Do you still have the FIRST bottle...

…of your wine collection? I do! In 1992 fresh out of college…wasn’t into drinking wine, just drinking…and when your ex college roommate owns a winery…I asked my good ol buddy if he would send me some wine! I lived in LA at the time…poor…trying to make it at my first job post college…and he sent sent me a mixed case(bill too, wtf?). I only remember liking the sweet dessert wine at the time…probably served out the rest of the cabs and chards…but kept the one last bottle of this…which turned out to be my first ever bottle of wine in my wine collection! The real obsession started in 1995 with a bottle of 1987 Beringer PR Cabernet…which I still have a lone bottle left as well.

You?

Very cool. I don’t even know what that first bottle was. I’d have to sort out when wine drinking and buying turned into more of a collection. The transition was so gradual that it’s nigh impossible to pinpoint.

I remember the first bottle I ever bought thinking “I’m going to put this away for a while” - a 2005 Domaine Paul Autard Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Cote Ronde. We drank it in 2019, though, for my wife’s birthday.

The first bottle I bought for long term collecting was a 74 BV Georges de Latour Reserve. I think I almost kept it for a year before I drank it.

No on first of “collection”, but I’ve got a bottle of first wine I ever made, our daughter’s wedding wine, a 2009 Riesling, their wedding was summer, 2010. I only have an empty but she still has a couple of full bottles. We opened one on their 10 year anniversary last summer and it was holding up very nicely.

Also a couple of other special empties, from my own wedding in 2007, CellarTracker Secret Santa 1st gift bottle. A bottle from a trip to Israel in 2008. All collecting dust.

Somewhere tucked into a nearly forgotten bin in my cellar is a bottle of 1973 Chateau Ste Michelle Cabernet, purchased from their new (in 1976) winery in Woodinville. That may be the first bottle I purchased with the intention of letting it age. I lost interest in CSM before I got around to trying it, and then it more or less got buried.

I actually just managed to buy a bottle of the first right bank Bordeaux I ever tasted, as a teenager: the 1964 Clos La Madeleine. Never, ever, thought I would get to taste that wine again!

Got hooked on a trip to Italy - came back with a recommendation from the sommelier at Il Sole di Ranco on Lago Maggiore to buy the 1990 Castello di Rampolla Chianti Classico Riserva and whatever wines from Rampolla I could afford.

I have two bottles left of that initial case (it’s also our anniversary year).

And since then I’ve bought a whole lot of Rampolla.

The first nice bottle I bought was 88 Bollinger RD. Drank it later that year on nye.

Yes, the first nice bottles that I actually collected vs. drank are a few DRC that I bought from a friend a few years ago. Still sitting in the cellar, although I did drink one last year.

The first wines I bought to lay down were 1995 Bordeaux on release. I still have some La Conseillante and Leoville Barton. I bought plenty before that, but never with cellaring intent.

Hmm, so long ago! It was either a 1975 de Malle or a 1976 Giscours. Long gone, but I still have my ‘67 Climens.

No but that bottle was certainly better than the first bottles of wine I purchased.

Gak…the early stuff I could afford was abysmal…Trakia, Primiat…$1.99 varietals from Bulgaria? The first serious wine I remember buying was when the local liquor store I was moonlighting in during Grad School sold and the old owner offered me anything in the store at cost…just to lower inventory for the new owner…I bought 1975 Cheval Blanc and 1969 Louis Latour Batard-Montrachet. Drank both in the late 1980’s…and they were amazing.

Been collecting for about 15 years and haven’t touched probably the first 80 or so cases I mostly bought on release. Was buying through UK merchants even though I wasn’t living there so easy to keep my hands off them.

Will get them all shipped over at some point in next 5 years or so and open them up.

In 1984 (when the Wine Spectator was still in newspaper format), the cover had Michael Broadbent declaring “Good God, it’s Mouton”!!! My fiancé at the time (now my wife of 36 years) bought me the wine that Broadbent was so excited about…1974 Simi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. I could never bring myself to open it. It rests in peace with dignity, still bringing a fuzzy feeling when I see the bottle or view it in my CellarTracker inventory. I’ll leave it up to my kids to do the ultimate postmortem on this bottle, because I cannot bring myself to open it.

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I’m new to the game but a few years ago my girlfriend and I were visiting Chicago and had dinner at Girl and the Goat. We ordered a bottle of their private label wine made by Saviah Cellars in Walla Walla. When we got back to the west coast we visited Walla Walla and they had a 2013 Girl and the Goat so we bought one and still have it in the cellar. That was the first of many bottles we’re cellaring and hopefully many more!

My 1st bottle that I remember is long gone. That said my 1st bottle that is most memorable is 1971 clos de beze!
Been searching for a comparable forever!

Wait, Buzz, your college roommate owned Flora Springs?!?!?

No, all of my early bts are gone, fortunately, because they weren’t very good. I started slowly in the mid 80ies to lay away some bts to mature, Bx 81 and 82 … and I still have some 82 …