Valtteri Bottas expands business empire with next venture revealed

Valtteri Bottas has added to his business portfolio away from F1 by launching his own brand of wine, IHANA.

The Finn is perhaps one of the best-placed drivers on the grid for life after F1 as he already runs a number of businesses based around his hobbies.

To go alongside his gin business, coffee business and property business, Bottas has now become a vintner.

Valtteri Bottas launches his own Australian wine

In the off-season, Bottas announced the launch of his own wine company IHANA which, ironically, is made in the McLaren Vale region of Australia, a country Bottas has adopted as a second home in recent years.

The name means ‘wonderful’ or ‘lovely’ in Finnish and is a collaboration between Bottas and wine producer Oliver’s Taranga Vineyards.

Speaking of his goal behind it, Bottas wanted to be involved in what he described as his “passion.”

“The more I learn [about wine], the more interesting it becomes. I always had this vision that I would like to be involved with wine somehow, and not just investing. It’s my passion,” Bottas told the Drinks Business.

“In Australia, you can get these super full-bodied, straight-in-your-face kind of wines, but this one has a bit more elegance. Obviously it’s still young so it will take time for it to fully develop.”

Bottas also said his love of wine started when he turned 18 and he has been able to try some from many different regions due to his F1 exploits.

The Sauber driver will be guided on this venture by Corrina Wright, a sixth generation grape-grower, who described the history behind the project.

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“We have been growing Shiraz for a long time so I like to think we’ve kind of got it down,” Wright said.

“Sixty percent of our vineyards are Shiraz, and there’s about 15 different blocks. For this batch Valtteri was involved with making all the wines individually from each block. Then we laid them all out, Valtteri tasted and decided which ones he wanted to put together.

“So, we ended up with a 40-year-old Shiraz block as a base for the wine. All vines are hand-pruned on shallow soils over limestone. The other parcel was a younger block from a different clone that has this ‘mustikka’ (Finnish for bilberry) character.”

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