I’m in the beginning of my thirties and over the last couple of years my interest within wine has risen exponentially to the point where it is almost the only thing I read about outside work. I enjoy reading through this forum about producers, tastings, discussions etc. I started to build up a wine collection, and could really need some advice in this process. Before I go to my specific questions I just want to give you a little background and context.
My interest in wine started when I met my wife and her family. They really value the whole concept of eating together and enjoying food and wine. They also traveled a lot in France and visited multiple places in Rhone. When I came into this family I had been drinking wine from mostly California, Australia and Chile. Never that charmless sour French stuff . But I was always curios and wanted to learn more about wine, but never really knew how to get started. So through my farther in law I had a lot of southern Rhone and learned about the different areas such as Lirac, Gigondas, Rasteau, Chateauneuf-du-Pape and so on. Later on my wife (girl friend at that time) and I booked a travel to Piemonte, which completely blew us away. The friendliness of people, the food and the landscape were just fabulous. And then we started to taste some young Barolo… I really wanted to like it, but it was impossible for me to derive any pleasure of those young hard as a rock kind of wine. I was confused and frustrated. Then we had a tasting at Scarzello in Barolo, where we tasted an aged Sarmassa Vigna Merenda. I was amazed how a young Barolo could be almost undrinkable just for it to shine years later. That was a real epiphany for me and I was so fascinated how wine could evolve over time.
Today we are drinking mostly wine from either France (Loire, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Rhone), Italy(Piemonte and some Tuscany) and Germany(dry Riesling) But I always try to expand my knowledge about new areas. Now to my question. With the arrival of the 2016 Barolo, I started to think about what my buying strategy should be. I already have a few from 2010, 2012, a bit more of 2013 and a few from 2014, so this is the first vintage in Piemonte where I plan to buy in more volume (before it gets too expensive!). I can’t figure out if I should choose a couple of my favorite producers and go deep in their lineup so I can track the progress of the wine as they age, or I should go for a more diverse approach and only buy 1-2 bottles of the same wine. What is your experience on this? Would you wish you just invested heavily in the very good vintages on a few selected producers or has it been more educational to go broad across vintages and producers? From time to time I read some threats about people saying stuff like “ah had I only did this or that when I started collecting wine then…” So I would also be interested in some general advice for a guy that is starting to build up a collection (I have around 200 bottles).