At what age did you start seriously buying/collecting wine?

WINE TALK
61

I started collecting 7-8 years ago. I couldn’t imagine a better time to collect wines. Sure I cannot afford all the blue-chip wines or the top estates in most of the popular areas. But I don’t really care. I have access to 1000s of top quality wines from all around the world directly on my phone.

I think collecting is just different now. With easy access to information, the world of wine collectors has gone full FOMO. So what you like and can buy now, might not be available tomorrow. When you accept that, I think the availability outweighs the issue.

I got to drink Rayas a few times before prices became crazy. That was fun. I can live without it now. I got to drink the best of the best in Jura. That was fun and luckily I own a lot, but I buy less now. I got a cellar full of Wasenhaus, but with the popularity on those they probably won’t be available to me in a year or two. But then I will just buy more Makalié and Lassak. I’ve tasted some of the best from Barolo and Northern Rhone. I’ve found other wines in those areas that I love, that are still under the radar somewhat. And then there are all the amazing wines that you can find outside the popular regions/countries…

It requires a bit of effort now to stay updated. But if you put in that effort, then you can aquire an amazing collection, with a lot of variation, without being some rich dude.

8 Likes
62

I do tend to accumulate things I’m interested in. I’m about ready to move on though, lol

1 Like
63

At that time, Bordeaux was a lot cheaper and there were many fewer wineries making good wine. I agree that the 1970 Lafite was very much a disappointment and the 1970 Ausone was even worse.

But, the producers making good wine at the time made great wines in 1970. I have had a 1970 Lynch Bages, for example, right next to a 1982, and preferred the 1970 (this was five years ago or so). Have loved Latour (as you did), Palmer (which is fabulous), Leoville Barton, Leoville Poyferre, Montrose, Haut Brion, Cheval Blanc, and a number of others. Certainly not the long list of producers that there would be today, but for the time it was a fabulous vintage.

64

I was going to add '70 Palmer as well.

The '70 Pichon-Lalande was lovely back in the '80s. I don’t think I’ve had one since. I don’t think it was garbage.

65

Wow, Pietros! A part of my childhood, for sure. Went there a lot with my folks when I was a little kid, and a couple of my friends worked there in high school too so we’d hang out.

66

I just started last year at 32. Wine was something I always liked but didn’t want to dedicate the time to learn more about, so I usually stuck to spirits and cocktails even at fine dining establishments. My parents were not drinkers though my dad would order blue chip BDX wines at his birthday dinners. It wasn’t until I got into coffee actually that I developed an interest. I alao knew that it would be a slippery slope and I tend to get obsessive about hobbies, and I was right :sweat_smile:.

However, I feel very much not the norm in my age group. Both because I work in tech and have the privilege of the lifestyle that comes with it, and also because wine isn’t really trendy now (other than natty wines). It seems like a good time to get into wine from a cost perspective, as I imagine the pendulum will swing back among millennials and gen z one day.

6 Likes
67

Nice post.

I think collecting is different in each era, but I doubt any one is better or worse than any other. Kind of like the 80s Lakers and Celtics were not “better” than the 90s Bulls or the Warriors/Heat/Spurs more recently.

Regardless of era, if you are willing to look, there are phenomenal wines to buy, lay down, and enjoy. It can be expensive but it doesn’t have to be.

in the 90s, when I started collecting, there were literally thousands of wines to choose from and it was a sensory overload to try and sort out what to choose. Today there is so much more information about the wines that is so easily available, and many, many lovely wines that are still within a reasonably modest budget, if you go looking.

Because of FOMO and the ease of finding information, I feel like some you have to have a good back up plan for your favorite producers today, like Wasenhaus or Lassaigne(at least in Oregon), but that’s not really different from the 90s. Back then a producer (or importer) may not have shifted prices up so quickly, but popular wines disappeared very quickly and often never really showed up again (Clos de Cistes, Leonetti, and Vatan in Oregon).

I feel like we had similar beginnings and I feel like I was lucky with some of my experiences in the same way you were with the Jura as a region.

1 Like
68

I remember Benjamin’s well. It was basically across the street from where I worked, so we use to go there a lot. I knew Bob Liner from his time at Strohecker’s, and followed him to Liner and Elsen. I helped him out several times by making sizeable amounts of wine go away with no one the wiser. I bought a lot of wine there. In fact, I used to have a deal with him where I got wholesale +10% on whatever I bought. By then I was pretty into the wine thing.

My interest started when I was in college. My Dad got transferred to Paris for several months, and my folks, who didn’t touch wine before, came back from that adventure much more into wine. At the start of my money market career, I got wined and dined a lot by securities firms. The New Yorkers who were taking me to dinner would look at the restaurant prices, decide that the prices were too low to be credible, and order the most expensive wines on the list. I drank a lot of Batard Montrachet and Corton Charlemange that wasn’t nearly ready to drink. I would buy wine occasionally, but once we bought a house I bought more frequently. I made my first case purchase when I was 28 (1979 Ponzi Reserve Pinot), and branched in White Burgundy shortly after that (1982 Fevre Preuses). Oregon wine was starting to become something, so I did a lot of local touring and tasting.

1 Like
69

Given the high prices, and Nordic thirst and ambition to get as drunk as possible I think 95% used to (hopefully a lower % these days) use the logical thinking of maximizing alcohol for the bucks. A few bad experiences and certain memorable (usually in a negative sense) experience had you eliminating certain beverages among the options, in my case tequila.

My interest in alcoholic beverages other than in a more true berserker Viking fashion started with beer after moving to Amsterdam. I then realized that I completely had bought the marketing that commercial beers like Heineken were the best. The exposure to real German (Alt bier please) and Belgian beers was quite an awakening. The latter also opened my eyes to the importance of glasses for the taste.

My intrest for wines was nurtured through business dinners when I used to travel across Europe quite a bit. Around thirty I really started to get into wines, trying and exploring quite a bit. A smaller collection started to accumulate and two years later or so it started to expand relatively fast.

1 Like
70

This is what makes collecting fun. I can no longer buy many of the wines I bought 10-15 years ago, but somehow I continue to buy way more wine than I need every year.

1 Like
71

I started buying and taking wine seriously early, around 20. But due to a variety of factors, I didn’t start collecting for over another decade. I moved a lot in my 20s, was a broke grad student, and then was a pretty close to broke professor/writer/editor. I’d still find ways to have good wine here and there, but I never had the space or extra cash to buy seriously or collect. Once I moved back to the States and made a career pivot, those things became possible.

1 Like
72

Here’s another story:

In 1962, the summer I was 15, I went to Spain by myself. Drank more wine than beer, but still knew absolutely nothing about it.
In 1963, the summer I was 16, me and friends bought a used Volkswagen bus and drove to Mexico. The night we were in New Orleans, we went to one of the great classic restaurants (Commander’s, Brennan’s, Galatoire, I don’t remember). We were seated and I ordered the wine, because my friends drank rum or beer. When the waiter brought the wine and poured me a sip, I had the presence of mind to stub out my unfiltered Camel and take a gulp of water before tasting.
Boom! All of a sudden, we were Honored Guests. Little tastes of things started appearing at the table, sips of fabulous wines left behind in bottles by other patrons, solicitous requests for comments on the food and wines.

It just depends.

Dan Kravitz

1 Like
73

Growing up, alcohol was only served in my house when my parents hosted a party. In HS and college, I didn’t like beer or most liquor or most wine. I started waiting tables my junior year and grew to love the ritual of selecting the wine to pair with the food, presenting and opening the bottle, etc. Still didn’t like most of the stuff though. At the time I drank mostly water and Dr. Pepper so I’m sure that sweet tooth didn’t help. One Saturday the whole wait staff had to go in early in the afternoon (we weren’t open for lunch) so the distriubtor’s rep could taste us on the whole wine list and give us pointers for pairing tips for the guests. The wine list was probably 5 reds, 4 whites, and 1 pink, plus the jug wine btg house wines behind the bar. I loved the white zin - obviously it had the most in common with the soda I was used to drinking. I thought the cabernet sauvignon was the worst wine on the list - way too bitter for me. Knowing about wine getting better with age (and loving the romance of all that), and knowing we were a “nice” restaurant, I bought a bottle of our white zin, which was available at the supermarket for probably $4 (This would be 1987, give or take) to age (no I don’t still have it).

Stopped waiting tables so back to drinking mostly Dr. Pepper during law school. Once I started working, within a year or so I started working on a big case with a couple of winos, one of whom had been buying Bordeaux since the '50s and who had been the other’s wine mentor. Lots of travel on that case, and pretty soon I’d had an ‘85 Talbot at a hotel restaurant in KC and then a Ridge Montebello (I forget the vintage) at Bern’s and it was off to the races. Somewhere in there, Morley Safer came along and told us red wine was health food, and that didnt’ hurt either.

My SOP was to go to the local shop, which offered 10% off on mixed cases, and buy a mixed case. All red. 11 bottles with a max of $5 (stuff like Monte Antico, Marietta OVR, Borsao, etc.) and then 1 bottle for the cellar (which was a couple of cardboard cases under the stairs in the basement) - hopefully $20 or less with a WS score of 90 or more (that’s all you need to know, right?). When the 11 bottles ran out, back to the store, rinse, and repeat.

I do have the collector/obsessive gene so at the same time I was reading stuff like Zraly’s book, subscribing to WS, and so forth. Then one day, my new issue of WS arrived and for the first time it said “www.winespectator.com” on the cover. Figuring that was this “internet” thing Katie and Bryant were talking about, I checked it out, found the discussion forum, and, well, you all know what happens then.

So I was “collecting” almost as soon as I was “drinking,” which started in my late 20s, but of course my collecting was on a much smaller scale when I was just starting my career and we had kids in day care than it became later.

1 Like
74

I was a late bloomer. While I enjoyed having wine with my meal at restaurants we rarely had anything at home that was very appealing. I didn’t really get serious about wine or start cellaring it until my late 40s. Based on my 1,600+ bottle collection and overflowing cellar I guess I made up for lost time.

3 Likes
75

This is a great thread.

2 Likes
76

My parents didn’t drink much, a little (very) Cold Duck at holiday meals, no beer in the house except when they hosted a barbecue. I drank a little wine at parties in college, but frankly I drank whatever was provided. I think I’ve mentioned there was a local shop that advertised in the college paper “From Asiago to Zinfandel, all of your party needs”. So, I assumed Zinfandel was a cheese until I moved to California for grad school and, to my surprise, I saw it was offered at the Buena Vista tasting room.

From winery visits, I developed an interest and bought a couple of books (studious type) and started going to wine shop tastings. I had roughly 16 cases of wine when I left grad school, started accumulating those bottles probably around mid 20s plus or minus, despite having very little income. Was able to buy some pretty nice wines given the pricing at the time.

-Al

1 Like
77

I started getting interested right after I graduated from college in 1976. Around that time, a wine shop opened in Berkeley. It was within walking distance from my job so I’d go there at lunch and after work. In 1979, I joined their tasting group. I was 24 or 25. The collecting bug started then. I took my first wine-related vacation to France in 1983.

78

Ages 18-21 aren’t listed. I purchased my first bottle of Chateau Yquem and Haut Brion when I was 18. I had read Frank Schoonmaker’s and Alexis Lichine’s books cover to cover by then.

1 Like
79

American poll! :laughing:

2 Likes
80

Just about age 29 (am now 32).
I think it’s a fairly interesting question for me to think about. It all started somewhere around the time I was leaving Amsterdam and heading towards Korea. At first I think it was plainly because I was trying a lot of new things, but as soon as I moved to Korea it became a reaction to the prices, and my general abstention of good wines here and so the buying really intensified. At the moment I could wonder a little if it makes sense to collect much more when I only get to drink 30 bottles from my cellar a year.

On a side note on the value of collecting to me and my feelings about it;
I’m not a millionaire, but I feel with the right focus and curiosity you can drink almost just as well as people with bottomless pockets, and even that is not the main point for me. The main point is the hunt, the thrill, and the ability to pull something out of the cellar or pick something out of a menu that I know will please the people I drink with.

6 Likes