I learned that there is no better time than now to start opening those bottles that have been accumulating in the cellar waiting for a special occasion. Any day spent with friends or family is a special occasion.
Absolutely, David. A veteran wine seller once told me, “MAKE the occasion.”
A few things:
I like Syrah more than any other red grape. Northern Rhone and California Syrah (e.g. ESJ, A-R, Rhys, etc) now make up the largest % of my red wine purchases and also bottles opened.
I like buying wine even more than I like drinking it. This is a sad state of affairs.
The world of wine still has a myriad of choices, despite the purported excessive influence of certain critics. Sure some wines change style, but there are so many more out there that it is pretty easy to just move on without all the angst, bitterness and vitriol.
Related to that, the parsing of words to actively seek insult or some imagined slight serves nobody. People write blog posts or board posts or do off the cuff interviews without a plan to make their remarks pure and bulletproof.
I like supporting folks who are building a business, but I cannot buy all the wines I have my eyes on. Too many producers. Too many importers.
Donnhoff’s wines are beautiful with age. Oh wait, I mnew that before 2013.
Another lesson: if there’s a wine “fire sale,” like on these flash sites, there’s usually a good reason for it.
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Maryland’s new shipping law did not solve all my wine delivery problems. Unfortunately there is still a small group of wineries that can’t legally ship here as they have determined that the benefit is not worth the cost
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Sicily requires more exploration. I started a major stock up this year after liking everything I tried from here but especially the Etna reds and the Occhipinti Frappato.
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Squirrels can do more damage to a grape crop than birds. Changed netting this year to provide more protection from the birds and it offered almost none against the squirrels and I lost an entire crop. Changes will be in place for 2014.
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I need to buy more wine. I like most wines with 7+ years of age. To move the cellar so that it averages about 7 years old takes a lot of wine and a lot of time so I need to make the push now. I made good progress this year but the work will need to continue for probably the next five before I can start to slow down to replacement level buying.
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I need more cheap wine. Too many weekdays where I just want a glass to go with a burger or pizza and don’t want to worry about if I don’t get back to the bottle for three days. I don’t like opening a $40 bottle without a plan to finish it within a day or two max. Really need to stock up on $15 reds for this purpose and probably focus on S. Italy.
- Aged Long Island merlot can be excellent if not outstanding.
- Hunting down examples of Italian barbera proved, to my palate, this can be a world class variety.
- Newly planted chenin blanc is resilient and can handle adverse weather, insect, and disease pressure.
I’ve looked at the new CT and I’m firmly married to the awesome orignal blue version. Hopefully Eric never drops the old version. I love the way it so cleanly list info and the soothing blue and black color scheme. This year I tried flipping to the new version a lot but I hope it never becomes the default.
Dropping a couple of mailing lists, even though I love the wines, isn’t the end of the world. I knew last year that I had been buying too heavily from a small number of producers, and it took me until this year to act on it. I have plenty of those wines, and will for a while.
I need to buy more Northern Rhone.
I love red Burgundy, but I can’t afford to buy like crazy every time there’s a vintage I really like. I need to figure out a few producers whose wines I like and are not absurdly expensive, and focus on those. It seems like an expensive task, but it should also be fun.
Ignore the flash sale sites unless they’re offering a wine I would buy anyway. The unaffordable becoming affordable really doesn’t matter if it’s not a style I really like.
I still need to cut back on some of my annual purchases to make room for producers I know I love but whose wines I never feel like I can afford in quantity when I see them available. The biggest example is that I should cut out one or two producers from my annual German and Austrian buying to make room for a significant amount of Burklin-Wolf.
Other than a couple of the Tete de Cuvees, it is pointless for me to buy NM Champagne. completely. There is always a better RM for the same or a better price. I won’t lose sight of those top wines, though (and NV Krug counts), because they still represent my greatest experiences with Champagne.
Looking back at this list, my thoughts about wine are very much focused on buying.
I learned that this can be an issue and reached the same conclusion.
I frequently prefer Bordeaux and CDP wines from the less critically acclaimed vintages than hyped vintages like 2007 and 2005.
Regarding CDP in particular, I frequently prefer the regular CDP to the luxury bottlings.
Some of the wines that excite me the most do not appeal at all to the casual wine drinker. At the risk of painting with too broad a brush, many non-geeky wine drinkers don’t care for my AFWE wines. It is important to keep this in mind when putting wine out for a social gathering or giving wine as a gift. Fortunately, I enjoy a broad enough range of wine styles that this is not an insurmountable problem.
There is a surprising amount of great California Chardonnay being made today (e.g., Rhys, Copain, Liquid Farm, Peay, and many more), and this has rekindled my interest in Cal Chard.
Yes. I still use the old version and aside from the occasional comment I may flip to someone who posted a TN, that’s the only time I use the new side. I LOVE Cellartracker. 
Be nice to meet Eric one of these days, would really enjoy talking to him.
I’ve learned that buying wine is an addiction.
- That the Wine Berserker community has a ton of collective wisdom
- That many in the Wine Berserker community have a hell of a lot more money than I do
- That the new Cellar Tracker is terrific
- That there is a correlation between price and quality
- That the Finger Lakes makes some really enjoyable Rieslings, and it’s fun to support your neighbors
- to stop chasing high scoring, low priced QPR’s
I can no longer afford Burgundy.
Not learned this year but reinforced.
While I love wine, I love sharing it with family and friends more. This is a great community and without WB, I wouldn’t of met ppl I share wine with on a regular basis…And enable my buying. 
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This year I stopped paying any attention to critics as I know what I like, and stopped paying attention to the hype from flash sites for the same reason (unless as Doug said it’s something I would have purchased anyway)
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Some of the best wine I’ve had is shared with fellow wine-lovers. Sadly I learned that the hard way this year as building a deck ourselves took most of my free time for ~6 months this year so I had fewer opportunities than previously. I was able to make it to NYC for Rieslingfeier, the Chicago Bearserkerfest and a couple local offlines… and all of my contenders for WOTY were at those. Fortunately I already have plans for several events in 2014 already and hopefully the deck will be able to facilitate more locally as well
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Kind of contrary to #1 but I spent too much money and attention this year on wineries I was familiar with, particularly in California. I love to support them and love their wines, but I need to cut back a bit there and keep exploring elsewhere (Italy will be a 2014 focus) as CA has become far too big a % of my cellar
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It’s OK to take a break from wine! I drank more good beer in 2013 than previously and took a couple different weeks to do a wine palate-cleanse and drink no wine/mostly beer. I think I appreciated the beer more when focusing just on it and the wine more after not having any for a week
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Even though I spent far too much money on wine and my cellar continues to grow even though I keep telling myself to cut back, I keep falling more and more in love with wine and realizing how much more I have to learn… sadly I don’t see leaving this rabbit hole any time soon
Frank, maybe I’m nitpicking here, and I don’t mean to, but might it be more appropriate to say some great wines were produced rather than generalizing and calling it a great vintage? I know there are some winemakers who would definitely not call it a great vintage. “Challenging” is a word that seemed to be used quite a bit. You probably have much more experience than I do with the wines at this point, so I’m interested to know what you think. I’m also curious as to whether your experience is fairly limited as far as producer style (I know we like a lot of the same stuff, and the style tends not to be what a lot of producers strive for), or if you’ve tasted a wide variety.
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Hi Doug. Sure, I can explain better. I looked at my CT notes and I have 112 notes from the 2011 CA vintage. I didn’t count the amount of producers but if I estimate, call it 30. I’m not in the business but I did spend time up north in the late stages of the 2011 harvest, even helped a fellow board member Steve Nordhoff with his Riverain project kickoff, sorting his syrah fruit off Cardiac Hill before it went into tank. From that lens, and it’s just one small snapshot, it was a tough sort and it was not an easy vintage for many, including Steve. Yet, in my view, many great wines were made, wines I am jazzed to buy, drink and have in my cellar. And yes, my lens was limited to certain producers, those I chose to visit and taste. Hell, I am to the stage in my own wine buying and enjoyment that I don’t drink nor taste the stuff I don’t enjoy any more, so my notes, my view tends to have a positive, cheerleading tone as I end up swimming in that pool of wines that drive me. What I really like about the vintage is how it was leaner, more delicate, and if anything, it reinforced my own journey into what I like and buy now, which are the producers I referenced in my post, to also add Liquid Farms, as I didn’t mention them, along with Wind Gap. Hope that helps.
More than ever before in 30 years at this, people SAY they want really DRY wine but they really don’t.