Granted this is much easier from a European perspective, but if you have an opportunity, I’d suggest to visit the areas you like and get to know the producers personally.
Particularly in the Mosel, producers are very accessible (although do request for an appointment for a tasting in advance so they’ll the time for you).
If you time it well and can join a large event (Mainzer Weinbörse, Mythos Mosel, the auctions in Trier), you can sample a lot of wines and then visit the producers you liked for an in-depth tasting thereafter.
For me it makes a big difference if I know (and like) the people that have made such an effort to make the wine in my glass. The opposite is also true for me: I’ve stopped buying some otherwise good wines of producers I consider unsympathetic or downright a-holes
Subjective as it may be, it makes my purchasing decision much easier when I know I like and trust a producer to make good stuff.
This. I would also add, how do you drink and where. Are you a formal diner or casual dining with friends. 90% of my time is casual dining on the deck with friends with “Horst Duwavies” (the pronunciation is an inside joke). We go through a ton of Tuscan’s, Pinot’s, Zin’s, non growth Bordeaux’s, and the ever present summer whites. During the winter we switch to something heavier. Brunello’s, and more distinct Bordeaux. Speaking of Bordeaux, depending on your budget and storage, decide what you like. I found I have a preference for St Julien and Margaux.
In regard to tastes changing, it occurs often and regularly. I’m in a phase where I don’t even want to see a bottle of Barolo. Ask me in 5 years. Rieslings are in the same boat. Sangiovese and Pinot Noir is the only two grapes that have never left me.
There are different levels to knowing what you like. What you like might also change over time, but that’s a different issue. If you mean you know you like certain categories and styles that’s great, but it’s only a start. Now you can figure out which producers, villages/communes, bottlings/vineyard sites you really like. If you like aged wines, buying back vintages helps a lot. Doing comparative tastings is also a huge benefit. Then it makes sense to start buying in bulk.
This gets said a lot, and I have to say I disagree. I will never regret buying lots of 2013 and 2016 Piedmont and hardly buying any 2014. And I tasted a lot of '14s. That’s just one example. Here’s another: I will never wish I bought more 2011 red Burgundy and didn’t focus so much on 2010. There are producers whose wines I buy in every vintage, but there’s no doubt in my mind their best vintages are a LOT better than the most difficult. That’s even true for the best producers, in general, although there are exceptions. I adjust quantities accordingly, as much as I can afford to.
I think in many ways it’s little bit like Potter Stewart’s famous comment about pornography. I suppose that answer doesn’t really help, but what I mostly mean is that you somewhat have to figure it out for yourself. There’s no real substitute for experience. I’d say a couple of things:
Some of my bulk purchases are based on long standing relationships - I can get cases of some things, and I buy them every year. But that is not always the case. Recently I was offered a wine I like quite a bit, but wouldn’t go out of my way to buy. However, the pricing was spectacular, so I bought a case. Whereas other times allocations dwindle and I find myself overpaying for wines I used to turn down. (The days where I only bought the Reynard…)
While I wouldn’t get hung up on “chasing vintages”, if you don’t like a vintage, don’t buy it. There are people who will say that good producers will make good wine in every vintage - this just isn’t true. Good producers will usually make good wines, yes. But if you taste the wines and don’t like them, who’re you going to trust, the name on the label or your palate? Conversely, I wouldn’t chase points from critics either on vintages - their styles may not suit you or a highly rated vintage may not. I’ve found many of the 2009 Bordeaux aren’t my cup of tea and that vintage was very highly praised by some critics.
While it may be somewhat cynical to say, if you’re not sure of your palate yet, if you do decide to buy in bulk, buying more famous wines is safer. Yes, it’s somewhat antithetical to our romantic notions of this as a hobby, but if you later decide you don’t especially like Dom, you’ll be easily able to sell it or gift it. If you try a bottle of grower champagne that turns out to age terribly, you might be stuck with two cases of bad wine no one is interested in taking off your hands.
Some people like buying in bulk. Some don’t. If we consider “bulk” half a case, I definitely buy some of my favorite producers in bulk (and would buy a few more if I could get allocations!), but I also leave room for plenty of smaller purchaser because buying a lot of very expensive wine is…well, expensive and also because variety is the spice of life. But other people are just as happy owning no more than two bottles of any one thing - I have friends who buy no more than two bottles of the same wine. Both are equally valid and entirely depends on how you want to drink. It just means I have to work a little bit harder at sourcing blinds for dinners with friends
Lots of really good comments and advice. Totally agree on making sure you really know what you like before going crazy on large purchases. Early on in your wine buying career the danger is buying a lot of wine based on critics advice and then finding out later the wine style is not to your taste.
Some thoughts;
Your cellar capacity: If you start buying multiple wines by the case of 12 you will soon need a LOT of storage capacity. These case purchases will add up fast over the years. If you don’t have a 3k to 5k cellar (for example), I reckon you will probably run out of room sooner rather than later.
Focused vs broad coverage: Some folks like to have a focused cellar on the wines they know and love; others like to have a broad and diverse range of wines in the cellar. If the former than case purchases make more sense, if the latter then 3-4 bottles is more practical. You may yet not know how focused or diverse you cellar should be or will be. Mine has gotten more more diversified over time. I never buy more than 6 bottles anymore but used to buy 12 bottle cases.
Selection challenges: So you like German Rieslings. An example: I love Donnhoff and he makes a huge range of wines. How many of his Spatlesen should you buy by the case? Or how many of the GG or the Kabinettt or Auslesen? If you want to know his wines, you need to try across the range to really know for sure. I buy maybe half a dozen wines at a max of 6 bottles each. This issue of which wines from a given maker to buy in larger quantities requires quite a lot of foresight and experience / judgement. Similar issue for Burgundy domaines; the range of village, premier cru and grand cru bottles will add up fast. The only “good” news here is that is can really hard to buy full cases of many Burgundies anyway. This is less of problem in Bordeaux and to some degree less of an issue in Barolo (depending on the maker that is)
Demographics: As you get older and have larger cellar with a lot more mature ready to drink wines, you may end up with more wine you can reasonably drink in a life time. In this situation buying cases of 12 makes little or no sense. You also don’t want a small mountain of wine to all be reaching peak maturity at the around same time. Also consider how many bottles you realistically open per year, this will help guide how many case purchases make sense
Champagne: If you like to taste and flavour profile of aged vintage champagne, then this is one category of wine I believe pretty much everyone with a cellar never loses interest in. I would recommend buying good quality champagne in case quantities. No downside if you ask me…
Remember this is your cellar and so you should follow a path that makes sense to you and most importantly you should enjoy the process for searching for and buying wines. Many of us here have untreatable cases of WAD (Wine Acquisition Disorder) and we have been in your position in the past.
First, I am not nearly as experienced as many/most on this board, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt. I’ve considered myself a wine enthusiast for around 5 years, so that is the perspective I’m coming from.
Beginners often get the advice to buy a few cases of great wine in order to get started. That way, the wisdom goes, you can track the wine over the years and learn about your tastes. Personally, I think this is terrible advice unless you have lots of storage space, very deep pockets, and infinite time on your hands. In my experience, most people end up running low on storage and buying way more wine than they’ll ever drink. That’s why one of the most popular threads on this board is called “Cellar Inventory Reduction Plan”. There are so many different wines out there, and they are more accessible now than ever before. Back vintages can also be purchased relatively easily; why buy a case and wait 20 years to find out if you like old wine when you can just go out and buy a 20 year old bottle today?! And great wine is expensive! If you don’t yet have a firm grasp on the producers/vintages/regions you love, why buy, say, a case of one wine when you could buy 12 bottles from different regions, made of different grapes, and of varying ages?
I rarely buy more than a single bottle of anything at a time, and I’m fine with that. I don’t have a huge collection- just around 10 cases in total. But since I buy mostly singles, that means I’ve got over a hundred different wines to choose from and explore. If I bought in bulk, I’d I’ve far fewer choices. Admittedly, I’ve taken a bit of a shotgun approach, but I think that’s the best way to go at the relatively early stage I’m at, and sounds like you are as well. In my eyes, it only makes sense for a beginner to get into buying wine in bulk if they have lots of money to spend, are willing to purchase off site storage, and ok with taking a loss on reselling wines that end up not being to their taste. But I’m a newbie myself, so what do I know?!
Also, there often is no consensus on whatever the great vintages in many cases. Think you know the great German vintages? Well, read this. https://www.vomboden.com/germany-2021-whats-old-is-new/ There is a separate thread about this.
What wines have you had other than Barolo and Riesling, and which of those two have you had?
Why buy anything in bulk until you’re more familiar with what you’re looking for and what you like? You might want to spend some time learning more - taste some old wines and see if you like what the young ones turn into. And taste widely - there are thousands of grapes and a lot of people think about five or six of them and ignore everything else.
As to whether it is a good vintage - you really don’t know until you’re done harvesting do you? A great spring and summer can be ruined by early frost or rain. And you can’t buy the wine until it’s made anyway, so don’t worry about finding out whether you’re in a good vintage. After harvest, you can read. Discount about 30% of it - most wine makers and growers start talking like social workers when you ask about the current vintage - they won’t say a harvest was shit; instead they’ll use words and phrases like “challenging” or “required a deft hand” or whatever mush they can think of. But these days people have learned to deal with nature and what some people call brilliant vintages may not be to your taste at all and you may prefer a “lesser” vintage. Without Robert Parker, there’s less frenzy over whether a vintage is another vintage of the century or not. Used to be you’d get one every couple of years.
And then you have to look at your own habits. If you only drink wine once a week or at some event with friends, then a few cases are going to last you for years. And you’ll be drinking the same thing over and over and over and over. If you drink every day, then buying more quantity isn’t such a big deal, because a case is only 12 bottles and you can kill that in a month. So you set some aside and you’re going to end up with some nicely aged wine.
But really, don’t buy anything to age unless you know you like the aged version. I’ve heard of people buying wine they never tasted and storing it until it’s “ready”, but that seems brainless to me. And the final question you didn’t ask is when a wine is “ready”. That’s entirely personal - there is no correct answer. People create these drinking windows or rules of thumb but they’re all kind of BS. You can store some Riesling for years and it will change. I don’t think it gets better though, so I drink it young. It really all comes down to personal preference.
I rarely buy much of any one wine. There are just so many out there.
Some things to think about:
What maturity levels for each wine type you’re interested in is your preference? Do you want to stock up on huge quantities of wine that will take 40+ years til you really want to open them? That speaks to “great” vintages, too. Due to greatly improved viticultural practices, there aren’t many poor vintages anymore. A lot of the “lesser” vintages these days yield wines that will drink well younger and are pretty damn good. Some great wines from great vintages are not very enjoyable for decades.
You’ll want to consider the balance of what you’ll consume. You might want a larger quantity of early and moderate-term drinkers, so you have wines you’ll like available, and not be tempted to open other wines too early. You can err the other way on this, though, and buy much more wine that you can drink in their drinking windows.
I’ll add the YMMV to the “your palate will change” thing. Some people come to wine with a pretty developed palate, like if you’re an experienced cook who can improvise, adjust, fix a dish, understanding what type of ingredients can add what and balance things out and so forth. Can you taste something at a restaurant and figure out what they did differently to make the dish special? Anyway, you stylistic preferences may not shift, like many have experienced. Your appreciation of complexity and nuance should still grow, though. And, even if your general preferences don’t change, you may come to like or dislike some very specific things in ways you hadn’t.
Seemed like we were averaging two vintages of the century a year for awhile.
Totally agree - the “bigger is better” critics are fading away, but a lot of their “great” vintage calls were subjective at best, and flat wrong at worst. Understanding the “why” a vintage is supposedly great is crucial.
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