wine-list-build

---
name: wine-list-build
description: Builds a priced wine list for a UK hospitality business from your own invoices, with the legal serve sizes designed in, the cash margin on every pour worked out, the tasting notes stripped of claims you cannot evidence, and the allergen line the law requires on a non-prepacked drink. Use when you are writing a list from scratch, re-pricing after a duty change, or you have noticed that everyone orders the cheapest bottle on it.
---

# A wine list that sells the middle of the list, not the cheapest bottle on it

You give this your supplier invoices, the wines you already pour, your glassware, and one sentence about the room. You get back a priced list: every wine costed per bottle and per pour from the invoice, cash margin shown next to percentage margin, the by-the-glass ladder built on the measures the law actually permits, the tasting notes rewritten so every claim has a document behind it, and a numbered list of what is missing. It will not tell you which wines are good, and it will not price anything from a wine it has not seen an invoice for.

## What it does

1. **Fix the serve sizes before choosing a single wine, because the law has already chosen most of them for you.** Article 5A of the Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988, as substituted in 2011, says wine sold in the glass "shall be sold only in, or in a multiple of, the following quantities, that is to say, 125 ml and 175 ml". That gives you 125ml, 175ml, 250ml and 350ml, and nothing else. Wine fortified for distillation is 50ml and 70ml. A 150ml pour, a 200ml pour and a "large glass" of no stated size are all outside it. Write the permitted ladder at the top of the working file, because every price you are about to calculate hangs off a volume.

2. **Put 125ml on the list as a real line, not a concession.** The mandatory licensing condition in the Schedule to the Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) Order 2010, as substituted on 1 October 2014, requires that still wine in a glass is "available to customers" at 125ml, that "these measures are displayed in a menu, price list or other printed material which is available to customers on the premises", and that "where a customer does not in relation to a sale of alcohol specify the quantity of alcohol to be sold, the customer is made aware that these measures are available". A list that prints 175ml and 250ml and keeps 125ml behind the bar fails the second limb whatever the staff say at the point of sale.

3. **Cost every wine from the invoice, not from the supplier's list price.** One row per wine: invoice date, case size, unit cost excluding VAT, delivery apportioned across the case, and the landed cost per bottle. Then the cost per pour at each permitted size. A 75cl bottle yields six 125ml glasses, four 175ml glasses or three 250ml glasses, and the fourth 175ml glass is the one that usually disappears into over-pour. Any wine with no invoice is not priced, it is listed as a gap. Costing from a price list is how a list quietly keeps selling at last year's cost after a delivery charge changed.

4. **Work out what the duty is actually doing to each wine, because the rule that hid it has gone.** HMRC's page on working out Alcohol Duty records that the temporary arrangement for wine "ended on 31 January 2025", so wine is now taxed on its real strength. Duty is charged per litre of pure alcohol: on the rates in force from 1 February 2026, wine at 8.5% to 22% ABV is charged at 30.62 per litre of pure alcohol and wine at 3.5% to 8.4% at 26.61. Worked from those figures, a 75cl bottle at 11% carries about 2.52 of duty and the same size bottle at 14.5% carries about 3.32. That 80p sits inside your cost before any margin calculation, and it is why a heavy red and a light white bought at the same invoice price are not the same wine commercially. Recompute from the current HMRC page rather than reusing these figures after the next Budget.

5. **Price on cash margin per pour, not on a multiple of cost.** Show both columns and sort on cash. A fixed multiple applied across a list drags the expensive bottles to prices nobody orders and leaves the cheap ones earning almost nothing per sale, which is exactly how a list ends up selling only its first line. Decide the cash margin you want a glass to earn, price to that, then check the percentage as a sanity test rather than as the rule. Where a wine cannot reach the cash target at a price the room will pay, the answer is to change the wine, not to bend the number.

6. **Order the page deliberately and record why in the file.** Position is a design decision you control and price is not, so record where each wine sits, which section it sits in and what it is there to do: the opening line, the one you want to sell, the one that makes the one you want to sell look sensible, and the one at the top of the range that sets the ceiling for the section. Never write a claim about what proportion of guests order which position, or how far down a list a reader gets. No such figure exists for a single independent venue, and a list built to a borrowed number is built for somebody else's room.

7. **Strip every claim you cannot evidence out of the tasting notes.** CAP Code rule 3.7 is the test: "Before distributing or submitting a marketing communication for publication, marketers must hold documentary evidence to prove claims that consumers are likely to regard as objective and that are capable of objective substantiation." Organic, biodynamic, vegan, sustainable, award-winning, old vines, single vineyard and family-owned are all objective and all checkable. Each needs a certificate, a technical sheet or a supplier letter named in the row, or it comes out. On prices, rule 3.17 requires that "Price statements must not mislead by omission, undue emphasis or distortion", and rule 3.18 requires quoted prices to include non-optional taxes and charges, so a service charge or a cover applied to every table belongs where the guest can see it before they order.

8. **Put the allergen answer on the list, because the bottle will not give it.** Article 44 of assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 makes allergen particulars mandatory for food sold without prepackaging, which is what a glass of wine is. Sulphur dioxide and sulphites above 10 mg per litre are one of the fourteen, and are present in most wine. Article 16(4) of the same Regulation removes the ingredient list and the nutrition declaration from "beverages containing more than 1,2 % by volume of alcohol", so the label on the bottle is not going to answer a guest's question for you. The FSA's best practice for non-prepacked food is that allergen information should be "easily available in writing and be underpinned with a conversation", so the list carries a written line and the staff carry the conversation.

9. **Date the list, log the pour costs, and set the trigger that forces the next rebuild.** Footer: build date, the date each invoice was read, and the date the duty rates were read. Then a one-line log per wine of landed cost and cash margin at each pour size offered. The triggers that reprice a list are a duty change, a supplier price rise above a stated threshold, a vintage change and a glassware change, and not one of them arrives with a warning. An undated wine list is trusted for about a year longer than its costs are true.

## Then it checks

1. Every pour size printed on the list is 125ml, 175ml or a multiple of one of them, and no other volume appears anywhere, including in the carafe section.
2. Still wine at 125ml appears in the printed list itself, not only in a staff instruction, and the file records where the measures statement sits.
3. Every priced wine names an invoice with a date and a landed cost per bottle, and any wine without one is in the gaps list rather than on the list at an estimated price.
4. Every wine shows cash margin and percentage margin at each pour size offered, computed from the landed cost and not from the supplier's list price.
5. Every objective claim in every tasting note names the document that evidences it, and any claim without one has been removed rather than softened.
6. The list carries a written allergen line covering sulphites, and the file footer records the build date and the date the duty rates were read.

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is. A tasting note written as though the owner tasted the wine goes to the owner before it is printed.
- Never price a wine from a remembered cost, a supplier's list price or last year's invoice. The landed cost is what the invoice says once delivery is apportioned, and nothing else is a cost.
- Never state a benchmark margin, an industry average gross profit, a wine-by-the-glass conversion rate, or a claim about where on a page guests look. There is no published figure for a single independent UK venue, and an owner who sets a target from one will change a list that was already working.
- Never print a pour size the law does not permit, and never solve a margin problem by inventing a volume. A 150ml glass priced between the 125ml and the 175ml is unlawful whatever it does to the average spend.
- Refuse to write a tasting note that makes a health, dietary or provenance claim the owner cannot evidence on the day, including low sulphite, natural, and suitable for anyone with an allergy. The last of those is not a claim a wine list is permitted to make on a supplier's behalf.
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own invoices, glassware and licence, and for their accountant, solicitor or licensing officer to check where it touches duty, advertising claims or the conditions on the premises licence. It applies published rules to the owner's own figures. It is not tax advice, it is not legal advice, and it does not certify that the list complies.

## Built from
- The Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order 1988, article 5A, as substituted by the Weights and Measures (Specified Quantities) (Unwrapped Bread and Intoxicating Liquor) Order 2011, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/2039/article/5A, read 16 September 2026: the permitted 125ml and 175ml ladder and the fortified wine sizes in step 1, and the prohibition on any other volume in check 1.
- The Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) (Amendment) Order 2014, Schedule, paragraph 4, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2440/made, made 11 September 2014 and in force 1 October 2014, read 16 September 2026: the duty to make 125ml available, to display the measures in a menu or price list, and to tell a customer who does not specify, all in step 2.
- HM Revenue and Customs, "Work out how much Alcohol Duty you need to pay", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/work-out-how-much-alcohol-duty-you-need-to-pay, published 29 June 2023 and last updated 1 February 2026, read 16 September 2026: the litres of pure alcohol method and the update note that the temporary wine arrangement ended on 31 January 2025, both in step 4.
- HM Revenue and Customs, "Alcohol Duty rates", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/alcohol-duty-rates, published 23 August 2023 and last updated 1 February 2026, read 16 September 2026: the 26.61 and 30.62 per litre of pure alcohol figures that step 4 works its example from.
- Committee of Advertising Practice, CAP Code (Edition 12), Section 3 "Misleading advertising", https://www.asa.org.uk/type/non_broadcast/code_section/03.html, no publication date shown on the page, read 16 September 2026: rule 3.7 on holding documentary evidence, and rules 3.17 and 3.18 on price statements, in step 7.
- Assimilated Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011, articles 44 and 16, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2011/1169/article/44 and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2011/1169/article/16, read 16 September 2026: the mandatory allergen particulars for non-prepacked food, and the exemption of drinks over 1.2% ABV from ingredient lists and nutrition declarations, both in step 8.
- Food Standards Agency, "Allergen information for non-prepacked foods best practice", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/allergen-information-for-non-prepacked-foods-best-practice/allergen-information-for-non-prepacked-foods-best-practice, published 24 February 2025, read 16 September 2026: the written plus conversation standard, the fourteen allergens, and the 10 mg per litre sulphites threshold, in step 8.

# wine-list-build

## You are given
The supplier invoices for every wine to appear on the list, as PDFs, photographs or a spreadsheet export, each showing invoice date, case size, unit cost excluding VAT and any delivery or handling charge. The glassware in use, by name and nominal capacity, and whether each glass is brim or lined. The pour sizes the owner intends to offer, drawn only from 125ml, 175ml and multiples of either, plus 50ml and 70ml for wine fortified for distillation. The cash margin target per pour size, set by the owner. The tasting note for each wine as the owner or the supplier wrote it, unedited. The evidence documents behind any objective claim in those notes, such as an organic certificate, a technical sheet or a supplier letter, each with its own date. The section and position the owner has assigned to each wine on the page, and the one sentence saying what that wine is on the list to do. The alcohol duty rates already read from HMRC with the date they were read. Any previous version of the list with its build date.

## Produce
Write into a `./wine-list-build-output/` folder:

1. `wines.csv` with these columns in this order: `wine_ref`, `wine_name_verbatim`, `producer`, `country`, `vintage`, `abv_percent`, `bottle_size_ml`, `invoice_ref`, `invoice_date`, `case_size`, `unit_cost_ex_vat`, `delivery_apportioned`, `landed_cost_per_bottle`, `duty_band`, `duty_rate_per_lpa`, `duty_per_bottle`, `section`, `position_in_section`, `role_on_list`. `wine_ref` is W001 upward. `duty_band` is exactly one of `0 to 1.2`, `1.3 to 3.4`, `3.5 to 8.4`, `8.5 to 22`, `stronger than 22`. `role_on_list` is exactly one of `opening line`, `target sale`, `comparison`, `ceiling`, `not stated`.
2. `pours.csv` with columns: `wine_ref`, `pour_ml`, `pour_permitted`, `pours_per_bottle`, `cost_per_pour`, `price_per_pour`, `cash_margin_per_pour`, `percentage_margin`, `cash_target`, `meets_cash_target`. `pour_permitted` is `yes` only where `pour_ml` is 125, 175, a whole multiple of 125 or 175, or 50 or 70 for wine fortified for distillation; otherwise `no`. `meets_cash_target` is `yes` or `no`. Any row with `pour_permitted` of `no` is also listed in `gaps.md`.
3. `claims.csv` with columns: `wine_ref`, `claim_text_verbatim`, `claim_type`, `evidence_document`, `evidence_date`, `substantiated`, `action`. `claim_type` is exactly one of `certification`, `award or accolade`, `provenance`, `production method`, `dietary`, `superlative`, `price`, `health`. `substantiated` is `yes` or `no`. `action` is exactly `keep` or `remove`, and is `remove` wherever `substantiated` is `no`.
4. `allergens.csv` with columns: `wine_ref`, `allergen`, `source_of_information`, `document_date`, `stated_on_list`. `allergen` uses the fourteen names exactly as the supplied allergen reference gives them. Every wine gets at least one row; where the sulphite position is unknown the row is written with `source_of_information` empty and the wine is listed in `gaps.md`.
5. `list-order.csv` with columns: `section`, `position_in_section`, `wine_ref`, `price_125`, `price_175`, `price_250`, `price_bottle`, `role_on_list`. One row per printed line, in printed order. Empty price cells where that size is not offered.
6. `measures-statement.md` containing, copied verbatim from the input and never rewritten, the wine measures statement the owner will print, plus one line recording where on the premises it is displayed. Written empty if none was supplied.
7. `gaps.md` is a numbered list of: every wine with no invoice; every wine whose invoice is dated more than the supplied staleness threshold before today; every pour size that is not permitted; every claim marked `remove`; every wine with no allergen source; every pour that misses its cash target; every wine with no `role_on_list`; and any price on the previous list that differs from this one without a recorded reason.

## Rules
- Codex costs, computes, records and checks. It never invents a price, never writes or rewrites a tasting note, never chooses which wine goes where, and never decides that a claim is true.
- Never calculate a landed cost from anything but a supplied invoice. A wine with no invoice is recorded with empty cost columns and listed in `gaps.md`, never estimated from a similar wine.
- Duty per bottle is computed as bottle size in litres multiplied by ABV as a decimal multiplied by the supplied rate for that band, rounded down to the nearest penny. The rate and the date it was read are recorded in every row. Never carry forward a rate from an earlier run.
- Never write a benchmark margin, an industry average, a conversion rate, or any claim about where on a page a reader looks. No such figure exists for a single independent UK venue and none is to appear in any file.
- Never mark a claim substantiated without a named evidence document carrying its own date, and never soften a claim instead of removing it. `remove` means the text does not appear in `list-order.csv` or anywhere else.
- Never print, recommend or compute a price for a pour size outside 125ml, 175ml and their multiples, or 50ml and 70ml for wine fortified for distillation. Such a row is recorded with `pour_permitted` of `no` and no price.
- Never place an order, contact a supplier, or publish the list anywhere.
- All money is in GBP and rounded to the penny, all volumes are in millilitres, and every computed figure shows the inputs it came from in the same row.
- Use British English, GBP and DD Month YYYY dates. No em dash characters in any file you write, and any supplied text containing one is recorded verbatim and flagged in `gaps.md`.
- Every file ends with this line: this is a working document prepared for the owner to check against their own invoices, glassware and licence, and for their accountant, solicitor or licensing officer to check. It applies supplied rules to supplied figures and does not certify that the list complies.

## Return
The absolute path of each file written, the row count of each CSV, the number of wines costed and the number with no invoice, the total landed cost of one bottle of each wine and the total duty computed across the list with the duty rate date used, the number of pour rows marked not permitted with the offending volumes named, the number of claims kept and removed by `claim_type`, the number of wines with no allergen source, the number of pours missing their cash target with the shortfall on each, the printed order as section and position, and the `gaps.md` item count.