I remember that in order to boost my Champagne holdings in my cellar all I had to do was shift 50% of my wine budget to buying Champagne. Eventually over time it has grown to a level that seems to match my consumption level. It now accounts for about 15% of my cellar and is about 17% of my consumption.
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We diverge here. I work to connect consumption and cellar composition. My offsite storage is very expensive, and I’m no longer interested in buying and storing wine that I’m never going to drink. So, I churn my cellar constantly to better reflect what I drink and what I expect to drink.
In the language you quoted, I said “in a broad and general sense,” meaning not you or any one person in particular.
Got it. I read ‘your cellar’ to mean my cellar. I think your observation is accurate for the general membership here, especially those who are growing their collections. I’m at the point where I’m reducing my collection and focusing it on the wines I drink. People have a ‘drink by’ date, too!
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I’m in the 1000+ Champagne bottles column, but then 90% of my cellar is Champagne.
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Same here!
I’m likely going to try to reposition my cellar to more reflect what we drink too; I need to clear out a lot more village and 1er burgs, non-first growth bdx besides Palmer, non-Bouchard grower champagne, Rhone, and some Napa cabs.
Comtes is something you definitely want to buy in the original packaging. Virtually all of my 750 purchases prior to '08 are OCB without GB so they don’t take up much extra room. It seems as if they tried to justify the '08 price increase by including a gift box. My magnum purchases prior to '08 are also OCB, but some have GB which are unnecessary IMO.
15% of my champagne by number of bottles is large format and 27% by volume. 14% of the mags are vilmart!
Yeah, that would definitely be nice. I’m not sure how many 02 or 06 Comtes I even have left, probably a handful of bottles at most. I have something like 50 cases of 08 and a few cases of 12 and 13 (haven’t arrived yet).
319 bottles plus 3 pending
Yes, Champagne has been increasing steadily as a percent of my cellar as well. I’m surprised to see that it’s still only about 7%. In the last few years its made up about double that as a percent of consumption.
Conclusion: Buy more!
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by estimation 50%
~creeping to 200 bottles
a mistake in my opinion. With 20-30 years of age, they are hard to differentiate from grand cru and can blow you away—time and again.
Rough numbers.
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I haven’t had the same degree of success as you have with 1er, especially 90s era 1er from well-stored cellars. I also mostly drink champagne now and don’t drink that much anyways.