Much less. I’m old. My wife and I drink less. It takes us 2 days to finish a bottle. We have a lot of wine. If we’re lucky enough to be enjoying wine in our 90s, we can always buy more.
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-Fewer total bottles purchased. As my EP purchases have wound down, overall amount purchased has also gone down. I have an informal annual cap to ensure my inventory declines year on year.
-Less total value purchased. New purchases have shifted to smaller and usually lower cost producers. Berserker Day has had a massive impact on my buying patterns.
-Age: 61. Last Rhône and Piedmont vintages purchased were 2019. Last Bordeaux was 2020. Last Burg was 2022. Last Napa will be 2023. There will always be purchase space for one-offs and “last” doesn’t apply to BD.
-I don’t keep track of average cost, but it’s undoubtedly going down on average. A handful of trophy backfills won’t compensate for the Bordeaux EP I’m no longer buying.
-I’ve been into wine since I was a kid. My declining purchasing has nothing to do with any decline in interest. I just have enough to last the rest of my life and leave a lot behind for my descendants.
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Buying maybe 25% less - need to get to to 50%
Number of bottles purchased: definitely down, probably significantly vs the 3-5 years prior.
Value of wine purchased: notably higher. Starting in 2023 I shifted my wine consumption and buying to less frequent and much pickier. This was driven by a combination of wine pricing, evolution of taste, and health consciousness. On the last point, as I passed 40, I really started to feel the effects of even modest alcohol consumption. I have a high stress job, travel extensively overseas for it, and when I’m home I really want to be fully present for my family. Even if the moderate drinking was only impacting me 5-10% on a given day, I decided that wasn’t worth it to me. I now drink far less often, but when I do I pretty much always drink a bottle I love or am thrilled to try. While I miss some of the pleasures of more casual wine drinking, on balance this has been a great trade for my life and given me greater confidence wine will be something I can enjoy for many years to come.
Avg bottle cost is probably 150-200.
Age: 40s
How long you’ve been into wine: 20ish years.
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Definitely true for me too, over the last few years.
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This is fantastic, she looks awesome.
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Buying less than in 2024, but of higher quality.
Im helped out by my storage being a mere 2x 120 bottle winefridges, so I can only fit so much… Really trying to go up in quality eg. buying a “better” Premier cru instead of 2x lesser premier crus…
Trying to balance out having:
- young wines that are drinking well now
- Wines with some age (primarily auction buys) that are drinking well now
- Wines that will be good in 2-5 years
- Wines that need to slumber 5+ years
Where the vast majority is in the 2-5 year range.
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Prices are generally down at auction and allocations are up, so… overall significantly more.
Avg bottle cost: anything from 25 to 1000ish (though a lot more of the former than the latter)
Age: 40s
How long you’ve been into wine: 20ish years.
Last year was an anomaly as I paid off my mortgage in late 2023 and felt like I had a lot of disposable income
I now definitely own enough wine to last the rest of my life and, bday notwithstanding, hope to go on a serious buying hiatus
Of course I’ve hoped that before…
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2024-350 $129
2023-315 $113
2022-370 $98
2021-347 $86
2020-469 $70
2019-453 $71
2018-519 $86
2017-576 $87
2016-391 $86
2015-296 $77
2014-272 $85
2013-327 $66
2012-291 $55
2011-377 $58
2010-2005 (lol-the year I inventoried my cellar-lol)
Maybe I’ve peaked and on the way down. Cellar space is a problem.
I think I went wild in 2017 with the excuse of starting to buy 2016 wines from Bordeaux, Italy and CA for my sons birth year 2016 plus having closer access to pick up auction wines in the NY area once I moved here.
Steady increase in cost per bottle except 2019 and 2020. I think that was when wine.com had tons of coupons bringing down my cost per bottle.
Consider me an OUTLIER when it comes to the upper echelon of Napa right now. The 2023 vintage is shaping up to be one of their finest in recent memory, and based on what I’m tasting, I’ve been buying significantly more—even with the higher yields. By contrast, I largely passed on the 2022s.
Looking at where I am in my collecting journey and the current state of the Napa market: if the demand and fruit quality are there, prices will remain high. But this dynamic creates immense VOLATILITY.
In a challenging vintage, logic dictates prices should drop unless the wine’s quality and critical scores can justify the premium. I suspect many winemakers wish they could adjust pricing downward for lesser years. Unfortunately, they are boxed in by the fear of damaging brand equity or tied to grower contracts with strict minimum-bottle-price clauses. To clear inventory under those constraints, wineries really need to shift that juice into the three-tier distribution system rather than forcing it on their DTC mailing lists. When bottles are pushing $200+ USD, there is a massive quality expectation, and given the current economic climate, the market simply won’t tolerate a subpar wine at higher pricing.
Here is where my purchasing stats currently sit:
- More or less in terms of total bottles purchased: More this year, SIGNIFICANTLY less last year.
- More or less in terms of value of said bottles purchased: More, WAY MORE. It EXPLODED.
- Age of person answering: 33
- Average cost of bottle purchased: $234, and likely to go up. Two years ago, my average was still in the $100s.
- How long have you been ‘into wine’: 8 years
I am 87 I am not buying any wine at this point. I have more wine than I could possibly drink. My wife and I are only having two glasses about twice a week. My children have little or no interest in wine. I will probably sell of about two thirds of my cellar this year.
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Way down in my buying.
The delta between cost of living exploding and the winery’s sales have unfortunately resulted in me buying a lot less. I’m on a few choice mailing lists still, but unfortunately rarely bought much in the last 2-3 years. And it’s a real problem, because my cellar is literally empty. I would love to go out there and pick out a nice wine for dinner, but it’s bare.
Right now, all I’m really maintaining is Beta. The others, like Ceritas, Bedrock, Ridge etc have had to stand back.
I hope I can get back into some of it by end of the year. Really miss having a diverse and well stocked small cellar.
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There are plenty of good reasons why producers want to keep pricing consistent, from maintaining revenue to paying staff and covering their costs. TBH, none of that really matters to the consumer. For many high-end producers, the model of having a captive list relied on consumers buying every vintage. Given current economic conditions, that model is beginning to unravel, and the next couple of years should be interesting.
Bordeaux went through a similar learning curve. After the stellar 1982 vintage and the very good 1983s, the Bordelais wanted to increase prices for the poor 1984s because they were trying to keep revenue constant. It took them another twenty years before they really learned to adjust prices to the quality of the vintage and market conditions.
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I have stuck to my same buying pattern for the last 15 years. I have a strict 12 case storage limit and though that restricts the amount of aging I can hold, it keeps me from going crazy on over buying. I generally turn over about half the cellar a year. There is always more to buy but only so much I can drink.
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I’ve reduced the size of my offsite cellar by 72% since 2020, and my home cellar by more than that. Still have more than enough to see me out.
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I’ve virtually stopped buying wines, except for replacing wines I buy for the short term like rosés and most whites. I am too old to buy wines for aging and I have too much to drink in my lifetime.
I buy fewer bottles, but bigger bottles (so to speak).
Have a better idea of what I really like, Still learning, always, but more focused I think. More white Burgs lately.
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It was supposed to be less this year…
Prolly the same