FOI ref: FOI/2021/3401
You asked
I wanted to enquire about the November dip in RPI wine & spirits on-sales prices.
I noticed the item index for whisky (310301) declined by about 10% m/m while indices for wine (310310) and gin (310316) declined by about 5%.
It is the first time that these series saw such a large dip, and I was wondering if the ONS observed any measurement issues with these items, or if you have any thoughts what may be driver behind these declines.
We said
Thank you for your request.
As requested, we've published the air fares stratum indices for November here.
In response to your question below, the downward contribution to change in the rate from whisky, wine by the glass, and gin was caused by large price falls on the month. Basically, in all three cases, there were large sales concentrated in a small number of outlets. The size of the sales varied but loosely speaking the order of magnitude was broadly half-price on average.
It's also worth noting that all items in the eat or drink in area of restaurants and cafes were unavailable in November last year and their movement was imputed based on the monthly movement coming from all available items.