I had a very ancient/old friend in Paris who at 92 found his apartment broken into and several of his paintings (Picasso, Monet, Mannet, and some beautiful Renaissance pieces) were stolen. When I ask him if he was sad he said “well yes, but what I am most sad about is that they will not love them as much as I loved them”). Josh I am in your camp…I will continue to buy BUT in the end whoever gets them it is my hope they will love them as much as I did!
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I find myself identifying very strongly with a lot of the posts in this thread and have been trying to convince myself that I need to stop buying. I’m 56 and have enough wine to last 30+ years at current consumption rates. I’m probably done buying red Burgundy, partly due to cost, partly due to plenty of inventory. I’m definitely done buying “everyday drinkers”. I’ve found with a cellar that now has plenty of wines in their optimal drinking window (and far more than enough total wine), my definition of an everyday drinker has migrated- 1er Cru red burgs with 15+ years of age are now weeknight wines in our house. I am, however, still very much enjoying exploring the world of Riesling, and will continue to buy from my favorite producers. I prefer my Champagne on the younger side and will need to continue to buy Champagne.
Who am I kidding? 
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Almost there but not quite. Just retired at 65. Looking at my cellar I realized I had some holes I wanted to fill. Due to my tastes somewhat changing over the years. I plan on adding mostly Pinot and Champagne to my cellar over the next 3 to 5 years and then just occasionally adding from my family producers
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Currently consuming just 3-5 bottles/month from my cellar. For the first time, am paying for offsite storage. Haven’t been to the offsite in months. Buying is probably down 80% from 5 years ago. Buying mostly champagne of late but the way prices have gone the last year or so, guess I’ll be cutting back there too.
You are welcome to help me drink down Pinot stocks!
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For those of you who are “done” or near done, any regrets or things you would’ve done differently early in your collecting?
I’m in my 30’s and still accumulating, but after 8 years of this fun hobby I have noticed that 1) I don’t drink wine with enough frequency to keep a cellar my size (roughly 1k bottles) while continuing to accumulate at the pace I’ve been going, and 2) I need to diversify a little more. While I’ve been sucked into German wines, which I adore and make up roughly two-thirds of my collection, I feel like I may need to hit the breaks a little as there are times when I’d rather have a different wine or the food we’re eating doesn’t really work with riesling.
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I bought a lot of Napa cab thinking it would turn into Bordeaux after 10-20 years. Oops.
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The #1 one thing I would have done was buy more higher-end bottles. Spend the same overall but increased the average bottle price and reduce the total amount of wines in my cellar. You can always buy daily drinkers.
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concentrated on premier cru burgundy and not chased so many grand cru cherries. As they age, premier cru approaches grand in quality at a fraction of the price. Now I have a bunch of wine I can’t afford to drink, though I could sell and buy PC wines.
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52 and my main piece of advice is discipline/patience. As others have noted upthread, drinking a perfectly cellared bottle that you acquired on release 20 years earlier is a singular joy. At one point in the mid 00s I had over 1k bottles and was way too heavy on the over the top, big scale New World wines and realized that I didn’t really enjoy them that much. So I sold off all of those in 2009 and refocused on what I had learned I really loved: Piedmont, Mosel Riesling, Northern Rhone, Chablis. So a lesson there is that you can always recalibrate and adjust. It’s nearly impossible to ‘get it right’ from the beginning of the journey.
Along the way I discovered what I think of as the new wave of the west coast: Bedrock, Enfield, Dirty&Rowdy, Desire Lines, etc and that brought some New World wines back into the fold. I’m not done but my purchases have tapered off considerably. I still buy nearly every release from the aforementioned mailing lists, and fill in Champagne where needed, but I’m not gonna go deep on a new Piedmont or Bdx vintage again probably…ever?
At one time, Riesling was 60% of my cellar. It’s now down to about 33%, which is just right as far as I am concerned. Granted that happened because I bought way more of other stuff while still buying some Riesling, but it’s better balance. Overall I think I would have just balanced the buying more from the start, as I probably would have been happy with a smaller cellar if I had done that.
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I wish I would have skipped the Bordeaux phase of my collecting lifetime. I know a whole lot about Bordeaux from the 1980’s, but I missed at least a decade of beginning to collect what I truly love in red wine, which would be Burgundy and the Piedmont.
Also, some other thoughts, which have all probably already been mentioned. Realize that as you age, what you eat is likely going to change significantly, and most folks evolve towards more and more whites and champagne, and far fewer hefty reds. You already have a good head start on this with your german collection. (For me I still drink plenty of pinot noir/burgundy, Barbaresco, and Barolo, but Bordeaux and Bordeaux blends are mostly out.)
Try to be honest with yourself and decide what kind of a collector/drinker you are. Are you someone who is truly excited to be able to pull out the top of the line–a first growth Bordeaux, grand cru Burgundy–with a little less concern perhaps about cost, or what’s actually in the bottle. Great–then go for it and be sure you find some of these while you can.
But if you don’t care quite as much about what’s on the label, tend to be immensely pleased with a QPR village or premier cru that was a bit under the radar, then pursue this with a vengeance and quit even thinking about grand crus.
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I don’t know John. There’s also the concept that people go for bigger and bolder as they got older and their gustatory and olfactory sensitivities diminish.
I don’t think there’s a reliable rule of thumb here.
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I opened a mending wall petit Sirah for my mother in law which she called thin and tasteless…
Not sure about this, seems like you made a good decision as things turned out, and in the alternative universe where GC didn’t explode in value I’m not sure you’d be upset that you have the GC either.
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This, and also don’t buy into the “vintage of the century” hype. They seem to come around every few years.
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Same for me.
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It’s a fascinating thing, palate change. I find I am less and less ‘big bold’ tolerant as I get older.
André Tchelistcheff’s comment on sex and age seems to fit my palate, as well!
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Careful with that corkscrew, Anton!
Me too, but we’re not really “old” yet. Getting older, maybe even mature (my wife would beg to differ). But never old, which is defined in our household as at least 5-10 years older than our current age.
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