A special accounting treatment for regulated industries? The case of the port wine industry

Some industries face difficulties fitting in with the traditional accounting framework. This is the case of the port wine industry, which is characterised by its high quality product and long-lived inventories. Our main research hypothesis is that port companies face the same problems as other wine firms in the world: time is a port wine accounting problem. The research method used was a questionnaire survey to determine the accounting practices and problems in the port industry. We found that some of these wine accounting problems were not felt in the industry and that port wine companies have their own accounting practices—such as a unique cost formula.