Missing my cellar Spring rant (apologies in advance)

I am suffering from Cellar separation anxiety. My cellar is in Alaska where I live in the summer and I am in Texas where I live in the winter. My pain is caused by my strong preference for aged red wines. I would say that the average age of bottles I drink from my cellar are 10-12 years old. I postpone my separation anxiety a bit by hauling several cases of aged wines when I fly down to Texas but alas that small stash is exhausted.

Spring has sprung and here I sit drinking super market reds aching for access to the prime-time bottles siting in my cellar and lamenting UPS’s $160+/case tariff that separates us.

Build a winter cellar in Texas, I say!

Getting involved with this thread could have an impact.

I feel for you. We have been in a tiny temporary apartment since June 2016, with nearly our entire cellar in storage, save for what would fit in one EuroCave. Since then we have inherited a second EuroCave, and have allowed some cases to accumulate strewn about the living room, but we are still keenly feeling the separation.

Go ahead and cue the tiny violins.

I do order some quaff-able whites directly from a winery. The problem with reds is finding aged bottles that have good provenance and are affordable.

If the bill is passed you could buy from K&L, Benchmark, HDH or any other reputable out-of-state shop. The bill has nothing to do with wineries, which can already ship to Texas. Not that it helps with the window of appropriate temperatures, which seems to be closing early this year. The remaining bottles I have in storage are all arriving on Friday for the summer hiatus.

I also miss my main cellar when we are down in Florida.
The selection in FL is limited to 100 bottles.

Bah, I claim the Tiniest Violin Prize on this issue – I live in Russia with 6% of my total wine collection. The remaining 94% is scattered among delivered wine in three locations in the USA (in three non-contiguous states to boot) plus pre-arrivals from multiple sources.

I manage through various suitcase delivery strategies to get about three cases from the USA to Russia each year, and I open up another two cases or so with friends and family when I’m back in the States. But five cases a year is well below my US purchase rate and, since I’ve been in Russia over 10 years now, my backlog of wines nearing (if not surpassing) the end of their optimal drinking plateau is growing. Rationally I should probably consign some of my US bottles, but I can’t bring myself to part with them (and besides I mostly buy 1-2 bottles of mid-tier wines for drinking, not OWC-packed case lots of trophies).

For now my strategy revolves around triaging wines to ensure the older ones get suitcased/opened first, and trying to ensure none of my new buying is of wines that will decline sooner than 10 years from now. On the bright side, I have made some felicitous discoveries about the unexpected ageability of some wines, e.g. some Willamette Valley pinots I bought and stashed 12 years ago have provided delightful drinking over the past few months (and I am no Oregon wine afficionado – it’s less than 1% of my cellar). If I hadn’t moved abroad, I would have opened them all at least 7-8 years ago.

You drink awfully well in FL! I’ve seen the photo evidence.

First World Problems

Well sure, but then you could say the same about every single other post on this entire site, except for the ones that showcase First World Privileges. What’s your point?

Same issue here! Winter in florida, cellar in NJ. I did ship myself several cases in advance, but most of that wine is long gone, and I miss being able to drink whatever I am in the mood for, any time. Yes, totally first world problems, but so is virtually everything we discuss here in Wine Talk, right?

I have to walk all the down two half flights of stairs to access the cellar. After a ten mile trail run, it is pure terror.

Only 10 miles? That’s a beer run. Very good though. Congrats on the Foothills, first in your age group.

26.2

I’m in Abu Dhabi with around 1% of our wine, for five years now. I can bring five bottles in per trip overseas.

You may be thinking of a different Paul Mills, I have not done the Foothills. I did the Bear Crawl recently and was 1st in my age group, but it was at Table Rock.

I seriously wonder how long you people have maintained two residences and have have not yet figured out how much wine you need at each to get you through the season.

Excellent. Impressive.

I doubt it’s miscalculation or lack of understanding of wine needs. It’s storage space or shipping laws or import/duty allowances.