At times I walk into my cellar and look around and cannot find anything that suits the situation.
I see wines I’ve been holding a long time or cost a lot that are too special to open that night. Often times when I’ve held a wine a long time it is hard to decide that “tonight is the night” and it sits and sits.
I see young wines that I am trying hard to let rest so that I can drink them at their peak.
I see varieties that are exciting to me but comprise such a small portion of my cellar that I don’t have the heart to open them. It’s like I feel the need to preserve biodiversity!
I see inexpensive daily drinkers/cellar protectors that bore me and just look like a waste of calories.
I see moderately priced/aged wines that I know will be really good but much better suited to a time when my wife and I can share it together, or when we have friends over.
It’s like there is this bifurcation between wines that seem too good to waste on that night and wines that won’t provide much interest, but I cannot find the sweet spot.
On nights like these I just walk out and have a beer, a cocktail, or nothing it all. To me it signals that I’m becoming spoiled or desensitized to good wine and I ought to just back off. Do you ever feel this way?
I like the story someone told this year or last year whereby someone sends the kid or grand kid (too young to know what he/she is taking) into the cellar, and whatever bottle the kid picks, that’s what’s going to get opened. I have to believe that adds enough of an element of surprise to keep things interesting for a while at least. If you don’t have a kid or grand kid around, maybe you could train a dog. I suppose asking neighbors to borrow their kids for this purpose might be going a little bit too far.
As others have said, we’ve ALL been there…many times, in fact.
Interestingly to me, however, is when I struggle mightily on what to open, once I have opened it - even if it is a ‘special’ bottle’ - I almost never regret it and think, months later, ‘damn, I wish I had chosen something else!’. With that assurance, it STILL doesn’t make it any easier. Sucks.
Just go for a really excellent bottle and make it the right occasion!
Open a questionable bottle. If it’s horrible, it goes down the drain, and I just cleaned things out a little.
Open a beer or pour a whisky.
I’m opting for 1 & 2 usually, because I realize that if I don’t, the wines will continue to accumulate, the right time will never come, and eventually those bottles will be relegated to the “questionable” category.
You could always invite me over, blindfold me, and send me into the cellar! I take full responsibility!
But seriously I find myself doing this a lot lately. In 2018 I’ll have a lot of wines coming into their good drinking windows so at that point a blindfolded pick will probably be a hit!
I’m not sure if I’m the guy people are thinking of for the sommelier-son, but my son is familiar with navigation of the cellar and has even helped with inventory. Last week, I sent him in for Chardonnay. He came out with Hommage a Jacques Perrin. Rhone shares a shelf with domestic Chardonnay. It was an honest mistake. He returned with 2010 Rhys Alpine after that. It was delicious.
I’d tell you that going from 1000 to 2000 will fix your problem. It’s about where I stopped having the syndrome you describe, but I suspect the number of bottles had less to do with it than the amount of time I’ve been collecting. I finally have a plethora of aged wine that is perfectly ready to enjoy, so there’s no more need to hoard those bottles and less need to avoid sampling younger examples in the name of building a mature wine inventory. I also am not yet at the point where I have cases of wine teetering on the brink of terminal decay. That day may come.
In this one thread, we again have definitive proof that wine collecting is the interactive confluence of Obsessive-Compulsive, Hoarding, and Affluenza disorders.
I have about a case left of the 2007 syrah (I think I’ve bought 3 or 4 cases?). I bought that as a cellar defender and more often than not I open one of those to go with our meal when I freeze up. But honestly it’s a relatively humble and straightforward wine and sometimes falls into the category of one that’s not terribly exciting because I’ve now had so much of it. No offense Todd!
This.
I really love to share the good stuff (and the bad stuff is more fun shared as well) with friends, but with a new baby and crazy work schedule I Janet seen the light of day in months and there ain’t no end in sight, so I’’ just opening some fun bottles by my lonesome and making more days “occasions”…
