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.
