The Oxford Wine Company wins Regional Wine Merchant of the year!

IWC Award Winners The International Wine Challenge is the world’s largest, most respected and most influential wine competition in the UK which judges up to 15,000 wines and the county’s top wine merchants every year to select the best of each after careful deliberation. We are delighted that in 2007 this prestigious position was awarded to us – we were named as Regional Wine Merchant of the Year for England West Central.

This means that the IWC judges (mainly Masters of Wine) considered us to be the best wine merchant in this area. This is based on the quality and pricing of our wines, levels of service to our customers, our ability to innovate through The Oxford Times Wine Club, the company magazine, our vineyards in France producing our own wines (The Domaine de la Souterranne range), our website, our tasting rooms and tastings run by Masters of Wine, winemakers and wine journalists, our shop and having a flat screen TV showing educational wine programmes for our customers to mention just a few of the aspects considered by the judges. Ted and John were presented with the award by Tim Atkin, Master of Wine at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Lane, London on Wednesday night 12th September 2007 when the winners were announced.

Domaine de la Souterranne Old Vine Carignan 2007 Included in Top 100 Vin de Pays 2009

Our Domaine de la Souterranne Old Vine Carignan ‘Cuvée Christophe’ 2007 has been selected as one of the Top 100 Vin de Pays available in this country and was on show at the London International Wine Fair at Excel. The 2006 vintage won a Silver Medal – Best in Class in the International Wine and Spirit Competition in 2008. It has also been included in Oz Clarke’s Top 250 Wines for 2009 Guide as has our Domaine de la Souterranne Merlot ‘Cuvée Guillaume’ which won a Bronze Medal in the IWSC. Both wines were made by international wine consultant David Morrison and Raphael Genot using fruit from our rented vineyards in the Languedoc.

Philip Hicks

Internationally renowned artist Philip Hicks was interviewed recently in Oxfordshire Life magazine and was asked the question ‘To whom or what should there be an Oxfordshire memorial?’ He answered ‘To the Hook Norton Brewery and to Ted Sandbach and his team who run The Oxford Wine Company at their Standlake premises. Life would not be the same without them!’

Philip Hicks’ fully illustrated catalogue with 64 pages, 54 colour illustrations and an introduction by the artist is available from www.messums.com