Choosing Better Wine The Mr Wheeler Way | Mr. Wheeler Wine

Why choose better wine?

Heritage, provenance, sustainability, authenticity, discovery, enjoyment, value and satisfaction.

But what do we really mean by ‘better’ wine?

Better wine drinking means experiencing a greater level of enjoyment and satisfaction. It is about empowering Mr.Wheeler customers to be able to choose wines based on knowledge, insight and an understanding of what they enjoy. With tens of thousands of wines from across the globe, it is very easy to be overwhelmed by the choice. A large portion of UK consumers tend to rely on the major retailers or supermarkets to provide wine choices and more often than not, those wines selected are based on price, and then varietal, region or country, and possibly not quality or preference.

Mr.Wheeler gives you

  • Better information for you to be able to make informed buying decisions.
  • Better quality through careful sourcing, often partnering with smaller, family-owned vineyards.
  • Better quality wines, bottled at source with the experience and expertise of the grower.
  • Better provenance and traceability – again through working with trusted and partnered vineyards.
  • Better delivery via our tried and tested logistics partners.
  • Better customer care at every stage of the process for every type of customer.
  • Better communication and the sharing of wine information and knowledge.
  • Better wine to cost ratio – increased enjoyment that’s aligned to price.
  • Better deals that are tailored to our customers tastes and needs.

Better wine for better quality

The quality of any wine is determined by a number of factors and it is our belief that these factors can be replicated in order to deliver outstanding wines time and time again. Mr.Wheeler chooses wines from established family run vineyards where we know that the growers have mastered their craft, ensuring that all conditions, practices and process have been carefully considered to deliver the very best outcome in their products. Weather, of course, is a significant factor in determining the outcome of any harvest and whilst the weather can not be predicted – the experience and expertise of the grower can account for all the elements and ensure that the end product is delivered to the highest outcome.

Better wine could easily be viewed as a subjective statement given that everyone’s preferences of wine will be different. However, our aim and mission at Mr.Wheeler is to ensure a certain standard of drinking and whether you enjoy Red, White, Rosé or Champagne, French, Italian, New Zealand or South American – the wines that our in-house experts and vineyard partners choose and recommend to you are always the best and deliver on quality, value and enjoyment.

Provenance, heritage & bottled at source

The majority of the wines we choose to stock come from family-owned vineyards across the globe – often smaller vineyards that have developed across a number of generations. Our aim is to support these fantastic producers of wine, ensuring we are working in a partnership that means they have a sustainable business and can concentrate on producing the very best wines.

Over 99.5% of the wines that we stock are wines that are bottled at source. Bottling wine at source is proven to deliver a better quality of wine. There are a few exceptions to this, but if you look carefully at many of the supermarket wines (certainly those below £7) you will see they are UK bottled on an industrial scale, with the product shipped to the factory in large tanks.

Wine producing is an art and it is our belief that the grower is absolutely the best person to be bottling the wine, and that bottling at source is a key part of the overall wine supply chain. The care and control that the producer of the wine will have in this process is crucial to the end result. In addition, this process provides jobs and opportunity to the region from which the grapes are grown, which is critical from a sustainability, traceability and provenance perspective.

Understanding the cost of wine

Choosing and buying better wine does not necessarily mean spending lots of money on wine. In actual fact there are some fantastic wines sold for less than £10 – especially if you know what you’re looking for. However, investing just a little more in your wine can yield a notable improvement in the quality and, therefore, enjoyment. A bottle of wine in the region of £10 - £15 represents excellent value and can deliver on quality and enjoyment far better than a typical £6 supermarket end-of-aisle offer.

The cost of the actual wine inside a typical 75cl bottle represents only a fraction of the overall cost and the lower end. The glass bottle, the label, the branding, the marketing, the cork or cap, the shipping and storage, let alone the tax (£2.16 a bottle and VAT at 20%) makes up the majority of the cost – alarmingly in a region upwards of 90% for bottles below £6. 

So if a £6 wine has less than 50 pence’s worth of actual wine in the bottle, then it is easy to understand how the quality can be improved upon by investing more in the upfront purchase. The cost of the bottle, label and shipping etc does not change, irrespective of the bottle price, so the additional investment is firmly on the actual wine, the grapes, the vineyard and heritage of the product.

Undoubtedly there are wine brands with a higher ‘perceived’ value that maybe trade on their name, their history or simply on the public perception, which of course can be created through clever marketing and branding, but generally speaking, investing more in your wine choices is a sound outlay that delivers greater enjoyment and invariably provides a better and more sustainable deal for the vineyards and wine growers.

Choosing better wine

It’s Mr.Wheeler’s job to help you choose better wine regardless of the budget you’re spending.

Choosing better wine (in our view) is a simple equation of;
Preference + Occasion + Budget = Choice.

Your Wednesday evening glass and a half with dinner may be something quite light and closer to £10 for example, whereas a bank holiday weekend barbecue red with friends to go alongside your slow-cooked short ribs could be a heavier red around the £17 mark. There are no hard and fast rules about choosing better wine – it must be a choice based on your personal preferences, and what it is you think you and your guests might enjoy.

Buying from Mr.Wheeler gives you access to our team of wine experts who are always on hand to assist in your choice, talk through the wines, provide explanations and recommendations based on the equation of preference + occasion + budget. Over time, we will build a profile of your wine choices and we’ll then be in a position to keep you informed about other wines that we know you’ll enjoy, excellent vintages of wines you’ve enjoyed, or outstanding deals.

For further information about choosing better wine, please feel free to contact us via email or call us on 01206 713560.

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