We’re on the path to Christmas now so it’s a good time for retailers to revisit their whisky ranges. There has been a lot of noise about Irish whiskey and also some global options, including bourbon from the US. But will the popularity of these overshadow Scotch this festive season?

Retailers are gearing up for the crucial Christmas trading period after enduring a tough year blighted by poor weather, Brexit fears and plummeting consumer confidence. Like-for-like sales are down across most BWS categories in 2019 and Christmas represents the last bastion of hope for retailers aiming to record a strong profit.

In 2007, the most expensive bottle at Majestic Wine in Notting Hill Gate was a back vintage of Château Haut-Brion. It cost around £400 and, as manager of the store, it was a source of prestige to have such a costly wine on the shelf.

Whether you’re a kid heading to school, a hapless journalist off to cover political conferences or a wine merchant attempting to juggle three tastings a day with the actual job of buying and selling wine, there’s an inevitable mania about the month of September that never goes away.

The RTD category has long been associated with sugary, candy-flavoured, neon-coloured alcoholic drinks, but today this couldn’t be further from the case.

In the digital era, it’s perhaps fitting that our opinions have become binary. Online, we tend to only see viewpoints we already agree with, and this feedback loop of positive reinforcement makes us increasingly polarised. Consequently, the middle ground has been abandoned and accommodating your opponent’s view has become something for only the very brave or the very stupid. I’ll let you decide which is the case as I consider the case against cutting tax on wine.