Its always a changing goal post.
When you start and have only 250 bottles in the cellar - the concept of 2500 bottles seems huge. When you eventually acquire 2500 bottles then that figure per se becomes the norm and only upwards of 10,000 starts to look big.
That can be said of any material acquisition.
Nerd . . . .
I am starting to see that some of YOU people have issues. Lol.
You don’t even need the bacon. Worst guard dog ever. Walk over, scratch on the noggin, grab the wine, off you go.
What was Carlin’s line? Anyone who drives slower than I do is an idiot, and anyone who drives faster is an asshole.
Just to show Jeb he ain’t all that, this is my office on Friday while the Chairman was walking around for compensation reviews. . . . At least I had something for him to drink, while standing.
And the dogs don’t care.
If you see yourself one day stop buying for at least two years and still have more than enough to pick and choose over a two year period- that’s sufficiently big. I believe that for me, its there (though maybe diversity of the cellar is an issue). 1,000 is too large for me. 500 is certainly large for me. Below 500 is easily my personal comfort zone (aka, below 40 cases)
I’m approaching 1800 bottles after BDVII. I love aged wines, and have been buying wines and putting them away since the early 90s. As my tastes have changed, I’ve sold off some, but always have approx 80% of my cellar aging. I’ve realized that if I decide to move, I’m going to have to drink down my inventory, and find a house with either an underground basement like I have now, or a real wine cellar. I voted for 5,000 because that seems huge to me.
This is true.
Was Summer of 42 based upon you?
To me when some asks for a quantification on an adjective I define the accompanying adjectives/ranks in the range. In this case I would guess it should go small, medium, large, extra large. I might even toss a “very small” at the bottom end of the spectrum. So “large” is not the max category and has two categories below it. To me then, large would be 1000-2500.
So the two grey rectangles on their ends by the wall . . . Lebanese Blonde?
Love the pic of the goldens! Now that ours is a young adult, my wife has been hounding me for another. Maybe, if I can move up to a large cellar - 2500 bottles. 
For myself, I feel pretty good at around 500, but I don’t consider that “big” (though my wife certainly does, and we had a conversation about this very thing just yesterday…). My recent purchases including BD and a slew of stuff on our Napa trip has pushed me up close to 600, so I need to pump the brakes a little bit. It definitely is a function of consumption rate. We don’t entertain very often, and we generally only drink Fri-Sun, so we don’t go through our stash very fast.
Trade offs make a marriage work! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
I voted for 2500 being big. Bigger is better, right? I just can’t see myself going that large though unless we came into serious money. Crazy is when it gets into 10,000+ territory.
I would think 10,000+ is a good size cellar and 25,000+ is large. First question is to determine what the cellar is comprised of. DRC/Leroy 5000 bottles is huge. My cellar holds 4500+ bottles and at one point, with offsite storage had over 7500 bottles. Thankful for auctions, charity donations and friends, (primarily auctions) I am down to maybe 750-1000 bottles, more than I could ever drink while I am still here. Fortunately, my two kids love wine and both have great palates.
I went with 5,000 because I think it is a milestone. And since I am at 700 now, 1,000 doesn’t seem like a big deal.
Sincere appreciation for noting my post about finding the wooden box. There are a few points I should add:
I do not have a temperature controlled cellar. Rather a family room downstairs in our townhouse that my wife allowed me to take over. There is a restaurant called Osteria La Fontanina in Verona http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Restaurant/VERONA-37129-Osteria_la_Fontanina-157107-41102 which is a small house but has incredible wine themed ambience: it is almost a temple to wine. From wallpaper to wooden boxes to oversize bottles the candle lit room has an antiquely ambience. Perhaps decades of collecting-and drinking-have led to an accumulation of incredible figurines, paintings, signs and odds and ends that tables are encircled by, perhaps even underneath or almost on top of.
I had dinner for the first time in the '90’s (I am a retired salesman who sold in Europe and the U. S.) and left feeling that I loved their dining room as much as any room I had been in. I felt at home surrounded by so much character.
My wife puts up with a lot and I moved two Eurocaves and shelving for 400 or so bottles into a room with a fireplace. There was also an empty closet (!). Over the next twenty years I have bought a lot of odds and ends-they are all somewhere in this room. It is not large, our house is not large. But, like Osteria Fontanina, it has character.
For years I brought back wine from Italy and France and Germany and Spain and Washington and the Okanagan and Santa Barbara and Paris…Paris, Virginia. (A lot of this was a reward for 30 years of being away from home.) I ran out of shelving space, filled the closet and that limited me. Coincidentally I also retired so the timing was excellent-I needed to start drinking this down.
And, I needed to consider a budget.
To be honest I remember Solaia for 90,000 lira at an enoteca off of the Via Indenpendenza in Bologna. Dal Forno Valpolicella for E 35 just inside of the walls of Soave, Pescara for the US equivalent of $12 outside of Barcelona. And, I could carry as many bottles as I could lift in my baggage on the plane home.
Those prices no longer exist. And, I can no longer carry any bottles in my on board baggage.
A good, frugal time to drink down.
For anyone reading this, if you are ever in Verona the Michelin starred restaurant is an extraordinary experience. If you go you may be inspired to have a room like it in your own house.
http://www.ristorantelafontanina.com/ is the restaurant’s website which has a number of photos of their extraordinary ambience. Please click on their “gallery.”
100 is big. For most people anything more than that is inconceivable (cue Wallace Shawn.)
I think the correct formula is actually N+1, where N is the number of bottles you have on hand and order.
Anyway, it’s subjective but it does amaze me that someone might have a cellar of 5000+ bottles, as I can’t conceive of drinking that many in the remainder of my life (even with generous sharing at meals), not to mention additional bottles purchased in the coming years.
Of course, if you throw large parties frequently, then it can make more sense - went to an xmas party at which I was told they had chilled 700 bottles of Champagne.
went to an xmas party at which I was told they had chilled 700 bottles of Champagne.
Just you and 2,000 of your closest friends? 