Tips on building a collection of wines to cellar

WINE TALK
21

I wish I would have started collecting Brunello and Barolo earlier.

If I were young, I would be raking a long, hard look at Barolo and Brunello right now.

Can’t taste everything before you buy, it’s impossible. So, look for a critic or two who calibrates with your palate. Also helps, when you do buy wine you can’t taste ahead of time, to try and make sure it’s one that you can pretty easily resell down the line, hopefully for a profit should you decide later you don’t care for it.

Keep an eye on Cellar Tracker. Biggest mistake I see guys making is they buy a wine that needs 15 years of aging, they drink too soon and can’t figure out why they aren’t bowled over. Give a wine every chance to succeed. Let it age properly, then stand it up a day before drinking, give it air, drink it with proper glassware at proper temperature.

Find and stock your cellar with stuff to drink while your other wines age so you won’t be tempted to dip into your long term agers before they’re ready.

Consider what you want to do with your wine. Are you looking for stuff to bring to a gathering of trophy wines, are you looking to pair it with food, do you drink it by itself?

If you’re looking to pair it with food, think about the types of cuisine you enjoy and then explore the wines that pair well. The types of wine that pair well with, say, Italian food might be different from what you might drink without food, etc. etc.

22

I think Bruce makes a really excellent point. Often times my social events revolve around a particular meal and I am looking in the cellar for wines that pair nicely, or I’m jointly trying to plan a food/wine event and my food preferences affect the wine choice indirectly. In any case it’s an important consideration.

In addition, I would recommend you start out collecting a broader number of varietals or regions than trying to really nail one down. You’ll run out of space and money before you can get all your bases covered. It’s easy to fall into this trap as you experience a particular varietal, learn about it and then want to try all the top producers in that genre, searching for the magic. There’s magic all around and if you keep tasting and experiencing new varietals and regions you’ll be less likely to feel jaded with a cellar full of wine that is now not as inspiring as it once was. Diversification is key in finance and can also be so in wine – not just in terms of your investments, but also your palate.

23

Here’s another tip.

Along with your special occasion wines, stock stuff for casual occasions, cocktail parties, and mid-week dinners.

In my opinion, nothing worse than an occasion that calls for a casual wine and all I have are wines that should be drunk with a special meal with people who can appreciate.

Don’t “waste” your best bottles on these types of occasions. In my opinion, you’ll either hijack the occasion with your wine, or you’ll be disappointed that your special wine isn’t getting attention and is probably being gulped down by someone who can’t tell your wine from Two Buck Chuck and who just wants some social lubrication, doesn’t matter as long as it’s liquid and contains alcohol.

Stock stuff between ten and twenty five dollars that you can serve on these occasions and that you can also be relatively happy to drink.

In my opinion, this is where real wine knowledge, graciousness, and creativity often come into play. Enjoy the challenge.

I notice you asked about vintages. I go both ways. There are some wines that I buy every year, but I only started doing that after quite a bit of experience with the producer. Even so, I still skip a vintage here and there and when I find a vintage I really enjoy – then I I stock up.

You can get better deals and often find very interesting wines in “off” vintages. A caveat from my previous post is this; if you’re buying a wine without having tasted and you buy multiple bottles, you want to have some assurance you can sell it later should you decide it is not to your liking. Wines from “off” vintages will be harder to sell later, so be careful. Having said that, there is usually no rush on wines from these vintages, so feel free to take your time and dabble, taste, and decide.

24

The advice is much appreciated (from everyone)! I just purchased some Brunello give my cellar a little more variety after the wine list I’m on sent out an offer for some. I’ve tried Brunello before and generally really enjoyed it so I’m excited to branch out a bit.

In general, I’m struggling a bit with balancing out the aging profile of the wines I’m laying down. Very few of the wines I’ve bought so far are going to be drinking in the next few years (most have drinking windows from 2020 although in the US some may prefer to drink them younger). As a result, would people prefer to buy already aged wines from years that are drinking now or soon (say 2001 Bordeaux) or new world wines such as Napa cabernets (just took a trip there) that are happily drinking 7-15 years from the vintage date depending on the wine?

I’m trying to drink more age worthy whites like Rieslings. I love white Burgundy but I would feel terrible if I put down some age worthy whites that are every bit as expensive as red Burgundy or fine Bordeaux and have it affected by premox.

The offsite I have can give you as much room as you want as in the UK the wine is stored in large bonded warehouses which you can’t visit as the duty has been paid on the wine. From reading other peoples’ postings it sounds like at most place you walk to your own offsite locker and can see your wines there. So really I’m just limited by my budget which still has some space this year.

Overall I’m not trying to invest in the wine. If it increases in value great, but if it stagnates or even falls in value, I can follow my original plan which is to drink the stuff. If the wine becomes more valuable I still want to drink it. Part of me just enjoys the process of collecting and learning (and collecting more)! I just don’t want to have to buy the same vintages of wine in 10 years that I could buy today for a much higher price.

25

The only other thinkg I would add is to remember that there is always more wine to buy, so don’t feel rushed to build your collection. The world is awash in wine, and another vintage is right around the corner. I would say my regrets on buying too much of a given wine outnumber my regrets on not buying enough by at least 5 to 1.

26

Great thread with some awesome useful advice here so far!

I have one piece of advice to add:

Since you are buying futures, ALWAYS be sure you make your futures purchases on a CREDIT CARD and never cash or check. There are many schemes out there with some bad apples in the business, so it is of utmost importance to protect yourself. With a credit card, you can at least make a claim on your card for non-delivery. For cash, you’re stuck with whatever the legal system will afford you!

Sorry to be so pragmatic and detract from the fun parts of collecting, but I thought it bore mentioning. Otherwise, just be sure you’re enjoying the wine and it remains fun. When wine becomes a source of stress, it’s no longer worth it.

27

Welcome Alexander!

  1. I wouldn’t lay down too much that I haven’t tried. 15 years from now you might have a cellar full of stuff you don’t like. You can do a little bit of that with stuff that needs age in order to properly determine - but I’d diversify it in case you guess wrong.

  2. Scores for me were useful when i just got into wine, and also when I wanted to explore new regions. Though websites like this and now CellarTracker are just as useful.

  3. Wonderful approach, I’d keep at it. Finding new producers and new regions is half the fun.

  4. I like what others have said about buying Brunello and Barolo now - though see item #1. I’d buy a little of this and that to lay down - Brunello prices are certainly very good right now.

  5. A good wine store relationship is nice - and can lead to getting some gems from time to time. Cherry picking online isn’t all that bad either - whatever works for you is the best approach. I wouldn’t pay a “noticeably” higher price just because I like the store owner.

  6. There is plenty of good stuff in the the weaker vintages, you just need to do a little more homework to find it. And when you do, it will probably have a good price on it. Those “vintages of the century” that happen every 3 years can be expensive.

28

Yep, too many scams and bankruptcies in that area.

29

My only piece of advice is to count on and expect palate shifts as you drink and experience more wine. What you like today you might not in five years. I used to have a bunch of Aussies, Spaniards, and Zinfandel, now I hardly have any and struggle to drink some of the wines I previously enjoyed. Now I focus on things that show a lot of balance regardless of their age.

30

This is a somewhat of a worry for me. I don’t really like overly fruit forward wines and normally I feel like people shift from more fruity and powerful wines to more balanced wines (as in your case). However, cellaring wine/ paying to store it for 15 years to find your palate has now shifted would suck.

So tough to keep in mind but I always try to tell myself this. I read an offer and think, man I have to have this, I’ll never be able to buy it again. Then you take a step back and realise that this is probably not the case. Still I have to fight the urge to make a questionable purchasing decision every time I see an offer.

Also thanks for the advice about buying futures from reputable sources with credit cards.

31

Since you mentioned Port. The best reviewer for Port would be Roy Hersh and all the Port lovers on the Forum at http://www.FTLOP.com (and he posts here as well)
disclaimer: I am the forum moderator and write guest articles for Roy at his site. But it is the go-to place for Port/Madeira/Portuguese wines.

32

Easiest advice… just don’t do it. Sooooo much $$$ and time spent on wines that I learned about from this site. I think what else I could have done with that money. Ugh. Sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.

Kidding, kind of. Good luck!

33

This is what I would suggest. Buy California Cabs from the early and mid-nineties. They are drinking wonderfully right now and outside of the cult producers, you can find some really nice wine for a pretty good price. I’m thinking about stuff like Chateau Montelena Estate, Beringer Private Reserve, Anderson’s Conn Valley Reserve, Ridge Monte Bello. Everything is relative when it comes to cost, but in comparison to Bordeaux, IMO, you won’t touch the quality and drinkability unless you spend considerably more.

From reading other peoples’ postings it sounds like at most place you walk to your own offsite locker

I have a temperature controlled wine cellar in my home.

Overall I’m not trying to invest in the wine. If it increases in value great, but if it stagnates or even falls in value, I can follow my original plan which is to drink the stuff. If the wine becomes more valuable I still want to drink it.

I never set out to “invest” in wine. I always buy wine with the intention of drinking it. But, I have bought wine and held it only to later find my palate has shifted and I want to liquidate some of what I’ve bought in order to buy something new that I am enjoying. I’m always happier when it is easier to sell and when I can even sell for a profit than when I am stuck with the wine I no longer like because there is no market for it.

I have also bought wine and then seen its price skyrocket to the point where I will sell it to finance the purchase of a lot more wine. As you get into this, IMO, you get better at spotting values. Personally, I have a hard time sitting on a wine that could sell for a couple thousand per bottle when I know I can sell that wine and reinvest the money into three or four cases of wine that I know will be just as good.

So, I am not recommending that you invest in wine, I am recommending that you hedge your bets a little when you purchase multiples of a wine you haven’t tasted. Give the wine every chance to impress you, but down the road when you try it, you may find that it is made in a style you do not prefer, that your palate has changed, or that you got too excited during that phase and now you’re overloaded in one kind of wine and you’d like to diversify your cellar.

In those cases, you’ll feel better if you had the foresight to make sure your blind purchases are wines that you can move later on should any of these things happen. Of course, you can’t always do that, just sayin’…

34

Another thing you’ll learn about various vintages is that some are “early drinking” vintages, some will drink early and still age, while others shouldn’t be consumed until they have had significant cellar time.

Sometimes the critics “punish” a wine or vintage for its perceived failure to age a long time.

If you’re looking for both a bargain and early drinking wine, these vintages can be a boon to you while you’re waiting for your long agers to round into form.

Of course, if you have the money for it and you can find well stored bottles, buying aged wine is a fantastic way to get great wine that is drinkable today.

When it comes to Bordeaux, IMO, there are incredible inefficiencies in the market.

Here’s an example;

Chateau Palmer. You can get a bottle of 2009 for around $300 per bottle or a bottle of 1983 for around $350 per bottle.

The 1983 is an incredible bottle of wine and you don’t have to wait 30 years to see if this vintage is going to age well. It has proven itself.

Both wines are rated similarly by critics, but the hype around 2009 has inflated the price to where you can pay $50 more and get a bottle that is
drinking well right now and will hold for another 10 years or more.

You’re basically paying around $50 more than you’d pay for 2009. If you think about it a certain way, it works out to $50 for thirty years of storage.