I’m scooping up 1989 & 1990 Produttori Riservas. If any of you have some, let me know. Missing 1989 Pora, Ovello, and 1990 Rabaja.
I’ve had success with 80s Calera Selleck recently. I recommend Hanzell late 70s/80s as well.
Sojourn
Arcadian
ARterberry Maresh (OR)
Williams-Selyem
-some of these all on sale on WineBid. W-S 30th Anniversary is great but expensive.
If you like cabs, an abundance of good stuff on WB including our own EMH and Hobel. I collect these so I’m a bit biased. Lots of fairly reliable cabs on WineBid pretty much all the time…
2004, 2008, & 2012 Piedmont
2003 Mosel
2000 & 2004 Bordeaux
Whatever Burgundy/Piedmont/N. Rhone/Champagne/Old Cali Cab/German Riesling is of good value.
Since I thought I was too old to keep buying new release Red Burgundy…that is, until the actuarial table said I would live to 96…I have backfilled 93/96/99/01/02 just to keep my hand in the Burg buying game. Already have too many of the 05”s and 10”s to backfill those
‘93 Burgundy
I love the 93’s…probably my favorite vintage of wines that are at or nearing being ready to drink. They are harder to find for backfilling in recent years, and I have had a few that I bought through backfilling where the wines’ provenance may have not been stellar. For similar reasons I have been afraid to go back into the 80’s or farther as I worry that the wines, at high prices, may been even more chancy as to their condition. And, aside from provenance issues, and this is just an isolated observation, but I love Chevillon, whose 93’s are sometimes found at reasonable prices, but after coming across a number of corked bottles I have shied away from backfilling those…I think they must have had cork problems in 93.
I have a case of ‘93 Chevillon Vaucrains, opened 3 bottles so far, so far so good in terms of cork problems but the wine still shows elevated acidity to be really of an excellent wine. Here is hoping the acidity will level off eventually.
+1 + Bordeaux + Loire. Only hipsters buy old Bordeaux, so I understand why it’s not on your list, Charlie.
Thomas wines - 2010 thru 2015
Ok it’s a year later and I wonder how I did. What did I actually backfill?
White - roughly half of my purchases were backfills (back vintage White Burgs primarily, though some Rieslings as well). A quarter were either drink now bottles, or new things I wanted to try. A quarter were new release bottles that went into storage. Not bad!
Red -
- Bordeaux - 100% backfull. Yay! That was my plan.
- Burgundy - 0% backfill. Boo! Backfilling red Burgundy is hard. Adjusting things for this year. But I also decided to go pretty deep on 2015, so that caught most of my red Burg budget.
- Piedmont (Barolo and Barbaresco) - 50% backfill. Not bad. Again, 2013 was a great vintage so I went a bit deeper than usual. But I’m still adding to the cellar fairly widely across vintages. My 2004 Barolo collection grew the most after 2013s.
- California - 55% backfill. Decent.
Nearly all the California backfill bottles were consumed last year as well as purchased. This is very different from Bordeaux and Piedmont, in which few (less than 25%) of the backfill bottles were consumed. Makes sense since I just have very few older bottles (i.e. pre-2012) from California in my cellar.
For 2018 my plan is about 50/50 new release/backfill. Hopefully I can find some reasonable deals on older Burgundy – no small challenge! Otherwise I look to keep backfilling all the areas I like, while dabbling in new vintages (except Bordeaux). Overall buying less though. We’ll see!
Thank god no one is competing with my back fill needs. Haha
pre-2007 Bruno Giacosa
Bordeaux 82, 86, 88, 90, 96
Champagne 02, 06
Having a lot of fun with it too!
Might be a surprise to some but mostly older Bordeaux. I went through a long period of not buying any since I found it overpriced relative to Burgundy so my cellar is weak in that area. The price ratio has, of course, changed big time since 2005.