When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
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Description
If you want to learn more about wine, look no further. This case contains a complimentary copy of our Wine School’s award-winning book, Exploring & Tasting Wine (normally £30), as well as six bottles to get you started. The book provides an excellent introduction to the world of wine, broken down into six “sessions”.
Each of the six wines in this case has been chosen to support the first session, looking at the structure of wine. The first pair, the Chablis and Californian Chardonnay, will show the influence of climate on a wine’s acidity and fruit character. The second pair, an English Bacchus and Argentinian Malbec, will help you identify different alcohol levels in wine. The third and final pair – a Beaujolais and Brunello – will offer a lesson in tannins.
Contains a copy of Exploring & Tasting Wine: A wine course with digressions and one bottle (75cl) of each of the following:
2017 Deltablock, Chardonnay, California, USA
2018 Berry Bros. & Rudd Chablis by Domaine du Colombier, Burgundy
2018 Bacchus, Flint Vineyard, Norfolk, England
2019 Berry Bros. & Rudd Argentinian Malbec by Pulenta, Mendoza
2018 Beaujolais Villages, Les Vignes de Lantignié, Jean-Marc Burgaud
2014 Berry Bros. & Rudd Brunello di Montalcino by La Màgia, Tuscany, Italy
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