At the Ideal Wine Company we believe that wine is a social and cultural phenomenon. A beverage which has featured on tables everywhere throughout the majority of human history, wine has made its mark on world history.
However, what turned an alcoholic beverage into a drink appreciated by cultures around the world? It has to be the quality of the drink itself. Makers have developed tricks and methods over the years that have turned wine into a drink fit for kings and paupers alike.
This begs the question then, what goes into a luxury bottle of wine? This is complex question that has no definitive answers. Makers over the course of centuries have experimented with many different methods of making wine. This is why wine has grown to become such a diverse field. However there are a few constants.
The first of these is growing conditions. The grapes have to be grown in conditions that maximise their potential for making wine. These conditions vary according to the subtype of drink. However the constant is that wine grown in the right conditions tastes better than wine grown in subpar conditions.
This leads us nicely to the second point; the quality of the grape. The grape is the standard based on which the vast majority of wines are created. If you have grapes with substandard juice then the overall quality of the final product will suffer.
However these aren’t the only requirements necessary for the brewing of luxury wine. You also have to consider the environment in which it is created. If brewed in less than ideal conditions, it could lead to a sub-standard product. Even worse, it could lead to a wine where the taste suffers due to outside contamination.
Then we also have to think about storage. Luxury wines often gain some taste from the type of cask they are stored in. For example there are several luxury products on the market that are stored in oak casks. The material of the cask contributes to the overall quality of the product.
The last factor is age. The general rule of wine aging is that the longer it has been given to age, the better the final product. It has been allowed a greater degree of development and maturation. This is why wines that have been allowed to age usually fall more often into the vintage category.
At the Ideal Wine Company we recognise that wine making is a complex process, luxury wine making even more so. This is why we value the luxury products we store on our list. We make sure that the wine we provide for your purchase has truly earned the luxury label and reputation it has accrued.
