Wine Purchasing Plan?

WINE TALK
1

With all the talk recently about out of control buying and being on soooo many wine lists, does anyone out there purchase wine pursuant to a plan?

Does anyone look at the year ahead and put on paper what wines/producers/varietals they will purchase next year? I’m considering this to try and keep me grounded due to my purchasing habits and especially after reviewing my inventory in CT. I am way too CA centric and need to diversify with wines from other regions that I really love. I’m going to set a limit next year on CA wines and then dollar percentages on my favorite wines from Burgundy, Bdx, Rhone, loire, Piedmont and Tuscany with Burgundy getting the bulk share.

I’m not trying to pry, just looking for ideas and how many others are in the same boat I am.

[cheers.gif]

2

I started doing this last year to manage my cellar properly. If I’m more interested in a particular region, it makes sense to shift more wine dollars there. I also paid more attention to how much I spend on mailing lists vs retail (e.g. 30% list, 40% retail burgs, 30% retail bordeaux). I make an estimate of how much next year’s mailing list wines will cost, and figure out how much left I can spend on other stuff. Leave a percentage of the yearly budget for “spur of the moment” wines too… stuff that happens to be on sale and are deals too good to pass up.

3

As I spend more on wine, I am starting to try to do this. Last year was a rush to buy wine that people here and on Ct recommended and some i bought having no real idea of what it was. Now I am slowing and trying to be a little choosier and try different regions. With next year, I will try to go through the lists I am on and narrow the wines I really like and want more of, and make a plan along the lines of 30% burg, 30% CA, 10% OR, 20% Bordeaux, 10% whatever. For the CA I will take a very close look at the lists I am on a cut some of them.

4

I start every year with a purchasing plan.
I never stick to it. hitsfan

5

I realize that I do need a plan and have started writing a list if the mailing lists I am on and willing to get on. Also trying to limit bottle amount for those lists. Bought 18 bottles from one producer and realize I over bought. Will also then make sure a certain amount of bdx will be purchased. And think I will place a stop for new wines I’ve not had before.

6

Trying to plan would be a colossal failure for me. I can’t see much good coming from it but I sure can see problems when I either pass up something to stay on plan or bust my plan because of something that was too good to miss.

I do shift buying priorities through the year based on recent consumption trends. Recently have been buying more Italian wines as we have consumed a lot more of those this year than in previous years. If I had planned out purchases at the beginning of the year I would probably not have planned to purchase these in sufficient quantity to keep up.

7

This ^


hitsfan = When the shit hits the plan.

8

I apply two levels of planning:

  1. I look at the closing vintages growing condition and try to guess if I will try to go heavier on release. If so I make plans to travel and taste.
  2. I look six months ahead and budget for the lists I have coming up and planned travels.

Looking at the lists I evaluate cellar balance and current consumption preferences when planning my purchases. I spend a lot of time looking at inventory, what is ready for consumption, and future readiness to drink.

A friend provides a great example with Riesling. He drinks about four bottles a year and likes an average age of about 20 years on the bottles. So he looks to acquire about four to six bottles a year some ready to drink some for putting in the cellar. He doesn’t grab bottles from every vintage, but if he hears good things about a vintage he might buy a little heavier provided the last couple of vintages were not the vintages of the century. The end goal being eighty bottles of Riesling in the cellar.

9

You show such restraint, at least you have a plan! [highfive.gif]

10

This only works if one has a mature cellar. The problem is getting to 80 bottles of Riesling in the cellar while drinking 4 per year requires purchases of closer to a case per vintage he intends to buy if not buying every vintage. Otherwise 4-6 bottles per year is just to keep up with consumption.

11

The plan is that there is no plan. hitsfan hitsfan [drinkers.gif]

12

Plan?? I drink it I like it then buy more [cheers.gif]

13

Does anyone look at the year ahead and put on paper what wines/producers/varietals they will purchase next year?

Are you serious? I would probably stop drinking wine entirely if I had to go through those kinds of conniptions. To me, it would require an assumption that I either: 1)pretty much know most of the grape varieties out there as well as how they work in various blends in all regions, or 2) I’ve decided not to pay attention to any varieties/blends/ regions/ producers except for a handful, probably the six mentioned in the OP.

Moreover, it removes the opportunity to take advantage of serendipity - e.g. great pricing when a producer’s wine gets dumped on the market because he had a falling-out with his importer or something of that nature, or an unplanned trip to a region you never thought about and son of a gun, you like the wine. And if the plan doesn’t impose those kinds of restrictions, what’s the point of doing it in the first place? Surely you know you want to know more about say, Tuscany w/out writing it down? Plus, say you have too much Bordeaux or CdP. You know that in 2 years it’s going to be another vintage of the century that surpassed everything ever produced before, so why not take advantage of that?

Don’t want to be douchy but I would never imagine doing something like what is suggested. There is a lot of wine that is far more exciting than what’s happening in those six regions and I just don’t know enough about wine to make those kinds of decisions.

I like Scott’s plan.

14

This is probably more of an issue if you have started your wine collecting by buying off mailing lists, no?

They are sort of a self-propagating marketing methodology to overpurchasing - if you’re on the Rhys list and buying full allocations every year, you tend to get offered more wine at some point in time, and that process continues until you wake up one morning and find out you have 300 bottles of Rhys in the cellar.

You then go to a Berserker off-line with Howard Cooper and Maureen Nelson, drink your first Truchot Burg and realize that Rhys sux [cheers.gif] .

I then assume your next step will be to head to Commerce Corner [wink.gif] .

15

I think the OP asked a very valid general question. It is just hard to account for wine interests that develop throughout the period in question. As you try new things, often your taste expands so you 1. buy the older things you have always liked and 2. buy some of the new things you just experienced. Applied year after year it means an eventual expansion of purchases. This can be problematic unless there is a similar expansion of consumption.

I am not quite 50 and have been accumulating good wine for 21 years. Some may think I have too much. I stopped buying bordeaux 10 years ago and rhone 2 years ago. Now I only really buy burgundy/Piedmont/german and am planning how I can slow those purchases over the next 5 or so years so that I am down to purchasing daily drinkers only. I do it by allocating a $ amount per year and budgeting to that amount. That is how the bordeaux-rhone verticals were stopped, which was hard at the time.

However, twice I had great opportunities (90 bordeaux and 05 burgs) that I let ride, and I am very happy I did so.

One thing that has helped me is that if I buy wine at a price that many others will always want, there is always a ready market to sell or trade. If you make a mistake, you can always fix it.

I can see that mailing lists offer certain challenges. We do not have them in Ontario, although there are some burgundy allocations from the agents that are annual. I would never buy a wine that I didnt want just to keep on a list for some future wine that I might want.

j

16

Some good info, I need to layout all of my CA lists and scrub them for next year. The number of lists I’m currently on is ridiculous; I do like the wines but know there are wines from other regions I enjoy just as much if not more. From here on out I am going to shoot for quality vs quantity, divide my purchasing between drink now and cellaring and diversify my purchases using these criteria and looking at the regional wines I like. This will take some work, hopefully it will work out…

17

Rick - don’t make a plan. Just look at what you’re buying. Why stay on lists if you really don’t want to buy the wine every year? If you’re interested in imported wines, then pay attention to the clearance sales that happen every time a distributor changes. You can pick up some great deals that way.

And definitely make sure you buy wines to drink right away, or you’ll end up accidentally aging some wines that you never intended to keep for over a year. That can actually work out pretty well - some of the Marquis Phillips wines and Beaujolais have held up very nicely, but sometimes you end up with the strange situation of having hundreds of wines but nothing to drink.

Best!

18

wine buying plan? Sure. I think it is buried under dozens of cases of unplanned purchases somewhere in my cellar

19

Since I buy almost exclusively CA, I just have a general plan for the year. I’m buying just enough 2011 to stay on lists. Saving up to load up on 2012.

20

No plan, I just go with whatever strikes me.