Advice from people who have been there...

I’m turning 50 with a 2k bottle quality cellar. Not nearly as into wine as I was 10 years ago. I find as much happiness anymore from off-the-shelf Muscadet as I do the gems. I’m going to move the wine to a cellar in my home (it’s currently in offsite storage and largely ignored) or offload a lot of it. (I’m not soliciting any interest – if I sell, I already know where it is going).

For those who have been here – any advice? Is it a phase? I’m afraid that my wine is going to just fade, creating regret that I didn’t just unload it…

Cheers,
Bordeauxnut

Getting tired of wine? Or is the excitement gone?

I’ve had varying degrees of enthusiasm over the years. I’ve thinned the cellar a few times but never when or because my interest was at a low point.

You never know, but there’s a good chance your passion will return. I’d give it a year and if your cellar still feels way too big for your level of interest or misaligned with what you like to drink, unload some of it then. The good stuff wont go over the hill that fast.

That’s certainly an argument to thin. As you sort through what to keep or purge perhaps the process will give you guidance. You may rediscover some passions. Depending on your outlet to unload, it may be easier and better to do this in waves.

I went through a phase of zero buying and hardly consumed any wine for almost 5 years, then the enthusiasm returned. Sadly I did sell-off some of my prized collections during that period which were big mistakes. So maybe you should just let those collections sit for a while.

Taking a hint from your signature - if your ‘gems’ are BDX, take your time and don’t make any immediate decisions. Top Chateaux from top vintages will hold (and generally accrue) in value over time.

If we are talking Cali Pinot…sell.

It will cost you 25% + to sell and then buy the same wine, and you lose the certainty of provenance. I would give it a couple of years, and in the meantime start drinking the wine in a more creative way; find new friends, start a monthly wine group etc

I’ve been enjoying a bottle of muscadet, too. I don’t crave for anything else. The fact is, I’d be essentially screwed if I wanted to drink top wine

Yes you would, but as you are obviously unworthy, nobody would care.

Assuming this is evolution as one passes thru life rather than a temporary feeling, seems like you’ll want to thin the cellar for sure. I used to own twice what I do now and have sold (or drank) stuff over the last 10 years as I simply had too much. I still do. I have only a very few (under 1%) of those sales. Tastes changes (although mine have not much is a very long time) but probably more importantly as one ages so do interests. It seems natural and in fact pragmatic to go ahead and clean things up if you have excess.

I know many friends in the 50/60/70s who are very long term collectors who vastly thinned oversized (for them) cellars and none are sad about that. They simply kept what they loved and had more manageable sized cellars as they retired. YMMV.

Jim,

I more or less went through the same phase a few years ago. My cellar was about the same size as yours and I realized that I hadn’t always bought the right type of wines - I had quite large quantities of Bordeaux that I had bought having read critics’ recommendations (well, one in particular). I discovered that I really didn’t like the oaky, over-concentrated St.Emilions, still less a whole host of “sleepers”. I couldn’t face actually selling them because I just didn’t like the idea.
Then I had no choice. Circumstances changed and the wine had to pay the mortgage. At first, I got rid of all those I disliked, then I sold those whose value had risen to obscene levels, before finally selling some I would rather have kept.
At the time, I told myself that in any case, my tastes had changed and for the better. The improving quality of Crus Bourgeois plus a new taste for Loire reds and Madirans replaced perfectly well those I had sold.
Last year, circumstances changed again, this time more positively, which I celebrated by opening some of the good stuff I had held onto. Gosh, the difference. Much as I liked, and still do, the stuff I had got into, sipping glasses of St.Julien and Pauillac made me realize how much I had missed them.
So now, I’m happily buying some back, which is fun, because I only buy what I know and like.

So if I were you, I would go ahead and sell off what you’re not sure about. You can always buy some back if you change your mind. It’s only wine.

Advice:

1. Wait a bit longer before acting.

2. Do a health inventory - sense of smell, any nasal issues, make sure there isn’t something going on that strikes you as loss of wine joy disguised as a slow loss of the ability to fully enjoy. Check some tasting notes you trust, grab a UC Davis tasting wheel and check the status of your skills and compare with reviews, etc. make sure you aren’t getting a dry mouth type syndrome, nasal polyps, effects from any medications, etc.

3. Compare some wines that you used to like with some different styles and see what sort of palate drift you may be noticing, or not.

4. Do a mental health inventory. Make sure you aren’t a bit depressed or anxious and it’s affecting your wine joy. Also check and see if your other passions are still there. Make sure you are as fine as your wine!

I don’t know you, so I do not mean to imply anything. I had a year where I was just not into it and thought, “That’s that” for the hobby." But, I was really just distracted by a crazy long work year, took no days off, kids college apps and visits, all little stuff that it’s easy to let seem bigger when it really isn’t. I wasn’t even drinking enough water! You know, the usual ‘adult rut’ stuff. I wasn’t enjoying cooking or listening to music as much, less fun reading, less exercise, less Frisbee…nothing truly big. Once my wife pointed out that I wasn’t seeming to be seeking out pleasure/fun I realized I had just been letting the days go by, letting the water hold me down, water flowing under ground. I’d taste a wine and go, “This is not my beautiful wine! How did my palate get here? And I asked myself where does this hobby go to?” Then I went back to being me. It’s weird the ebbs and flows of life.

Luckily, no twister came, but sometimes we snap into and snap out of things.

Apologies if I am seeming too off topic!

I still vote, wait and see. Perhaps you are just being drawn to our AFWE dark side and don’t know what the force has in store for you, yet!!!

It seems there is some variation of this thread/question on a regular basis here. My answer is if you have the means open wine for others. To me turning others on to and sharing wine is a huge part of this passion.

That’s a nice post.

I love this response. But it doesn’t preclude what I was going to write when I read the OP: I’ve been churning my cellar for years. I’m constantly selling off wines I have too many of, have decided I don’t really want to drink, or have become more valuable to someone else than they are to me. And my drinking preferences have, and continue to evolve, so some wines I treasured 10 years ago are not that important to me - easy sell. I say sell some of it and see how it feels. For me, once I started picking out a bottle here and a bottle there to sell, and got over the hump of wanting to horde everything, I would open a case looking for a particular bottle or two, nose through the rest, and just grab the whole case to sell. It gets easy once you start doing it.

This

Fifty years old is very young. At only two bottles a week, you have a twenty year inventory. For many, a big part of the enjoyment is living with your wine. It’s enjoyable to pull a wine to go with what is being prepared for a meal. I would not liquidate anything until the wine is in your home cellar for at least a year.

Same as it ever was.

Nice, man. As a youngin’, I greatly appreciate your spirit.