WINE PRICES WILL HAVE TO GO UP, WARNS MAJESTIC

Majestic Vintners was founded by a former buyer at John Lewis, Sheldon Graner, in 1980

He named the business after his other passion, collecting stamps with the images of Kings Edward VII and George V Britain spends £4.5bn a year on 550m bottles of still wine

Majestic’s best-selling red is Porta 6 Lisboa, a £7.49 Portuguese wine with blackberry, plum & spice notes

Its most popular white is The Ned Black Label from New Zealand, which sells for £8.99

Sales of craft spirits – made in small batches by independent companies – are up 144pc

The best-seller is Surrey-made Silent Pool Gin WINE prices will rise in the coming months because of the fall in the pound, according to the boss of Britain’s largest wine retailer.

Majestic Wine chief Rowan Gormley said his firm would do everything it could to prevent increases.

Majestic has hedging contracts which have delayed the hit from sterling’s decline against the dollar and the euro since the Brexit vote.

Gormley said the move might boost wines from South Africa, where exchange rates are more favourable, and more bottling was likely to take place in Britain to cut costs. Increasingly popular English wine would also probably do well.

But Gormley insisted there was a limit to how much sellers could withstand shifts in the exchange rate. ‘Any retailer which says it can absorb a 17pc fall in the pound can only do that if it was ripping customers off before.’

Majestic revealed a 13.2pc rise in revenues to £205.6m in the six months to September 26.

However, the business lost £4.4m due to increased investment and a failed US marketing campaign, against a £4.3m profit in the same period last year.

Shares rose 4.7pc, or 14.25p to 316p.