I can not taste every wine, closing in on year end reflections

WINE TALK
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That has been one of the biggest hurdles for me. I want to try everything. I can’t even try everything I want to try. I can’t even try everything that I want to try that I already own.

As we are coming to the end of the year, I have time on my hands so I can already think of this, I notice that my purchasing far outstripped my plans. All the while I am feverishly selling wine trying to bring some semblance of reason to the mass of bottles down there. It is, after all, an overwhelming mess though it is a thoroughly organized mess.

Age, diet, lifestyle changes have all taken a major toll on my consumption rates so what seems mildly excessive ten years ago, is exponential overkill today.

I should have bought 20% of the daily drinkers that I bought over the past 5 years. That’s where the cellar needs to take the greatest hit. Drinking less definitely means drinking better. With sunk costs, it’s all fungible, so I don’t hesitate to reach for solid mid or lower-upper range wines whenever I want a bottle.

On the flip side, the real gems are languishing. Wine is of course meant to be shared, but I moved away from the people who would appreciate the difference between these gems and nearly equally good but more less expensive contenders. So I rarely open them now.

I have a huge number of magnums, and for that I am most thankful. Other than Champagne and Chablis, I pretty much have stopped buying mags. We go through about a dozen mags of red a year now, that is down by almost 50% as the rest of the family has the same lifestyle realities that we do so consumption is down across the board, and they age slower and last longer, so we have a lifetime supply of fun there, but if I had it to do over I would have bought a few more. Strategically of course.

And the final point. My cellar is pretty well balanced, there’s a Bordeaux hole between 2005 and 2014 that I should have filled at the time, but I was busy and the time was a confusing one for Bordeaux, with not so much help from the media, so there it is. More pressing was a lack of appreciation for Rioja. I have “enough” but I would like to have more, especially at the prices they were available at.

Everything else looks good and by the end of the year I am hopeful that i won’t have a single bottle outside of the cellar, or not on a cellar rack, which would be a first for me in recorded history.

The goal for 2027? Sell some more and replace the whites and Champagne that we consume.

In 2028 maybe I can buy a little red wine again.

I can’t wait.

What about you?

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Some good musings, and it can be a strain to move away from what we want to buy, to what we should buy.

Like you, I’d rather drink fancier (not all that fancy in my case) wines with friends, but I’m also a firm believer in avoiding putting too many fancy wines together. Drinking them in the context of good solid everyday examples can help them show well, whereas in a lineup of fancy wines, it can all be about subtle differences, that can get obscured by the amount of alcohol we’ve drunk.

I did like buying ‘cellaring’ wines, and one upside of that, is the extended window of opportunity to drink them. We don’t have to rush it, but the days of “but nothing is ready” have gone now. FWIW I’ve been buying more everyday wines and much fewer fancy wines. I have enough of the latter, and rediscovering the joy of solid examples from less prestigious appellations, has aided my enjoyment. The fancy bottles are appreciated more, and I’m also enjoying plenty of the supposed lesser bottles.

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I agree with all of that. And I’m older than you and consume less.

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Universal truths!

I am going to have to sell faster if I want to stay ahead of my every decreasing consumption.

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I do still love the wonderful surprises daily drinkers offer. They have not been banished, but I definitely don’t need to be buying them by the case anymore.

I think that is one of the biggest lessons to learn about this hobby. Vintage is more fungible with everyday drinkers.

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I’m a much better collector than I am a drinker. Before wine, it was books:

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I think what you are bringing up is becoming more and more common as many on this board get older and come to the realization that:

a) They have enough wine stored away to last their entire life, their kids’ lives, and perhaps their grandkids’ lives as well.

b) Many are not drinking as much wine in as they did when they were younger and are therefore drinking ‘quality’ over ‘quality’ - with the caveat that many still hold on to way too many bottles that are meant for ‘just that right occasion’ - when the reality is that every day you are not 6 feet under IS a special daily worthy of celebrating

c) I’m seeing more and more folks shifting to a greater percentage of white wines and lighter red wines and away from the ‘bigger and heavier’ wines that have historically been the most in demand, at least here in the US

These are all factors in some of the challenges our industry is currently facing - and I think that many many wine drinkers are going to become ‘more picky’ in their buying decisions, and this will thin the herd so to speak . . .

One other thing to consider - at least for me - is that as I get older, I have a greater appreciation for each and every bottle - and therefore generally don’t go through a bunch at a setting anymore.

Cheers

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Very nice and thoughtful message…I love it !!

I was introduced to wines as a hobby by Mr. Parker and then learned more from Mr. Clive Coates for the enjoyment wines which I often share with friends …as the art of good living.

I did what you stated in the beginning of your post at the early part of my wine life…but luckily…I learned fast and adopted and changed my preference with all sorts of long-term plannings. At the end, I sincerely believe we only live once : so why face the full moon with an empty glass ?

Stay healthy, drink less, eat less and adjust…to your life styes …as we aged and matured !!!

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Buy wine you intend to drink. That is ultimately the best advice I can give. We absolutely can not chase every varietal and region. There’s WineBid or other auction sites for those holes in the collection.

Nothing wrong with grabbing a great bottle of wine whenever you want out of the cellar. The buying bug and chase is part of this journey but at some point we have to realize we’re either drinking it all, selling some or someone is dealing with it after we’re gone.

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I’m older. Have been on a trajectory of fewer bottles for maybe ten years now. Cellar is about half of what it was then. No regrets.
When I can I “re-stock” bottles that have been consistently good. Will also buy older bottles that are ready and I missed back then. And still can’t resist occasionally buying some younger wine e.g. 2019 Brunello.
Quantity of bottle purchases down while quality up. I never did drink enough for the amount I had so I look for opportunities to open with friends.
Not getting any younger so open the gems.
And those Magnums …. need to find a big enough group.

Pat

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I guess I buy more sturdy wines now. Bordeaux, Riesling, Italian, some rhones. And mix in great everyday cotes du Rhone and Loire. Chenin from the Loire is a great ready now drinker and also one you can lose in your cellar and still have it drink great.

Have also come to that point where buying old vintages is the better options versus young not ready to drink. Tho recent Bordeaux vintages seem to be trending to best of both worlds.

I stopped chasing high end burgundy and am at peace with that and will drink down my cellared bottles. Still some Chablis as substitute and lots of Beaujolais substitute and again Loire – Sancerre, Vouvray.

Have slowed Reisling purchases because try as I might I can’t get the wife to go there.

I also stare at my mags and 3 liters wondering if and when I will ever find enough folks who might enjoy.

And for those of you starting out. Never buy a 3 liter of Sauternes. It is beautiful and large and will end up at some charity auction. At the time I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

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I’m actually drinking more now that I’m retired. I drink (not always wine) 4-5 days in a week. If I don’t sleep well through the night, a nap the next day will solve that. Re: magnums, I have 5. In my various offline groups, a mag is overkill because everyone brings a bottle. I open one every two years or so.

I do have more wine than I think I’ll be able to drink. Part of that stems from helping with bottling at wineries. Get paid in cash and/or wine. Those opportunities are fewer now for various reasons. The issue is when I did take wine, I now have a lot of Pinot Noir from 2019-23. I’m concentrating more on drinking older wines. Even there, I have many wines that aren’t ready to drink. I just have to get over my bad self and open them anyway as they may not get to the ideal mature state before I can’t drink for one reason or another.

I’m only on one mailing list now because the winemaker is a friend and was before he started his winery. It’s a case a year so that’s not so terrible.

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This something I’ve been working on. It might be the only part of this that I’m getting better at.

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It’s just the way so many folks are wired - and the fear of it not meeting expectations . . .

Cheers

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I think I have put maybe six bottles into the cellar in the past two years. In that time period drank down about 250 bottles. Minimal interest in laying more down. Not worth the price (to me) and I need to allocate money elsewhere.

Most of my cellar is about ready or slightly past peak. Need to drink. I try not to look at stores online or walk into stores. If I do it’s mostly every day whites or rosés. Or a few bottles for my wife’s stash for when she takes a bottle to a friend’s place, etc.

Given this I have still managed to spend almost $5,000 on wine this year. I will admit that a sizable portion of this is when I bring wine for a weekend away and the friends like wine but what they consider good isn’t what I do. As the “wine guy” it’s my job to “impress” I guess. It’s become the expectation over the years. So I bring around six bottles that comes to about $250. That adds up (my wife is very social). Opening a really good bottle is not going to create a conversion moment for our friends, just not the case.

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Just get your behind back to the city more often, you punk. We’ll get through your bottles. :zany_face:

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What do you consider “putting wine into the cellar?” Do you mean that if you buy and don’t put into the physical storage place, it doesn’t count?

How many bottles have you actually purchased in the last two years?

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I say this most years, but at the pace in which I depleted my 1980s stock of Bordeaux this year - and as much as I love them - I need to backfill. Aggressively. Need more 1996 as well. The classic stuff.

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I seem to be in the same boat as many of you. I am 71, still love wine, but I am probably drinking less and better. I have too much wine and sold a bunch of wines last year - mostly wines that I thought I would never get to and that were just taking up room in my cellar. May do the same this year, but I think it is going to be harder to do this a second time as I got rid of most of the bottles last year that I did not care about.

My purchases this year have been pretty few. Bought some 2025 Falkenstein wines lately and have gone back and bought some older California wines from wineries like Mount Eden and Joseph Swan and even a bottle of 1978 Jordan Cabernet, but not buying much if any younger wines.

May buy some Mount Eden Chardonnay and some reds from Chandon des Briailles this fall, but not much else (ok, I am also interested in a half bottle or 2 of 2023 d’Yquem). But, nothing in big quantity.

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Just need to arrange more + regular wine dinners where you can taste 10-20 bottles in a sitting. If you do that once a week, at the end of the year you will have tasted several hundred bottles.