I have a vague sense in the back of my head about how much I can get away with spending before my marriage gets on seriously thin ice. That’s as close as I get to a budget.
I actually have cut way back on wine purchases so far this year. We are almost at the halfway point for the year and I have only purchased about 1/5 of the amount of wine I purchased last year and about 14% of the amount of wines I bought (on average) the three years before that. Don’t ask me about the trend of golf club purchases.
My budget is based on my storage. It’s full. The overflow is full and my double secret storage is full. Forces me to buy far less than I used to.
YTD I am down 50% compared to last year.
What does the word “budget” mean? I am not familiar with the term.
I solved that problem by moving a 126 bottle wooden wine rack I used to use into my cellar and filling it up. All in about an hour, so it hardly diverted me from other useful pursuits.
LOL.
I don’t count Envoyer purchases against my wine budget.
(I divide them between grocery and medical expenses.)
That’s because we’re only halfway through the year. 
My budget is also based upon what I need/want to fill in the cellar (I guess once you pass 1,000 bottles you no longer need more) - According to CT, depending on vintage the past six years, total purchases per year were between a low of 240 bottles and a high of 338 bottles last year. Consumption depends on how much we entertain but consumption is between 190-270 bottles/year (and no we don’t drink alone!).
What’s the concern? It’s a very liquid asset.
My budget is this:
- if it seems like a stupid idea, I don’t buy it.
Or - I ignore the fact that it is a stupid idea and buy it anyway.
so wrong. If you drink 270 b a year and like wine with a decade or more of age on it, then you need at least 2700 bottles so that you can have them maturing at a pace that allows you to drink 10 year old wine. This logic came from Richard Gold in How and why to build a Wine Cellar.
current market value of one bottle, '99 La Tache minus release price.
Allen, I agree that there’s wine in my cellar that isn’t ready to drink. The comment was intended to refer to my use of the words “need/want“ and the opinion that when you’re at 1000 bottles, it’s what you want rather than what you need. But your point is well taken. With California Pinot, which is almost half of my cellar, I like about five years minimum.
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I plan to swing by Envoyer today for a few mins after an appt. I’ll count the # of boxes there with your name on it. ![[rofl.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
my comment is really a tongue in cheek aspiration I tried to pass by the wife unsuccessfully to justify an ever-burgeoning collection.
My wife complains we have a “store” in our house but happily drinks what we have.
My first post…
Alan’s comment made me laugh out loud!!
I’ve actually not thought of a annual budget (in 25 years of collecting)?? Sounds like a good idea, but really is too much work to go any further than that.
No budget just realistic limits on the size cellar I want (current target is 2000 bottles); how much I am willing to pay for any given wine (this number has continually crept up over the past 20 years); and the “deals” that keep popping up in my inbox. My peak buying years were 2007-2010 and I am currently buying at less than half those amounts.
I buy what I want when I want. When it starts to hurt or I run out of room I try to stop. Sometimes I do but it’s usually futile and boxes pile up in my guest room