I would not even get an offsite facility, lets say they even charge $400 a year… 10 years later… thats $4K - you could buy most of those rare bottles you want at auction for the extra money
If you have to go with a CA storage facility, 55 Degrees has a great track record and will ship to you as you need it, (at a cost of course).
Consider other storage facilities others are mentioning in a compatible location.
My limited experience travelling from base to base between 1953 to 1965, keeps me from recommending buying a 1200 bottle portable wine cellar that you move with you. Missing and broken items upon arrival is too high and your $4K cellar sells on the black market for $700. Won’t have anyplace to put your wine when it arrives.
It is unfortunate, but “professional” movers hire cheap labor and probably don’t do background checks.
And keep in mind that in ten years you might not even like the wines made by the wineries whose lists you are working to stay on.
This is a great pint. The movers HATE my LeCache and it shows with all the nicks and marks. It might as well be a grand piano. The eurocave is much lighter and smaller and has many less complaints.
I spent 28 years, one month, two weeks and three days in the Air Force. I started buying wine worth keeping around the five year mark. I was stationed in a continental climate and owned houses with basements until 1997. From that point forward I had to rent or build above ground storage.
The first Permanent Change of Station (PCS) adventure, accompanied by my best buddy Ed the Samoyed (RIP), moved my 30 cases of wine and a pile of my personal belongings 900 miles via U-Haul towing my car on a trailer through Colorado and New Mexico in the dead of winter. I still cringe thinking of driving over Raton Pass during a blizzard. Anyway, this is known as a “Partial DITY Move”. (DITY, Do It Yourself) My wife, also AD, left a couple of months prior and was there to receive our household goods via contract moving company. I built my first fully temp controlled above ground storage here prior to moving the wine.
Four years later and another Partial DITY move we were off on a 400 mile jaunt in a large SUV packed to the max to a storage facility. About a year later, a short 150 mile move on my dime in two large SUVs during the middle of the night in May got my wine to temp controlled storage in my home. Add four years, a 500 mile Partial DITY again in a rented reefer truck across the desert in August to another storage facility. Finally, after spending six years at Terminal 55 in Van Nuys, I contracted a wine transport company to bring my 100 cases of wine from storage in LA to AZ where I have temp controlled storage in my home. This was the only time a significant amount of my personal $$ was required to move my wine.
I moved PCS three times in my first 22 years, then three more times PCS in my last six years with four combat zone deployments and a stint in South Korea tossed in to insure a sufficient dose of family drama. The easy part was T55 with stellar service in receiving and organizing my purchases while I lived in LA, then Japan with a hut away from home in both Kandahar and Bagram. I think having a full service storage facility is key. I kept a 50 bottle cooler in several places I lived to enable me to have something on hand to drink.
You can collect wine and serve your country. With careful application of the “Seven P’s” you will find a way to make it work. While military life is really difficult at times, the adventures you will have and the experience you will gain are worth every second of your time. It is always a pleasure to open a bottle you’ve had for many years and think about all the places you and your wine have been.
BTW, thanks for considering military service. This country needs more young folks like you. ![[thumbs-up.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/f/f84c5acc11486ee4baba6dee6cf61dbd133abb18.gif "[thumbs-up.gif]"){kind=small}
Seven P’s = "Proper Prior Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance”
How did you transport 1200 bottles??
Hired an air freight company. I had to do this on my own, but the base transportation office knew of a few places. Cost approximately a dollar/bottle to move given the amount I had. It took about three days for the wine to get to the states. Then it sat in a customs warehouse while I did the paperwork to get it in. First, I had to convince the customs agent that the wine was not for commercial use, but given I had all my PCS paperwork, this was doable. I had to hire a customs broker to sign the paperwork, even though I was the one to do all the work. I had to submit a detailed list of wines including alcohol content. Fortunately, I had this list already. The total cost for hiring the broker and paying the duty was another approximately $500. The wine was then delivered to my father’s driveway and I moved the wine into his cellar.
1200 bottle sounds like a lot, but if you visit wineries in Italy, Austria, and France most weekends for three years, it adds up!
If you’re buying a bunch of CA wines off lists I’d buy storage from one of the places that wineries will deliver to for free - saving on shipping will offset your storage costs.
Thank you everyone for all of your advice and support! It really surprised me to have such a large response and I’m extremely grateful for all of your suggestions.
Even though I’ll likely be CONUS based it definitely sounds like storage is the way to go. The family member in question does have a large cellar at a vacation house in Santa Rosa but I don’t want to be “that guy” and ask someone to receive and store my wine for such a long time. I will definitely check out some of the places you mentioned and see what the costs are.
Additionally I’m definitely planning on keeping my lists small, both due to the storage question as well as the possibility of my tastes changing. Ovid, Kistler, some Harlan Maiden, and WS are the ones that come to mind (and Aubert/KB/SQN when I get off the wait lists).