.

By the way if you go back to Saint-Emilion and want to buy in the City, try the Maison du Vin next door to the Eglise Collegiale where wine prices are the same as those at the vineyard and ther eis a good selectionas well as often interesting and informative displays on wine growing and making.

Tim Hartley

Emery Davis wrote in news:20060613103002.00002a00 @loki.domain.org:

That is interesting. In Spain, restaurants add a 7% VAT instead of the regular 16%. And that applies to wine also. So, if you purchase a bottle of wine at a shop, you pay 16% VAT, while at a restaurant you only pay 7%.

OTOH, I do not think the restaurants in France are SO expensive. Probably in Paris it is different, but both in Bordeaux and the Loire a very good lunch is in the 60 euros/pax, and a nice correct one with wine included is in the 30 euros/pax (small local restaurants with formules). You will have to try hard to find a local restaurant with nice food that you pay less than 30 euros/pax these days in Spain.

S.

Timothy Hartley wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@dd30.orpheusnet.co.uk:

Tim,

thank you very much for the advice. I will look for the Maison du Vin in my next trip to Saint Emilion. Do they have other than recent vintages there? This time I was looking for wines that I could drink soon, and both this Montrose and a Calon Segur 95 were my choices.

Best,

S.

They go back some way with some wines - you will only find Saint-Emilions since it is run by the Syndicat Viticole I believe. I seem to remember buying a 90 Soutard and an 88 Fonplégade in the late

cheers & good hunting

Tim

Here in Austria, if you buy wine at the agricultural (not corporate) producer, you pay 12% VAT. Buy in trade or in a restaurant, it's 20%. Food is 10%. A due restaurant bill lists: X food (of which x VAT 10%), Y drinks (of which y VAT 20%).

M.

Don't these multiple different rates cause problems at the boundaries? In the UK, before they had VAT they had a Purchase Tax, and one MP was always quoting anomolies. He had an example of a wooden, pig-shaped, item with a metal curly tail. If the tail grew from the usual place, it was classed as a luxury, and attracted a far higher rate of tax than if the tail grew from the middle of its back, when it was a corkscrew, and deemed to be a necessity! Even with VAT I recall arguments about whether small women who could wear children's size clothes should have their purchases taxed at the normal rate for clothes or at the 0% rate for children's clothes.

These complications are why we have a flat rate of 12.5% that applies to everything (except purely financial transactions).

Back on topic, I yesterday opened a bad bottle of Shingle Peak Reisling (2001). Very oxidised - under screwcap, too. :-(

--brian

Not really. 20% is the standard rate, 10% applies to food and books.

Of course there have been problems at the beginning (20 years back or so) - whether hot chocolate is a drink (20%) or food (10%) - but they have long been solved.

M.