Barrels & Bottles Wine Blog

Measuring Wine Ageing Potential

The unique and exceptional Clef du Vin is essentially a measuring instrument that will immediately tell you if your wines are suitable for laying down. Thus revealing their ageing potential. In a controlled way, it will gradually modify the organoleptic qualities of the wine (taste, smell, flavours and bouquet). It will not age the wine.

The Clef du Vin has been carefully calibrated so that one second of contact in a glass of 10 cl. (or a bottle of 75 cl. using the corresponding key) will display the potential lay down time of one year. Effective on all types of wine (red, rosé, white, dry, mellow, sweet, fortified or sparkling). The Clef du Vin is in fact an informative measuring instrument.

You will have the advantage of being able to appreciate a young wine right away that otherwise would have needed 5 to 10 years to mature.
The Clef du Vin softens the structure of the wine and speeds up the aromatic development of its flavour. One could say that the wine is opened up with the key.

Available as follows:

Clef du Vin Pocket Model
Clef du Vin Service Model
Clef du Vin 3 piece set

Femme Fatale



"I've swirled, sniffed and sipped some of the best bastions from France's noble reds. Enthralled by the French winemaking experience and their timeless European style wines, I was even more thrilled to see that my passion is no foreign language to their cellars"

Simonsig congratulates effervescent red winemaker Debbie Burden on a whirlwind year of victory. In what still seems to be a fairly chauvinistic playground, Debbie showed her experetise for top quality Pinotage with her Simonsig Redhill Pinotage - voted one of the 2005 ABSA TopTen Pinotages - one of only 2 female winemakers to scoop this prestigous honour.

It is the same wine for which she won the ultimate title as South African's Woman Winemaker of the Year 2005.

Further details of the Simonsig Winery
Full range of the Simonsig South African wines for sale

We are pleased to announce the launch of our new wine accessories
website at www.winecare.co.uk

This has been set up to better serve the requirements for wine lovers in
the UK. All our existing range of wine related items plus lots of new
arrivals are now listed all together in the one location. As well as the
fantastic range of wine decanters, thermometers and corkscrews we are
please to announce the listing of Clef du Vin.

The Clef du Vin is an incredible tool used in assessing the ageing
potential of your wines whilst in the glass.
Clef du Vin

We have also extended our range of wine and food related books including
wine cellar books for keeping track of your storage wine.
http://www.winecare.co.uk/acatalog/wine_food_books.html

Our famous Duck Wine Decanter suitable for
both decanted wine and port continues to be one of our most popular wine
accessories listed. The Duck Decanter is elegant, universal in use and
very affordable - making it a great present for all lovers of wine.

Hullo there,
I've just discovered your site, so haven't quite thought through an
order yet, but I had to get in touch when I found you are selling pineau
and cognac I first tasted over 20 years ago.

We picked Logis de la Montagne from a book of holiday Gites de France in
1982. I wasn't sure of the location so I wrote off in my best school
French to M Bonnin, the then proprietor. I was surprised to receive
not only detailed directions to the place, but a very nice letter
expressing pleasure that we had chosen to visit them from so far away
(Edinburgh) and hoping we would enjoy our stay. We were also
pleasantly surprised that the letter was headed "Pierre Bonnin,
viticulteur".

We enjoyed our stay so much that we spent two more holidays there in the
eighties, as well as passing details to friends who also booked the
gite. Too many stories to tell here, suffice it to say that the
degustation sessions in the farmyard summer house (not grand enough to
be called a visitor centre) were a highlight of every stay - Bonnin
would never let a taster drink alone! And M Bonnin's conducted tours
may have been less professional and slick than the Martell/Hennessey
versions, but the personal touch and clear pride in his work made it a
far richer experience.

We were invited into their home and made to feel part of the family. I
would be very interested to know whether the same M Bonnin or a
successor is now in charge - when I last saw him he wasn't too well, and
that was in the mid/late eighties. I think he was then "grooming" his
son-in-law to take over.

At that time sales were virtually only direct at Logis de la Montagne or
to local shops and bars, although even then they had one medals - I
think at Paris and Bristol and elsewhere. It's good to know the
business is still going strong and has a UK outlet.

Regards
Richard Treadgold