How We Choose Our Wines
In order to offer the world’s finest wines we begin by identifying the world’s best regions and regional styles. We then identify the best producers, vineyards and vintages within those regions using various criteria to create a long list, which is then reviewed for comparative quality and value for money.
To give an example in terms of regions, Pauillac is a famous wine appellation and sub region of Bordeaux. There are more than 24,000 producers in Bordeaux of which around 10% / 2,500 are classified as producing quality wines. In Pauillac this number is 115. Of these we have chosen just 9 producers and only excellent wines and vintages from these producers. By comparing price and value, we are able to ignore wines of lessor quality and at the top end, remove those wines where the price doesn’t, in our view, represent good value. As a result, our range generally represents less than 1% of wines available on the market.
Our criteria include reputation (respected wine writers, critics etc.), track record, premium price, demand (consumers, investors), quality (competitions, critic scores) and relative value for money. We undertake this process by our own (and other’s) research, information from specialist merchants and experts and by using various tools including search engines. The process is rigorous to ensure that we don’t “buy the label”. As part of this process, we make all efforts to source our wines from reputable suppliers, where we see provenance and storage being treated as a priority, as indeed it is here at The Perfect Bottle.
We use average critic score and our own value score to refine the list.