The island became the UK's third leading wine supplier behind France and Spain. A major factor was that Cyprus sherry was more affordable than Spanish Sherry as British taxation favoured alcoholic beverages with an alcoholic content below the 15.5–18 percent bracket. This competitive advantage was lost a few years later with the re-banding of the alcohol content taxation. The fortified wine market also began to shrink as a whole due to a change in consumer taste and as a result Cyprus sherry sales in the UK fell from their peak in the early 1970s by some 65 percent by the mid 1980s. The final blow came when the EC ruled that as of January 1996 only fortified wine from Jerez could assume the title of sherry.