When buying wines in the Marketplace, it’s very easy to get a whole lot of information about the bottles you might be interested in before you purchase. When searching for a product, you can immediately see the basics, the site location and state of where the wines are currently stored, the number of bottles for sale, and the price/bottle including commission. But there are several other pieces of information that may assist you in making a decision.

Under the ‘Conditions’ section, you can also see what our ratings of the wine were when they were entered into our storage. Each bottle is given a rating between 1 and 5, where 5 is the best condition, for three aspects of the bottle’s condition.

The first number out of 5 represents the Ullage of the wine, i.e. how full the bottle is. 5 would mean a full or very near full bottle, whereas a 1 indicates a bottle with a level below the shoulder of the bottle.

The second number indicated the condition of the label. 5 means a perfect or near perfect label, while a 1 indicates serious discolorations, tears or missing parts.

The final number represents the condition of the capsule, be they cork, screw cap or any other method of closure. A 5 means a perfect seal with no obvious bumps or tears in the foil top, no leaks or discolorations, while a 1 indicates a seriously damaged closure.

Please note, this information is captured upon entry into our climate-controlled cellars, and several years may have passed since this information was uploaded. Whilst we do not expect to see any large shifts in these conditions, there may be changes similar to those you would expect in a cellar, such as a slight yellowing of the label and a reduction in the level of liquid in the bottle due to natural, normal evaporation.

The final metric is if the wine is part of our Provenance Program, this will be indicated by a banner alongside the wine name. This is a catagorisation we have set up to indicate that a bottle has been in our climate-controlled cellars for its entire life since release from the producer. For more information, see our page here.

So with all this information at your disposal, what are you waiting for!