{
  "source": "https://vinsip.app",
  "publisher": "Vast Flow, LLP",
  "contact": "hello@vinsip.app",
  "generated_at": "2026-09-16T02:30:11.439Z",
  "about": "What governs buying a bottle of wine, country by country: the legal purchase age, the duty regime, the VAT treatment and the trading-hours rule.",
  "licence": {
    "name": "CC BY 4.0",
    "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
    "attribution": "VinSip (https://vinsip.app)",
    "summary": "Reuse, redistribute and build on this, commercially or not, as long as VinSip is credited with a link. Crediting the page a figure came from is better than crediting the site, because the page carries the primary source."
  },
  "verified": "2026-08-07",
  "count": 6,
  "caveats": [
    "Six countries, not a world table. These are the countries the venue directory covers; a country absent from this file is absent because nobody has read its legislation for us, not because it has no rules.",
    "The purchase age is the age to buy wine to take away. Several countries set a different, lower age for drinking with a meal or in a private home, and Germany is the one in this set where that distinction is load-bearing.",
    "Trading hours are custom as much as law, and the file says so per country. The Sunday and Monday opening counts on the city pages are measurements of what the listed venues do, not a statement of what the law permits."
  ],
  "countries": [
    {
      "slug": "france",
      "name": "France",
      "iso_code": "FR",
      "purchase_age": 18,
      "statements": [
        "Selling wine to anyone under 18 is prohibited in France under article L3342-1 of the Code de la santé publique, and the seller is required to ask for proof of age.",
        "Wine carries almost no excise duty in France: the European Commission's excise duty tables put the rate on still wine at €4.05 per hectolitre, which is about €0.03 on a 75 cl bottle. What you pay at the till is the wine plus 20% VAT, not a tax on the alcohol.",
        "Trading hours are the practical constraint rather than the law. Food retail may open on Sunday morning, and independent cavistes in the larger cities commonly do, but most close by early afternoon and take Monday off instead — which is why the Sunday and Monday counts above rarely match."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "Code de la santé publique, art. L3342-1 (Légifrance)",
          "url": "https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000031927682"
        },
        {
          "label": "European Commission — Excise Duty Tables, Part I: Alcoholic Beverages",
          "url": "https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/excise-duties/excise-duties-alcohol_en"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/france/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "germany",
      "name": "Germany",
      "iso_code": "DE",
      "purchase_age": 16,
      "statements": [
        "Germany is the exception on age in this directory: §9 of the Jugendschutzgesetz allows the sale of wine, beer and sparkling wine from 16, and reserves 18 for spirits. Everywhere else on this site the wine counter is 18.",
        "Still wine carries no excise duty in Germany at all — the Zoll levies none on it. Sparkling wine is a different product in tax law and carries the Schaumweinsteuer at €136 per hectolitre for anything at or above 6% ABV, which is €1.02 on a 0.75 l bottle. That single line is why a German Sekt and a still Riesling of the same shelf price are not the same wine in cost terms.",
        "Sunday is the hard constraint. The Ladenschlussgesetz and the state shop-opening laws that replaced it keep retail closed on Sundays and public holidays, with narrow exceptions for stations, airports and a handful of designated Sundays a year. A Sunday bottle in Germany means a petrol station, a station kiosk or a restaurant — not a wine shop."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "Jugendschutzgesetz §9 (gesetze-im-internet.de)",
          "url": "https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/juschg/__9.html"
        },
        {
          "label": "Schaumwein- und Zwischenerzeugnissteuergesetz (gesetze-im-internet.de)",
          "url": "https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/schaumwzwstg_2009/BJNR189600009.html"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/germany/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "spain",
      "name": "Spain",
      "iso_code": "ES",
      "purchase_age": 18,
      "statements": [
        "Selling alcohol to anyone under 18 is prohibited across every autonomous community in Spain; the detail of enforcement is regional, the age is not.",
        "Spain levies no excise duty on wine — the rate in the European Commission's tables is €0 per hectolitre — so the tax on the bottle is IVA at the standard 21%. A Spanish wine is cheap on the shelf partly because the state takes nothing off the alcohol itself.",
        "Trading hours are set regionally rather than nationally, and tourist zones in Madrid, Barcelona and the coastal cities carry a liberalised regime that lets shops open on Sundays. That is the main reason Sunday coverage varies so much between Spanish cities in the table above."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "European Commission — Excise Duty Tables, Part I: Alcoholic Beverages",
          "url": "https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/excise-duties/excise-duties-alcohol_en"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/spain/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "portugal",
      "name": "Portugal",
      "iso_code": "PT",
      "purchase_age": 18,
      "statements": [
        "Portugal raised the purchase age for all alcohol to 18 in 2013, closing the earlier split that allowed wine and beer at 16.",
        "Portugal levies no excise duty on wine — €0 per hectolitre in the European Commission's tables — and applies IVA at the mainland standard rate of 23%. Madeira and the Azores run lower regional rates.",
        "A practical note that matters more here than in most countries: the vinho de mesa on a Portuguese shop shelf at €3–4 is a genuine commercial product rather than a loss leader, because none of that price is duty. Price tells you less about quality in Portugal than it does in the United Kingdom."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "European Commission — Excise Duty Tables, Part I: Alcoholic Beverages",
          "url": "https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/taxation/excise-duties/excise-duties-alcohol_en"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/portugal/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "united-kingdom",
      "name": "United Kingdom",
      "iso_code": "GB",
      "purchase_age": 18,
      "statements": [
        "Selling alcohol to anyone under 18 is an offence under the Licensing Act 2003 in England and Wales, and retailers operate Challenge 25 on top of it, so expect to be asked for ID well past 18.",
        "The United Kingdom taxes wine harder than anywhere else in this directory, and it taxes it by strength. HMRC's rate from 1 February 2026 is £30.64 per litre of pure alcohol for wine between 8.5% and 22% ABV, which is £2.87 of duty on a 75 cl bottle at 12.5% ABV, before 20% VAT is added on top of the duty-inclusive price. On a £7 bottle that leaves very little for the wine.",
        "The Sunday Trading Act 1994 caps shops over 280 m² in England and Wales at six continuous hours of Sunday trading between 10 am and 6 pm. Smaller independents are exempt and may open all day, which is why a specialist wine shop is often the only thing open on a Sunday evening. Scotland is outside the Act entirely."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "HMRC — Alcohol Duty rates (GOV.UK)",
          "url": "https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates"
        },
        {
          "label": "Sunday Trading Act 1994 (legislation.gov.uk)",
          "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1994/20/contents"
        },
        {
          "label": "Licensing Act 2003 (legislation.gov.uk)",
          "url": "https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/17/contents"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/united-kingdom/"
    },
    {
      "slug": "united-states",
      "name": "United States",
      "iso_code": "US",
      "purchase_age": 21,
      "statements": [
        "The purchase age is 21 in every US state, the highest in this directory. It is not federal law directly: the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 withholds federal highway funding from states that set it lower, and every state complied.",
        "Federal excise duty on still wine at or below 16% ABV is $1.07 per wine gallon under the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau's schedule — about $0.21 on a 750 ml bottle — with a credit for smaller producers. State and local taxes sit on top and vary widely, which is why the same bottle carries different shelf prices across state lines.",
        "The structural difference is the three-tier system left by Prohibition's repeal: producers sell to wholesalers, wholesalers to retailers, and retailers to you, with the tiers legally separated in most states. Seventeen control states go further and act as the wholesaler themselves. It is why a wine that is easy to find in one state is unavailable in the next, regardless of demand.",
        "Sunday sales, grocery-store wine and shipping rules are all set at state and sometimes county level. Check the state before assuming a shop will be open, and never assume a rule from one state applies in another."
      ],
      "sources": [
        {
          "label": "TTB — Tax rates for wine (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau)",
          "url": "https://www.ttb.gov/taxes/tax-audit/tax-and-fee-rates"
        },
        {
          "label": "National Minimum Drinking Age Act, 23 U.S.C. §158",
          "url": "https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2011-title23/html/USCODE-2011-title23-chap1-sec158.htm"
        }
      ],
      "page": "https://vinsip.app/shops/united-states/"
    }
  ]
}