it doesn’t really matter that much whether it was 4 or 12, the premise being implied of “its only affordable if you can and do buy in multiples” is what people are objecting to.
I can see the benefits of both side of the argument to be honest. I am just at the relative “beginning” of starting a cellar. I have about 60 bottles and am working mostly on german rieslings right now because the first 20-30 bottles I purchased for laying down were cabs, blends, and pinots and I really enjoy german rieslings the most to be honest. For me personally, I simply don’t have the finances to purchase multiples of what I would like to taste that has some age on it but still needs a bit more time.
I think this topic has a LOT to do with where you are in your wine journey, who else you have that drinks with you, and what your goal is with wine. Once I have back filled my cellar enough to have some decently aged stuff to drink on special occasions I could definitely see myself purchasing 2-3 of each bottle I preorder in the future. But for now I am buying singles to fill out the cellar to have a wide selection of things I personally like and to make sure I have something a guest would like. Also because I simply don’t have the finances right now to purchase 2-4 bottles of some older stuff.
What I would like most about having several bottles of each type is having the opportunity to see how a specific wine ages. What I like about having only one bottle is that it makes it special to drink it and you get to try a ton of different things. There are positives and negatives to each. However, I think if I had unlimited finances I would definitely probably get 2-3 bottles of each that I would buy. I would never get a case because I simply couldn’t drink it and want to try different stuff, but I can definitely see the benefit of having several bottles of each bottle I like.
When I first got into wine, I was buying three of each wine that I enjoyed and had great aging potential. One for now, one short-term, and one long-term. I quickly dropped that habit. The producers I really cared for were minimal, and even with my favorite producers, a full case could easily feel like too much of a good thing.
Buying 12 as the ideal seems silly. If the industry standard for a wine case was 8, OP would be telling us we should ideally be buying 8 at a time. Buy whatever you want.
Eh, I love trying new things. I’ve only been at this for about a year and a half, and a lot of the time, I’d rather get a mixed case and try new things than get 6 bottles of 2 cuvees. Even in my budding collection, I value diversity.
This. In a vacuum I like the idea of having 6 or more of each bottling I like. It’s just not practical and doesn’t fit my consumption patterns.
Sure happy buying 6-12 of a favourite daily drinker. But where I have a favourite Oregon producer who has 10+ bottlings. If I had 6 of each that would mean between 5 and 6 cases a year just for that producer. That just doesn’t work for me when I’m not likely to consume more than 2-3 of them a month. So instead I try to buy 2-3 of each of his offerings as I want to be able to sample his entire range each vintage.
Sometimes it’s not about the price but variety.
I feel this way about allocations sometimes. I feel like I have to buy a majority if not all of an allocation to have access to better stuff and stay on a list but I don’t need it all. Obviously wines with waiting lists can often be sold but it is a pain.
Matt Kramer presented this argument in Making Sense of Wine - he basically said if you cannot afford a case, then you cannot afford it (“well six bottles anyway”.) I thought there was great sense in that at the time- and the marketplace was certainly more accommodating of such an approach- but while I still think it is a reasonable barometer today, I do not think it should be an absolute rule.
Here is why I think it is a good way to think about many purchases. One thing many of the greatest wines in the world have in common is a tremendous longevity. However, the optimum drinking windows, the periods of deep hibernation and sometimes - as was the case with many top 1990 and 1993 red burgundies- periods of great awkwardness that mysteriously give way to unexpected glories. And of course it can go in the other direction as well.
Even if one is a seasoned taster of such a wine- and by that I mean 20 years of experience drinking many different vintages at different stages including tasting most vintages at release at least once- it is very hard to predict what the greatest wines in the world are going to do. And so you run a great risk of opening a bottle in a dumb or awkward phase. And of course there are also corked or otherwise “off” bottles. Setting plays a role too. Wrong food, not feeling well that night, the wrong setting or just an off night- and you may not have a great experience.
If you are systematically buying 1-2 each of everything you cellar- and I know a lot of people do this- then your chances of having at least one home run experience where all the factors come together in your favor go down dramatically. Plus to the extent you learned any lessons from one less-than ideal experience, you have few or no bottles left to try again later with a more educated ability to decide the best time to open another.
So these days my advice is buy whatever you want- but at least do so knowing and accepting the fact wine is a living product- in a sense- and that the fewer opportunities you have to learn a wine over time- the lower your chances of ever really learning or understanding your collection and when to open what you have.
I suspect most people lay down a case of Bordeaux dreaming of a home run situation where after 10-20 years they will get 12 perfect bottles of mature wine that are just what they wanted. And if you buy that case without ever having had multiple vintages of that wine in youth and maturity- the fact is you really have no idea what you are going to get. What if you get an awesome wine that you think is amazing- but you personally can’t stand it, or it does not fit at all well with your favorite cuisine?
In reality I think a perfect case of Bordeaux is one where you open a bottle at release, have 1-2 more at various stages a bit too soon but also get a sense of the pace of aging as well as the kinds of food and setting that would be ideal, have 6-8 bottles in that prime drinking window with at least 2 perfect evenings, and then see those last 1-2 bottles on the decline, losing their muscle but also laying bare their most subtle elements or turning into vinegar. Either way, the ending still offers insight and education.
That said, there is nothing wrong with having odd lots in the cellar. A while back I got in the habit of picking up a magnum of Tignanello every year. It is a wine I admire, but not one that fits my usual tasting scenarios. But I do enjoy it very much from time to time and it is the perfect thing to have for the occasional big get together with the right kind of food. And so I have a handful on hand to randomly enjoy when it suits me. And I know the wine well enough to know it has a generous drinking window. So 1 magnum a year, with the occasional small parcel of halves and bottles, is the perfect buying pattern.
I’ve been tasting and drinking wines “seriously” and widely for 13 years. I have only ever bought more than 2 bottles of one wine: 2018 Geyserville (6-pack), because that stuff is delicious and I got it on a screaming deal during the early COVID offers.
I was heartened by a lot of the responses to this thread, the basic premise of which I find absurd for most people’s circumstances. I have a ~$2,000/year wine budget. My wife and I drink around 80-100 bottles/year. We have a “cellar” of around 120 bottles. We simply can’t afford to buy in large quantities for long-term cellaring while also drinking wine, which I’m pretty sure is what you’re supposed to do with it.
Generally speaking, I agree with Marshall’s comment. I prefer variety over stock. You can focus on buying the things you know you love, or you can keep exploring. If you have a ton of money you can do both. Good for you, but irrelevant for most people. I tasted a bunch of Vermentinos last night that opened my eyes and now money that I might have spent exploring domestic Roussanne and Petit Manseng is going to be siphoned off into Vermentino land. If I taste a wine that is fantastically delicious, ageworthy, and under $35, I might buy 3 bottles of it: one for now, one for a few years’ time, one for much later. But after 6 bottles of the stuff I might question why I bought so much: my tastes change, winemaking styles change, and, for most of what I’m buying, the secondary market provides anyway.
Daily drinkers are different. We’ll buy 4 bottles of Ravenswood Vintners Blend for $5 a bottle, sure. Good in sauces and good in my face. But my impression is that the original post is not talking about this kind of thing, despite the claim that there is lots of quality wine at “every” price point. Find me more than a few ageworthy $5 bottles please.
Hard to add much at this point that has not been said already but for me it comes down to cellar space and the will to try new wines all the time. There are a few wines where a new vintage is an automatic buy but a huge majority of my purchases are wines that I have not tried before but have been praised here/on IG/by friends or have been recommended by good retailers. I feel like I would be limiting myself way too much if I stuck to producers/wines that I already know. Of course if I were to have unlimited cellar space and $$$ it is very much possible that I would be a completely different person and bought nothing but full cases of trophy Burgundy and prestige Champagne while wondering why everyone else is not doing the same ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
I prioritize variety to some extent. Space is definitely an issue since retirement and downsizing.
I don’t have to follow a wine over the course of its life to enjoy it. I just have to watch for when people I trust say it’s good to go. Following the evolution may be a big part of the enjoyment for some. For me it was fun the first few times for a region. Now that I’ve learned the basics, I don’t feel a need to repeat it for every wine. I’m happy to buy fewer bottles and wait to open the first one.
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When I didn’t own much wine, I was happier to buy in larger quantities so I had some I could consume and some that I could age. Now that I have accumulated enough wine, I don’t buy for both purposes… I’m either buying something for aging or I am buying something that is best consumed young. I like variety, so I seldom need a dozen of anything these days.
You’re projecting.
I have a friend who is as much into wine as I am, but we have chosen different buying patterns. We have almost identical capacity at around 150-200 bottles. He prefer to buy fewer producers but in larger volume, and me the opposite. Since I’m still in my early thirties and still exploring different regions this approach has served me well. However, I’ve recently started to make larger volume purchases, because I like the idea of actually knowing how a wine I serve to our guest tastes. Also following how a wine evolves over time is intriguing to me. I think ones I get a better idea of what producers in my favorite regions I like, I can see myself opting for my friends strategy to a larger extent.
I did not know that, nor did I know JLL went to six. Wow.
Josh Raynolds rated it a 96.
Not that I care what they rated - well, it is interesting - but I have had 2 of the sixer I bought, and this is a back-up-the-truck wine. It’s always good, but in 2016 it is great. A classically-built Southern Rhone.
This
![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
Yea, I really don’t see that side of the argument, it’s way too practical applied to a passion that is not really practical. If we were just talking about someone that buys daily drinkers for dinner only, it would be different. If you are buying hundreds of bottles at an average of $100, heck swing for the fences occasionally. Sure, I get it, the margin of finishing returns applies sometimes, but not always. When you try that Petrus, Rougeard, d’Yquem, Chave, Juge, et al, oftentimes it is revelatory.
I suppose it’s one perspective to buy buy DRC in bulk and wonder how anyone can buy good bottles of wine in anything but.
We’ve had this same discussion at least 5 times in the last couple of months on various threads, and countless times before. I’ve written extensively on the side of buying in multiples and the joys of following a wine over time. I’ve also written on the fallacy that buying in quantities means you don’t like variety. If you have the space (granted a big ‘if’) and, as the OP says, buy wines you can afford, you can have both breadth and depth.
It also doesn’t mean you’re drinking the same thing every month. Yes, we tend to drink a bottle of house rose every week, but so far this year, we’ve consumed 293 bottles across 175 different wines, more if you count different vintages separately. That’s hardly drinking the same thing every month.
All that said, we also have in the past bought and still occasionally buy a single bottle of something special and outside our price range for normal purchases. We drink those, too, they don’t sit there. There’s a unique poignancy to drinking your only or last bottle of something that is a pleasure in itself, albeit a painful one.
Everyone talking about $ and space. What about time? We only drink ~125-150 bottles per year. If we bought 4, 6, or 12 of each of the wines we love and/or want to try, I’d have a cellar of 5-10K bottles and never get through it. For the most part, diversity is key - I have too many wines I want to try. But something like 2008 Dom or 2016 Pichon Lalande? Sure, happy to lay down a case and follow.
There are times when I splurge to go to a nice steak dinner. This is not something my family can “afford” to do every weekend, but it’s nice to “save up” and do it on special occasions. Why is wine any different. If you typically buy in the $50 range, why not splurge occassionally for 1 $150 bottle. Or if you are in the $150 range, why not splurge for a $500. To say I shouldn’t go to a nice steak dinner once because I can’t do so every week is misguided.