One of the best reasons for my maintaining small collection of 10-12 cases is that when I tire of something in my cellar, I will only have at most 6 bottles. I try and turn over half -2/3 each year. I overbought Turley Zins for awhile and had 3 cases. Killed my taste for Zins for about 5 years. Like others posted, I currently buy in smaller amounts. Right now I’m really enjoying sweet wines and sparkling from California.
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Idk, I’ve had some betas lately and they’re good if a bit young. I think you’d have to wait much longer for 08 champagne.
It’s OK to enjoy both.
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There’s just not that much wine made that you can’t find again, so I like the idea of selling it in tranches (given the softening auction market for many regions), freeing up some space (and wine $) and re-stocking at leisure.
Adds interest, makes you taste some new stuff and re-ignites the excitement. #winwinwin
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If storage space and wines getting over the hill are not an issue, I wouldn’t sweat it. Stuff you know for sure you don’t want can go on CC or to winebid(i.e). Others you can piece meal to charity auctions, gifts, wine dinners.
Personally I go through phases of what I really want to drink, and I also have friends that I know like some of the stuff I am currently less keen on. Finally (most) wine does change some in the bottle.
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Well, in this state of the wine market, I’d be selling low and buying high if I did it soon!
If you don’t like cult cabs, sell those for sure.
Don’t have any of those, really, unless Monte Bello is a ‘cult’ and I’m not selling those!
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Consider yourself fortunate! That said if you were sitting on cases and cases of Screagle, you’d have no problem trading into whatever suited your fancy at the moment.
I feel like the moral of the story here is if you build a solid cellar full of quality players and you fall out of love with some of the wine, you can always ship it to auction and buy something else. If you find yourself falling out of love with a bunch of stuff that you can hardly give away, then you probably stocked up on the shag carpet of wine.
I get immensely greater pleasure drinking champagne young than I do Napa cabs young.
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First, Todd–thanks for opening up about this and asking a very good question. There isn’t much I can add to Frank’s great thoughts (not surprising!), but maybe this.
Cheeky answer—that’s what cellar depressurization parties are for! Non-cheeky part…something to think about. You can still derive a type of pleasure from these bottles. The bottles that have become less enjoyable to you vis-a-vis a personal palate preference may still be really enjoyable to many of your friends. That still represents an opportunity to enjoy them, just in a different way.
Bit of a crazy idea on top of this—if you pour a couple wines in an evening, change up the combinations of those? Palate contrast may ignite some enjoyment? Just thinking (maybe not very well 
) out loud
Sante,
Mike
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Mike, I like this angle, and it’s one I have thought about before. Kind of a Falltacular-like strategy. Open up 20 bottles (or whatever amount marries well to the total attendance), and then ask people to make a donation to one specific charity. Todd could say, hey, if you want to attend, and I will provide all the wines from my cellar, and each person donates a specified amount to the charity that is selected. This takes all the shipping and buyer/seller headache out of this portion of the bottles and the end result is that someone else benefits, beyond just Todd and the guests.
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Weird, I have loved the 18 cabs I’ve had lately (myriad Elysian? Materium) and 08 Cristal (both colors) was completely and utterly shut down and didn’t open up at all in a couple hours.
There’s so much good advice and experience in this thread. Despite reorienting my buying a few times in the past, my cellar has hundreds of wines that I need to donate or send off to auction. My definition of experience is the ability to recognize my mistakes as I repeat them.
Decades ago, my brother gave me great advice about buying clothing. I wish I’d applied it to buying wine. “Don’t buy something you like a little because it’s a great price. Only buy things you love, regardless of price. Those are the clothes you will wear.”
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This also reminds me… I need to break up with my local wine club 
. They give me a 10% discount on other purchases, but I have zero interest in about 60% of the wines now that I’m a lot more selective.
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Once a year, I do a purge of my cellar and sell about 5 to 10% of things whose funds I can reallocate elsewhere. It is liberating and I have rarely regretting selling any of the wines. Winebid has been a great source for me.
Slight thread drift, but WineBid has come up in several recent threads. I’m a buyer, not yet a seller, but considering selling some. Here’s my question: does WineBid consign bottles previously won from WineBid auctions? Just curious.
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overly pedantic semantics, but dont think they buy anything? just consign?
Yah! Pedants! Good point.
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Yes, of course.
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