Wine is a luxury, but let’s be honest, the majority of people at first glance couldn’t tell a £10 bottle from something that cost £1000. Atomos Wine is addressing this by making sure that anyone with their bottle knows instantly they will be experiencing something very special.
Wine production is a huge growing industry, and within the next decade, it is predicted to reach not far shy of half a trillion dollars thanks in no small part to the burgeoning Chinese market. With an industry as large as this, standing out from the crowd is difficult, and in many ways, tradition is one of the stumbling blocks.
What I mean by this can be summed up by an online visit to Harvey Nichols and a look through their wine section. While browsing, I came across a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche 2016 priced at £4,500.00. I continued searching and found an almost identical looking bottle of wine priced at just £46.00. To someone educated in the world of wine the difference would be obvious, but to the average high net worth individual, perhaps not.
It’s an obvious problem; unless you know really your wine, you will have no idea what you have in front of you. Wine producers are relying on consumers having this knowledge and recognising the name; apart from this, there are few other clues to indicate something is of high-quality.
The majority of wine producers today still insist on using similar looking bottles, only differentiating them by a label. To me, there’s a much simpler way to show something is quality, it’s a technique used by the whole of the luxury industry, and Atomos are embracing it.
About Atomos Wine
Atomos is a relatively new brand having been founded earlier this year. Although the brand is a new face in the industry, the people behind the brand (the Di Nisio family) are not.
The Di Nisio’s have been winemaking since 1997 and to help them achieve their goal of making the best wines in the world, they’ve enlisted Giovanni Basso as their winemaker.
Giovanni brings a wealth of experience to Atomos and boasts an impressive resume having picked up the Gambero Rosso Tre Bicchieri, Bibenda 5 Grappoli, Veronelli, with Kurni Wine among many other awards.
The Wine Making Process
Atomos wine is very different from other varieties in the market. It is the first wine in the world to be entirely manually-destemmed, and this process is currently patent-pending for the brand. This technique uses only the vine berries which have the ideal properties for vinification and that in turn gives a greater life expectancy to the wine while retaining the healthy attributes with an enhanced fruit flavour.
Their grapes come from Bucchianico near Chieti and Navelli near the Gran Sasso mountain which is close to L’Aquila. Through experimentation, Atomos have found the best results come via Montepulciano d’Abruzzo (red grapes) and Trebbiano (white grapes), but in their ongoing quest to push the flavour boundaries, they are also experimenting with some ancient varieties from the region.
The absolute key to the Atomos wine quality is using low-yields which maximises the aroma and colour. The grapes are meticulously selected, one by one and each Atomos wine bottle is stored at 14-17° C in order to achieve absolute preservation. The wine is submerged in a tank of wood chips and aged within one of the oldest caves in the region where the temperature and humidity remain stable.
How Atomos Displays its Quality from the First Look
Across every sector, modern-day consumers expect the wow factor and Atomos understands this. When Atomos asked if they could send me a bottle to try, I was a little hesitant as a 1000+ mile journey is quite an undertaking for a glass product.
I was amazed that not only did it arrive intact, but even the cardboard packaging was also pristine without a hint of a crease! Kudos needs to go to the people who were tasked with this.
The bottle came inside a beautiful hand-sewn Alcantara pouch which is designed to protect the contents from light exposure. I’d never come across a bottle wrapped in something like this; it was beautifully made and to an infrequent wine drinker like myself, offered hope for what was to come.
In addition to the hand-sewn, embroidered pouch, the bottle itself shouted quality. Unlike the vast majority of universally-shaped, dark glass wine bottles you come across, the Atomos bottle offers a truly refreshing change. Firstly it is clear so you can inspect the quality of its content and secondly, it is larger than the average ‘common or garden’ 0.75cl variety. The Atomos wine bottle is 1L and is both distinct and beautiful in its design, standing an impressive 40cm.
As someone quite familiar with luxury products, I’ll freely admit I was impressed by the bottle of Atomos wine sent to me. However, things don’t just stop there with these winemakers. Atomos have taken the luxury-feel to a whole new level by offering a special, limited-edition version. They have produced nine bottles, each bearing the Atomos logo made from 18k gold and these come in a hand-crafted leather bag made from the finest leather accompanied by a certificate of exclusivity.
Final Thoughts…
Being the owner of Luxurious Magazine does not automatically make me a wine expert. I, like many others, will treat myself to the odd glass now and again. But, I do find it difficult telling the difference between one bottle and the next and have little idea whether what I am imbibing should be truly savoured.
Over the average year, I’ll receive a bottle of wine or two. Unlike others who pretend to know a lot on the subject but in reality, don’t; I’m upfront when it comes to my breadth of knowledge and will frequently turn to the internet or one of my writers for advice. If what I had in front of me had obvious visual clues to show it was something special, I wouldn’t need to guess whether it was a bottle costing a few pounds or a few thousand pounds.
I realise that some reading this will be horrified by my suggestions that the wine industry needs to change and adapt. The reason it needs to pay heed is we live in a visual world and for many, how a product looks trumps everything else. It just seems to me that what Atomos Wines is doing by making their products look as high quality as they are from the outside in, is an opportunity large parts of the industry is missing.
If the wine industry adopted some of the tried and tested methods used by the luxury industry and indeed, some parts of the spirits industry, I believe it could attract an untapped area of the market.
For more information on the wines produced by Atomos including their very special limited edition, visit www.atomosco.com.
Read more wine articles in our dedicated section here.
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