People who are new into wine have to pay tons of money to make their own experience. I remember buying 1990 La Tache for something slightly above 200 Deutschmark when it was released. And that was a lot of money at that time but not as absurd in price as La Tache is today. I still own old price lists and an Assortiment DRC (12 bottles various labels) was about 1.700 Deutschmark (early 90th)
I was able to taste the various labels of DRC, Rousseaus Chambertin, all the First Growth Bordeaux in various vintages (1961 included), Cheval Blanc, Vega Sicilia, Giacosa and Gaja, Conterno, Krugs Champagne, Cristal, Grange … and I would never buy these wines to prices of today. I still have some of the named labels in my cellar bought when the prices were more reasonable and while I was curios. But I made the same experience as Stuart. It´s possible to get similar quality cheaper. A good lesson is always to taste wines blind. Not often the most prestigious or expensive wines are on top under those circumstances.
It´s hard times for people who want to try and buy everything now to know what it´s all about.
This is where tasting groups come in. Instead of trying to spend all that money yourself, which is most likely impossible for most, you have a group of people who like to drink and taste the same wines you do. If each person just brings 1 nice bottle, you get to taste 4-8 other nice wines in return. Then you figure out what you like and can focus your purchases without spending extra money trying to figure things out on your own. And honestly wines without wine friends is just not as fun.
There you go - get a bunch of fellow winos together once a month. In the 2 years we’ve been a member of our wine club which has about 50 members, we’ve tried a few hundred different wines. Granted, at any dinner there could be as little as 12 to as many as 35 so it’s never the full 50, but that’s still a LOT of bottles every dinner.
Agree that that’s the most efficient way to learn/experience.
Of course, then you have to decide what you’re trying to learn/experience…and what your limitations – or possibilities—to learn from a particular event are. Groups and events run the gamut, but groups are the way to go, for sure…assuming the event is consistent with what you want to get out of it. That’s the difficult part…and realizing that there are limitations that go with each such event beyond a certain point.
If he were in Philadelphia and had a bar…I’d make sure to have all of my group events at Fu-Bar.
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