Futures

[Markus_S]

I originally started buying futures bc I like the process of aging wines and to lock in ones that may be cheaper now versus later.

Rhys futures won’t say you a dime, since they are priced the same as when they come out later, but the advantage there is that you can specify your bottle size, something many producers won’t do.

[Dennis_Borczon]

My suggestion is not to buy futures.

+1 Waste of time.

[John_S]

I know for many of “wine veterans” around here will say don’t bother with futures. Going back to my beginnings Bordeaux futures were a fun way to get involved early in a wine I liked. I secured some things I wanted and I felt like I was part of the action so to speak. Now I and many here no longer care about those things and many no longer care about Bordeaux. But I’d still suggest OP do what he finds enjoyable and can learn from and futures are part of that experience for most. And the best advice is to join a local wine groups and taste, taste, taste. That is by far the best way to learn while you build a cellar and tastes evolve.

[Gerhard_P]

Why not futures?

I stopped buying Bx futures after the 2000 vintage (with 1 exception, 6 bts of 2003).
Why?

1st the prices exploded (which seemes low today, but for 2005 in 2006 … ?!?)

2nd: Most (almost all with few exceptions) wines were/are still available years after release, and often at the same or even at lower prices, at least in the auction market. AND you can get most vintages (let´s say) from 1994 to 2004, which are close to maturity or soon will be, cheaper than the futures for 2015/16 …

3rd: the quantity of most Bordeaux Chateaux are huge … compared to some top-producers in Burgundy and Rhone Valley - 100-300.000 bts. against 2400, 1200, even 300 bts … so I decided to put my rare money into these instead … before they disapeared into cellers of geeks and never showed up again.

If I´d like to buy a certain Bordeaux today I could do that without great effort in a week or two - no problem for 99+% of the wines.
Sure there is the risk of proveniance, but (here in Europe) I rarely had issues with bad shipment so far.

Unless you want to order halves, magnums or bigger formats … or if you´d like to store the bottles yourself for 15-20 years I would not recommend to go into futures now …

[Gerhard_P]

I need to educate myself more on the typical times different wines can age. Any thoughts on a rough timeline list for a variety of wine?

This is a complex question because wine aging goodness is highly dependent on your subjective tastes/preferences. For example I’m drinking a 1996 Chablis tonight that I’m loving but many Chardonnay drinkers would not enjoy. Most premium European wine can age for decades if stored well.

Read my response above. My best advice is to buy older bottles and start drinking them.

For French wines only:
I know of no better French wine (excluded Muscadet, simple Bordeaux, Bourgogne, Beaujolais, Cotes-du-Rhone, Languedoc and other daily drinkers) that can not age and improve at least for 8-10 years … and in most cases for decades …
The really good wines NEED bottle age to show best.

For instance last Saturday I had a white Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1961 and a Chambertin GC 1982 that were simply wonderful …
that doesn´t mean they wouldn´t have been at least that good, maybe better, 10-20 years ago, but they fit perfectly to the food and were highly interesting …
and they were still fine!

[Howard_Cooper]

Domestic futures sold online?

What domestic futures are you buying that you plan to hold for 30 years?

Beyond Monte Bello, Montelena and a handful of others, what wines have this track record.

[James_Stolle]

I had the 2007 and enjoyed it quite a bit.

James, have you had mature Monte Bello previously? This is a wine that, like a lot of Bordeaux, many people find benefits from significant aging. 15-25 years or more. It may make sense to have a mature example to understand if it is a wine that resonates with you.

[James_Stolle]

At this point, monte bello, but otherwise I have only purchased bordeaux futures. Any suggestions?

Domestic futures sold online?

What domestic futures are you buying that you plan to hold for 30 years?

Beyond Monte Bello, Montelena and a handful of others, what wines have this track record.

[Sc0tt_F_tzgerald]

James, I’ll give you the advice that I received from a lot of the board members who have enjoyed wine over many decades:

1. Taste, taste, taste! You won’t know if you like it unless you try it first.
2. Source some older wines to see if you like them - lots of people on this board champion older wines, but you may not like them. Best to try first.
3. Diversify. Try and source wines from different regions and don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. Your tastes will change over time plus variety is the spice of life!
4. When in doubt, go with established producers which have a track record of good wines which age well. Lots of info on this board and the internet which will steer you in the right direction.
5. Read the notes, not the points. Lots of good details in CellarTracker and other websites - focus on how they’re describing the wine to see if it’s something worth exploring. While this never takes the place of actual tasting, it can help point you to styles you may enjoy.
6. Don’t rush. You’d be surprised at how much wine you can acquire in just a few years. Lots of stories from folks who bought heavily a certain style, vintage, etc., who wish they hadn’t.
7. Remember that high price doesn’t always equal high quality. Lots of values around the world which are great wines and age well, e.g. Loire Valley, Cru Beaujolais, Cali zins, etc.

Cheers!

[Paul_McCourt]

I am a fairly new wine collector. I like wine futures but I typically only get 1 to 2 every year. I am hoping for some help on making good decisions on which ones to purchase. My typical way is looking at scores but I am open to other methods of judging which futures to buy. My budget is typically $1000 plus or minus a few dollars. I am not fixed on 1 to 2 but I do like quality of quantity, any thoughts? Oh and I almost forgot, If it’s not a good year for futures, then other bottles to buy that are worth aging.

I’ve bought futures for a number of years. Learn more before you buy too much now.

Consider why you are doing this.
Do you even like aged wine? Find this out!
I started doing it to “collect”. There is nothing wrong with this, and I, like many others, still enjoy collecting wine. I don’t fuzz too much over the “value” of it, though I do pay attention to it. Enjoy the collecting aspect. It’s a guilty pleasure!
Some of what I bought early on I later found that it wasn’t as much of my cup of tea as others. I initially bought a lot of left bank, but have come to be more of a right bank guy. I now buy much more right bank on future. So, before going too deep in one direction, make sure it is what you like. (What I don’t do is get all upset over it, because for all I know, I could start leaning back the other way, as my tastes have moved around over the years somewhat. So take “what you like” with a grain of salt, cuz that can change) I would have been smarter to spread things around and go more gently until I had a better idea of what i liked.
I like futures because I can easily get lots of 375’s. I value this a bunch. This now represents most of my future purchases. Futures are great for size issues.
Don’t forget to take into consideration storage. It will become an issue and possibly a large expense.

[Ian_Sutton]

I need to educate myself more on the typical times different wines can age. Any thoughts on a rough timeline list for a variety of wine?

This is a complex question because wine aging goodness is highly dependent on your subjective tastes/preferences. For example I’m drinking a 1996 Chablis tonight that I’m loving but many Chardonnay drinkers would not enjoy. Most premium European wine can age for decades if stored well.

Read my response above. My best advice is to buy older bottles and start drinking them.

I’d agree this suggestion, and the variety is but one factor amongst many.

Most critics cheat, and I rather applaud them for doing so. They don’t taste a wine and think immediately it will be at peak between 2028 and 2033, or if they do then they’re almost certainly bluffing. Instead they look at how prior vintages under that label matured and what the typical range was. Let’s says that’s on average 14-20 years from vintage. They’ll then consider whether it’s a sturdier ‘vin de garde’ style, or a more approachable but lacking depth etc. The former might have them move the range up to 20-30, the latter down to 8-12. Very much a Bayesian approach if you’ve ever studied statistics.

So you could do the same by looking at a wine you are interested in, using Cellartracker. See what the comments were for prior vintages, how people describe them at 5, 10, 15, 20+ years old. Get a feel for the change in flavour profile. It’s not ‘accurate’, nothing is in our hobby (except for the grammar corrections ), but I’d say this is at least as good as any critic for giving you a feel for what you’re investing the cellar time in, and where the sweet spot sounds like. Then find out a little about the vintage and read the tasting notes already logged for that vintage. Are people suggesting it’s a long ager, or one for drinking younger? Let that guide the drinking window you pencil in. I say pencil in, because wine can surprise either way, so don’t feel overly bound by that drinking window, and use the ‘recent notes by others on your wines’ feature to keep tabs with what people are experiencing. Sometimes a couple of really positive notes are enough to inspire the opening of a bottle.

Regards
Ian

p.s. someone here did have a go at exactly the question you asked recently. I’m not sure how much traction the thread got, as the early responses IIRC were similar to what Rich said (and I agree with). Worth a look for it.

[Howard_Cooper]

At this point, monte bello, but otherwise I have only purchased bordeaux futures. Any suggestions?

Domestic futures sold online?

What domestic futures are you buying that you plan to hold for 30 years?

Beyond Monte Bello, Montelena and a handful of others, what wines have this track record.

To me, the two California wines that sell futures and have a long track record of making outstanding wines that age for a very long time are Monte Bello and Chateau Montelena.

Other wines like Dunn and Forman also have a long track record for aging well, although I have less experience with these wines, but I am not familiar with these wines being sold as futures.

[Howard_Cooper]

4. When in doubt, go with established producers which have a track record of good wines which age well.

I think this is a hugely important point. So many people want the latest and greatest winery - to be the guy who first identifies the next new thing. But, if you want to be safe when aging wines for a long time, you buy the classics - wines like Chateau Montelena and Ridge Monte Bello, like Montrose, Leoville las Cases, Leoville Barton, Ducru Beaucailloux, etc.

[Howard_Cooper]

Look for UGC Tastings - they happen in NY and SF, probably other places.

Great idea. I have not seen a listing of the tastings (dates and sites) for this December - February. Does anyone have the list?

For Burgundy, one should attend http://www.lapaulee.com/

[James_Stolle]

I had a Dunn Howell mountain recently that was excellent.

At this point, monte bello, but otherwise I have only purchased bordeaux futures. Any suggestions?

What domestic futures are you buying that you plan to hold for 30 years?

Beyond Monte Bello, Montelena and a handful of others, what wines have this track record.

To me, the two California wines that sell futures and have a long track record of making outstanding wines that age for a very long time are Monte Bello and Chateau Montelena.

Other wines like Dunn and Forman also have a long track record for aging well, although I have less experience with these wines, but I am not familiar with these wines being sold as futures.

[Mark_Golodetz]

I think the whole question of futures is interesting. 2015 and 2016 are the first time I have bought in bulk in twenty years, but I have been very specific, targeting properties which are both high in quality and low in output. Hence, most of my purchases are focussed on the Right Bank, and as my goal was partly a good return if nobody wanted to drink the wines, by definition I was looking for wines where I thought the price would increase. If you do decide to buy futures, those are the only wines you should focus on, because it makes no sense buying the wine now instead of two years from now or ten years from now at the same price.

[James_Stolle]

Any recommendations for right bank wine futures?

I think the whole question of futures is interesting. 2015 and 2016 are the first time I have bought in bulk in twenty years, but I have been very specific, targeting properties which are both high in quality and low in output. Hence, most of my purchases are focussed on the Right Bank, and as my goal was partly a good return if nobody wanted to drink the wines, by definition I was looking for wines where I thought the price would increase. If you do decide to buy futures, those are the only wines you should focus on, because it makes no sense buying the wine now instead of two years from now or ten years from now at the same price.

[Mark_Golodetz]

No surprises, but I am afraid a little more than your budget. My earlier advice to find a local wine group still holds. Before I got into he business, this was how I learned about wine. Apart from meeting people who will know more than you and will share their knowledge, it is simple maths. When you bring a bottle, you get to taste ten or twelve at the same time. Same principle, the person who suggested you get to a UGC tasting in January was spot on, again a chance to hone your palate. Tasting before you buy will save you a ton of money in the end.

So my top wines Vieux Chateau Certan, Trotanoy, Conseillante and Figeac with a smattering of Lafleurs and Cheval Blancs.

[James_Stolle]

I will try to find one in bend Oregon. Thanks. I’m probably going to up my budget as well

[Mark_Golodetz]

Local wine shops are a good place to start.

And start a thread asking for fellow wine lovers on this board; you never know