Wine Knowledge

Your Wine Questions Answered

Welcome to Lay & Wheeler’s wine knowledge pages. We have tried to provide you with as much information as we can about the fascinating world of wine. The information contained in these pages will be updated regularly as new developments are made so check back frequently.

There are detailed descriptions, maps and observations of each wine region, producer and grape variety, along with explanations of some of the most commonly used terminology and classifications when it comes to buying, serving and drinking wine.

We hope that this section is informative however if there is anything that we have not covered, please contact our wine consultants and we’ll do our best to answer any question you may have.

Wine Regions of The World

Wine is grown the world over, in a myriad of regions, with varied geography, geology, topography and climate. The French notion of terroir takes this all into account (and more besides); here we focus simply on the regions and the wines they produce.

Buying & Storing Fine Wine

Fine wines that can be bought in a variety of ways; here we explain the processes involved in buying wines under bond or duty paid and the way in which fine wines need to be stored in order to reach their full potential.

Organic Wines

An ever-increasing number of producers are turning to organic and biodynamic methods of production. Organic wines are made from grapes grown without recourse to man-made fertilisers, herbicides, fungicides and insecticides.

Grape Varieties

There are thousands of grape varieties used to produce wine around the world, many of them unique to a specific country or even region. However, some are used to the world over. Here we discuss the most important and most widely planted varieties in the main fine wine regions of the world.

En Primeur

Many wines can be purchased before they are even bottled; this is one way of securing the wines that you want and often at the best price. Wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy are most commonly sold in this way, but others from around the world are now also available.