29/07/2026
Who actually gets your $30?
A few weeks ago I was standing in a bottle shop when I overheard someone say, “Thirty dollars for a bottle of wine? That’s expensive.”
It got me thinking.
Have you ever stopped to wonder where that $30 actually goes?
Before the winery sees a dollar, the government has already taken its share.
About $3.91 is GST. Then there’s alcohol excise - now almost $3 per bottle for a standard New Zealand wine after increasing by around 22% over the past three years.
Next comes the retailer. Their margin doesn’t simply become profit. It pays for rent, staff, electricity, insurance, stock holding and everything else that keeps the doors open.
If there’s a distributor or sales agency involved, they also need to be paid for getting that wine onto the shelf in the first place.
Only then does the winery begin recovering the cost of making the wine.
Think about what’s already gone into that bottle.
A year of work in the vineyard. Grapes. Bottles. Closures. Labels. Cartons. Winemaking. Laboratory testing. Bottling. Freight. Marketing. Compliance. Equipment. Barrels. Storage.
Most wineries have spent that money 12 to 24 months before the bottle is ever sold.
And unlike many businesses, they can’t simply make more product next week if something goes wrong. Frost, hail, disease or poor weather can wipe out an entire vintage in a matter of hours.
So who gets your $30?
The government.
The retailer.
The people who made the bottle, labels and cartons.
The freight companies.
The vineyard workers.
The winemakers.
The sales teams.
The list goes on.
By the time everyone has been paid, what’s left for the winery is often far less than people imagine - and that still has to fund next year’s vintage.
The next time you buy a bottle of New Zealand wine, remember you’re not just buying what’s in the glass.
You’re supporting an entire industry built by growers, makers, retailers and family businesses who have invested years of work before that bottle ever reaches your table.
Nobody is taking home the full $30.
But a lot of New Zealand families depend on it.
- Sam Wags
