What Are the Best Conditions to Grow Grapes?

At the Ideal Wine Company we recognise that wine as a concept is largely based around grapes. Without the grape vine, wine would never have become the drink that has played a part in every culture throughout human history.

This is why we make sure that the luxury wines that we have for you are based on the most premium grapes the world of viticulture has to offer. If you have a sub-standard grape then it stands to reason that you will have a sub-standard bottle of wine at the end of it.

However in order to have quality grapes, you need to ensure that they are grown in the correct conditions. So this leads us to the question, what are the best conditions to grow grapes in? This is a complex question with no absolute answers; however there are a few conditions that act as constants.

The first is climate. There are certain climates that facilitate effective viticulture. This is why countries such as France, Italy, Spain and Australia have grown to dominate the wine industry. They have the correct climates.

They have the correct environmental temperatures and weather patterns. These are the conditions that aid growth. Generally the grape vine needs between 1300-1500 hours of sunlight during the growing season.

Correlating with this is rainfall. Rainfall provides the water the vine needs to aid growth. Even some hotter climates don’t have the correct type of rainfall to facilitate effective viticulture. The average vine needs an area with around 27 inches of rainfall throughout the year to produce succulent grapes.

Then we have the type of soil. Soil is a surprisingly diverse subject which effects product growth as an entire field. If the soil isn’t correct, the vine won’t have the best start and you’ll be left with a weaker wine. Experts generally, although not in all cases, conclude that sandy loam soil is the ideal soil for viticulture. It drains effectively but also has all the necessary nutrients the vine needs to thrive.

There’s also a case to be made for the style of terrain the grapes of grown on. It is generally held to be a truth of viticulture that slopes make for better vines than flat terrain. This concerns the greater degree of exposure to sunlight a vine will receive on a slope.

At the end of the day viticulture is a complex practice. It needs to be to produce a drink that is effortless in its complexity. However a culture such as this wouldn’t have grown without these basic constants. This is why wine has endured. It’s versatile yet complex

Ideal Wine Company Special Offer: Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou 1982

At the Ideal Wine Company we’ve proven ourselves experts at picking wines. We bring together experience and knowledge to cherry pick wines that’ll sparkle as the jewels of your collection. Picking a good bottle of wine is an arduous task. You’ve got to put the research in. You’ve got to really know the bottle. At the end of the day you have to know what wine collectors want. We’re always looking for ways to enrich the lives of the international wine collecting community. Not only do we spend the time picking out the perfect bottles, we think up ways to get them to you. That’s why every so often there comes along a bottle of wine so superb we have to let you know about it. We have to put it on special offer.

The Ideal Wine Company special offer has two purposes. Firstly it brings stellar vintages to your attention. Secondly it gives you the opportunity to invest in this star bottle for less. We like to help our wine collecting customers any way we can and this is one way in which we do. Every so often there is a bottle so luxurious; we just have to put it on offer. That’s certainly the case this month. This month we have the Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou 1982 on offer exclusively for you.

The Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou 1982 is one of those bottles that doesn’t roll around every day. It’s one of those bottles that when it does come around, you have to grab it with both hands. Why, we hear you ask? Quite simply, it’s quality in a bottle. A classic red originating in the famous vineyards of Bordeaux, it’s the type of red that sits heavy and tempting on the tongue melting in the mouth and sliding down a storm as you taste that first sip. Silky in texture, rich in taste, fruity in composition and subtle in its undertones, its Bordeaux wine at its finest. This is the type of bottle you save for a special occasion. It’s not one to break out for a normal evening. We bring this opportunity of velvety sumptuousness in a bottle to you for a mere £300, a saving on the price it would usually fetch.

The Chateau Ducru Beaucaillou 1982 is heaven in a bottle just waiting to be poured. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to experience it for yourself. 

World’s Oldest Wine Cellar Discovered in Israel

At the Ideal Wine Company we concentrate on providing you with the types of luxury wine you are proud to store in your collection. Wine collecting is hardly a modern practice; it goes back centuries. It goes back to the ancients, to the days of mythology. For those of us in the wine trade, the history of the wine making industry is fascinating; you can use it to chart the history of society, of the human race itself. In this way wine acts as so much more than a drink; it’s a link to our past, our ancestors. That’s why we’re excited by the discovery of what is potentially the world’s oldest wine cellar.

The Mirror Newspaper reported last Saturday (23^rd November) that experts had discovered a wine cellar that is around 4,000 years old in Israel. Tel Kabri, Israel plays host to the fantastic discovery which had 40 amphorae like jars each containing 50 litres of strong sweet wine and the cellar dates back to around 1,700 BC. It was believed to have been produced by the ancient Canaanites, the people who were known to have inhabited Palestine before the Jewish peoples of the Old Testament.

It’s an amazing discovery and it can tell us much about the ancient art of wine making. Already we know that the jars contain wine flavoured with cinnamon, mint, honey and psychotropic resins and this tells us a lot about the culture of the time, however archaeologists were also surprised to discover that the cellar discovered in the ruins of Tel Kabri is not in fact that much different from cellar’s in Israel’s modern day wineries; it suggests a strong tradition that has remained undented by the ravages of time.

In the article Professor Eric Cline, chair of the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Languages and Civilisations at George Washington University, who was involved in the excavation and research on the site, said that researchers have already excavated a three foot long jug they have nicknamed ‘Bessie.’ In further comments he said that “we dug and dug, and all of a sudden, Bessie’s friends started appearing-five, 10, 15, ultimately 40 jars packed in a 15-by-25-foot storage room.” He concluded by saying that “this is a hugely significant discovery - it’s a wine cellar that, to our knowledge, is largely unmatched in age and size.”

For those of us with an interest in wine, like all of you out there, there is so much that this discovery can tell us. We have already discovered the types of ingredients people were using this early and how their wines tasted. We still have to find out their methods and this discovery should yield some fascinating findings yet. What it does already tell us is that wine collecting is a time honoured tradition and it is so much more than a hobby; it’s a cultural link back to our roots as a species and it should be celebrated as such. 

What Makes Fabulous Red Wine?

Here at the Ideal Wine Company we are a fan of all types of wine, from white to red to rose and this week we wanted to shine our spotlight specifically on red. What makes a good red wine? What are the qualities that you should be looking for when picking that perfect bottle? Like with all wines, there’s nothing that you could call absolute definitive; at the end of the day it’s all down to personal preference; not everybody is going to enjoy the same things and cherish the same qualities. However, like with anything else there are some overarching principles that can certainly act to help you on your way in picking the bottle that’s right for you.

Of course, it’s not quite the same for each grape and for each vintage and this is only a starting point but these top tips will at least give you a starting point in what you are looking for in determining which bottle of red is right for you. When it comes to reds, it’s best to remember that they can be overpowering in certain circumstances and it’s best to drink them around the autumn, winter period as they are the perfect drink to keep you warm when there’s a chill. It’s also good to have them with heavier meat based dishes as the characteristics of a good red work perfectly with these types of meals. So what are the characteristics you should be looking for in your Red?

Colour… When it comes to wine the older the vintage the more enjoyable it will be to drink. This is because it has been allowed time to mature. This isn’t a hard and fast rule but when it comes to luxury reds; it’s usually a good one to follow. Colour can be a fantastic method to denote age. With reds, the darker it is, the younger it is.  An older red will be tawnier in colour and this makes it a fantastic drink.

Price… When it comes to red wine, the old adage that you get what you pay for is a great way of determining quality as it’s often true. The more expensive it is, the more time and effort the wine has received from the provider. However it’s also important to note that cheaper reds aren’t always necessarily a bad thing.

Smell… Reds are often varied and rich and this often comes out in the smell of the bottle. If you want a really satisfying red, then you want a drink with a rich fruity smell that knocks you for six and ensnares the senses. Trust your nose; it won’t lead you far wrong.

Reputation… Often you can tell the quality of a truly fantastic red from what other people have already said about it. Red is a wine that draws many experts around the world to its charms and its always a good idea to have a check online as there will be an expert review somewhere you can draw the opinion of in picking your perfect choice. 

ABC: Ideal Wine Company Explores the Concept of Wine Trends

Anyone who’s in the wine game will know that this world of luxury wine can be a fickle one at the best of times. Like most markets, it relies on the mood of the customer and this can mean that a type of wine or particular vintage that was in fashion one moment becomes taboo the next. This means that when it comes to choosing the wine to buy for your collections, it’s best to look at the wines that have stood the test of time; these wines are the ones that have proved enduringly popular, and are likely to stay that way.

At the Ideal Wine Company, we recognize that when it comes to standing the test of time, we need to stock wines that have proved themselves over the years. A top example of this is the Tokaji; the Hungarian wine that is centuries old and has survived political upheaval, a changing social fabric and even a phllyoxera epidemic to become one of the most celebrated wines in our collection. So, what separates a timeless vintage such as the Tokaji from one that ends up simply being consigned to the annals of history, forever branded a wine trend?

For this we have to look at an example, and what better example is there than Chardonnay? Chardonnay became such a popular type of wine, and grew to have such prominence in such a short amount of time, as it was only really a label attached to white wines a few decades ago, that it saw a huge backlash among wine enthusiasts. It was like anything, once it becomes too popular there is a reaction against it. Through this backlash, the phrase ‘Anything But Chardonnay’, often shortened merely among wine drinkers to ABC, came to emphasise the move away from the popular brand of dry white wine. Although the ABC era has seen its heyday among wine enthusiasts, there is still a certain stigma attached to drinking Chardonnay.

So in this case it seems to be a mix of two elements. The first of these is the need for selectiveness and exclusivity amongst the wine community. This is hardly a quality that is unique to wine enthusiasts, it’s something that everyone from music enthusiasts to art dealers possess; they like to set themselves apart from the less knowledgeable public by disdaining the more popular product in favour of the less well known one; which in turn creates the next trend. The other contributing factor has to be the speed of ascent. Chardonnay became so popular, so quickly, that it was the wine world equivalent of an economic bubble. All bubbles burst, and the Chardonnay bubble indeed burst dramatically.

These are the reasons that the Ideal Wine Company tends to stay away from providing vintages that form part of the latest wine trends. We instead offer bottles and vintages that have proved their value and endure. This means that they are sure to add value to your wine collection for years to come. 

Ideal Wine Company Gives You an Education on Cognac

At the Ideal Wine Company we bring you a whole host of exclusive, vintage wines for your collection, however wine isn’t the only type of alcohol we have to offer you. We specialise in luxury drinks; in providing you with vintage bottles of wine, whiskey, brandy and other spirits, which are hard to find on the market and really add some value to your collection. One of these is Cognac, one of the most famous luxury brandies in existence. A favourite with collectors and drinkers alike, Cognac has built up a reputation over the years for its rich taste and decadent image.

A variety of brandy, the drink is actually named after the French town of Cognac; the drink is produced in the wine growing region around the town in the French Departments of Charente and Charente-Maritime. Like many drinks that originate in the French nation and have grown to have a lasting reputation, the history of Cognac is a long one, over four centuries long in fact. Wine producing in the region goes all the way back to the Roman era and even before the ‘invention’ of Cognac, the region was known for the quality of the drink it produced.

The invention of the drink came in the 17^th Century, when Dutch traders realised that if they first distilled the wine they exported from the region, and stored it on oak caskets, it took up less space, allowing them to export more, and improve with age. They called this product ‘burnt’ wine or ‘brandewijn’ which is where the name brandy originates. From here producers in the area saw the value of the drink and developed the double distillation technique that wold prove critical to the modern brandy making process.

In time this technique, as well as the oak preservation technique made the drink unique to the town, which is how Cognac as we know it gradually came into being, however it wasn’t until 1909 that this would be enshrined in official decree; Cognac became an exclusive brand, unique to the town. The process was completed in 1936, when it was awarded its own Appellation d’origine contrôlée or AOC, which legally denotes an area in which a particular product can be made. 

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The Appellation d’origine controlee protects the name Cognac, imposing certain rules and restrictions about which drink can bear the iconic name; it’s similar to the way the name ‘Champagne’ is protected. Cognac has grown to be a drink of elegance and class, and we have several delicious Cognac’s for you. We have the Remy Martin XO Champagne Cognac, priced from £110.40, we have the Delamain Pale and Dry XO Grande Champagne Cognac, priced from £110.40 and we have Claude Thorin VR Cognac, priced from £76.80.

Ideal Wine Company: Winemaking, a History...

We’re complete wine enthusiasts here at the Ideal Wine Company; we love everything about the world’s most sophisticated drink and we like to know as much as we can to ensure that we can bring you the best and most luxurious wines from all over the world. That’s why today we want to tell you about the history of winemaking; it’s a practise that’s been around for centuries, in its earliest forms even millennia, and it’s grown to become one of the most profitable industry’s the worlds ever known. Winemaking hasn’t just shaped what we drink, it’s shaped the way we live and we have a lot to be thankful to it for.

Winemaking in its very earliest form could be said to date back around 7,000 years, to the earliest forms of Viticulture (grape growing for the production of wine) in the Neolithic period. This led to the first ever productions of wines that, although were rudimentary and not up to today’s standards, were the start of what became a worldwide industry. The tradition was carried into the earliest of the typically ‘ancient’ civilisations, including most notably Ancient Greece, which refined the practice and even took it into Italy when the Mycenaean Greeks started to colonise the peninsula.

This proved to be a blessing for the early wine making industry as the Romans were particularly fond of the drink, and brought it with them when they conquered Western Europe. They planted the first vineyards in many Western European nations under their thrall, most notably France, which would, in later years, come to dominate the wine making industry.

Although the end of the Roman era and the moving in Europe into what many label the ‘Dark Ages’ saw most of civilised culture lost to the West for a thousand years, the art of wine making was one of the few remnants of Roman culture that thrived. This has been put down to the efforts of Catholic Monks, who grew vineyards to produce wine for the Catholic sacrament, and turned it into an art form for which they were indeed known throughout the Western World. The Benedictine Monks of France and Germany were particularly famous for this.

As the Greeks had increasingly brought the vine to Western Europe, the Western Europeans brought the vine to the America’s and the rest of the so called ‘new world’ in the global imperial period. Originally they were often brought by the Catholic Powers so that they would have wine for the Eucharist, however, the trade increasingly grew until in the 20^th Century, several international powers such as America, Argentina, Chile and Australia became almost as well known for their wines as the traditional wine makers of France, Italy and Spain.

At the Ideal Wine Company we recognise that wine has a long and noble history; it has survived the rise and fall of empires, it has survived the rise and fall of civilisations. It has even travelled over the seven seas into every corner of the globe. That’s why we know that wine will always survive, because it has survived and thrived to become the world’s most famous drink. 

Ideal Wine Company Brings You Our Wine of the Month: Chateau Petrus 2001

At the Ideal Wine Company we’re just like the rest of you; we all love our wine, however, we do tend to play favourites every once in a while, and we do tend to have our wines of the month. This is a bottle that for one month we feature prominently and we choose this wine based on the quality of the drink. We always strive to ensure that when we pick our wine of the month, we pick something that we know is going to excite your palette and have you coming back for more. We always make sure we pick something that is going to have you reeling

The bottle we have for you this month is one that we’re sure will set pulses racing; the bottle is the Chateau Petrus 2001. Originating form classic area Libournais in the typical wine making region of Bordeaux in France, the bottle is of the merlot grape and of the Pomerol appellation and has grown in the ten years it has been on the market to have developed a stellar reputation as a rich vintage that dances on the tongue and delights all those who drink it, meaning that they all come back for more.

On our website we define the Pomerol as exhibiting “more depth and richness than any other Pomerol I (the reviewer) has tasted. It’s deep saturated ruby/plum/purple colour is accompanied by a tight but promising bouquet of vanilla, cherry liqueur, melted liquorice, black currants and notions of truffles and earth.” The review goes on to elaborate that it is “rich full-bodied, and surprisingly thick as well as intense”. This wine is unbelievably complex; it’s variety of texture and flavour means that when you buy a bottle of this luxury product, you are not just buying a wine, you are buying an experience.

We advise you to cellar it for 3-6 years and then drink over an extended period of time. Like all the best wines, this is a vintage that you need to let age a little before you pop the cork, and trust us, it will be worth the wait when that first drop of complex drink hits your tongue. All the best things in life are, after all, truly worth the wait. As with everything else at the Ideal Wine Company, you are paying for quality and rarity when you buy from us and this bottle comes at you for the collector’s price of £1548, a steal when thinking of what this truly beautiful wine will do for your collection.

So what are you waiting for? You need to embrace the Chateau Petrus 2001 and find out for yourself why this Bordeaux product has come to capture the hearts and minds of wine enthusiasts the world over. We promise you that once you open up your first bottle, you’ll be coming back for more and more.

Ideal Wine Company Spotlight: Bordeaux

When we think of classic wine making country, where do we think of? Despite the changing times, and the emergence of such regions as California as wine making giants, we don’t think of them. Most of us would immediately say France. France has gained a reputation over a course of centuries as ‘the’ wine making power on the world stage. Even today, nobody quite does it like the French. Their wines are the most luxurious you can possibly buy and honestly, their reputation is based on the fact that these wines are made by the foremost wine experts in the world and the results really do speak for themselves.

France is so indelibly linked with wine making that there are several regions which are known for the grapes they grow and the bottles they produce. Most of us would perhaps immediately highlight Champagne when we are thinking about French wine growing regions. The titular drink produced in the region has become so iconic that the name is actually trademarked in the majority of nations in 2013. However, we want to turn our spotlight to Bordeaux.

Bordeaux wine is produced in the Bordeaux region which sits in the South West of France, on the Atlantic Coast of the Bay of Biscay. Centred on the city of Bordeaux and coming to encompass the whole area of the Gironde Department, with a total vineyard of 120,000 hectares; it is actually the largest wine growing region in France. In accordance to this, average vintages typically produce over 700 million bottles of wine from everyday wine to the most expensive vintages you can find on the planet. The region massively favours the production of red wine, with 89% of its output being red wine, whilst sweet white wines, dry white wines and in very small quantities rose wines make up the rest.

Like in Champagne, wine growing in Bordeaux dates back to the Roman Empire, who planted the very first vines. Bordeaux wine first started gaining a reputation in the 12^th Century, when it gained a reputation across the English Channel. Since then the region has grown in popularity, being embraced on an international scale, and now Bordeaux wine is known as a top product the world over.

Popular wine growing regions in Bordeaux include Graves and Medoc, which have been in the trade for centuries and have perfected their processes. Some of the most prolific grapes produced in the Bordeaux region are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Bordeaux has the perfect climate needed for growing grapes, and the soil, which is calcium rich, just makes it even more perfect. As such, the Ideal Wine Company has many Bordeaux wines on its lists including Chateau Lafite Rothschild,  Chateau Petrus, Chateau Latour, Chateau Margaux and Chateaux Le Pin, which encompass the best in the Bordeaux wine making tradition.

Bordeaux has an excellent reputation for wine, and this is well earned, as, especially for its red blends, it has spent centuries perfecting their method; the result of which is a strong wine tradition that looks set to flourish for centuries to come.