Overstocked wine collectors round the world share their strategies…
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I loved this article. So many things I can relate to even though I started collecting wine some 10 years ago and therefore never knew what it was to buy the great names at a decent price. Worse, the prices of wines I bought en primeurs have almost all gone down over the years.
The conclusions at the end are sobering. I wonder if La Place de Bordeaux is reading. I still believe that with a decent pricing, interest in Bordeaux could be rejuvenated. But perhaps it’s too late and the incentives are still wrong.
Oh, and regarding “too little time”, we just need to open (great) bottles and not wait for the right opportunity. Any opportunity is good.
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Yes indeed - rings many bells. The comments around quantities of sweeter Pradikat Germans are particularly appropriate- at my current rate of consumption and a normal life expectancy - God Willing - my children’s children will likely be drinking mine. An aspiration to drink a bottle a week is not currently being realised.
There is of course a significant tension in what one buys. The desire to be able to revisit that which one likes, the need for diversity (CT tells me I have 810 different wines, but those probably fall in to 6 or 8 big buckets) and the reality that combining those factors inevitably results in a number in the ‘000s. Rationality would suggest purchasing mixed cases on a monthly basis but then the comprise would be younger (immature) wines.
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An important change in all wine-buying practices is the growth of the ability to easily find a wide range of wines via the various internet exchanges.
If I were starting today I would own many fewer of the mid-to-high level wines I have in storage waiting to be ready, because now I can reliably find them on one of the markets. Thirty years ago buying en premier or on release was the only way to ensure a supply of well-aged wines which were exactly the ones I wanted to drink.
I have wondered if, in addition to the less drinking and to the softening of East Asian buying, another reason for softening demand for new releases over the past several years is exactly that: wine drinkers don’t feel compelled to buy and store wines specifically so that they will have them in 5 or 10 years.
With that said, a problem which the exchanges cannot address is that, in the US, bonded storage is rare so there is some risk in the storage history of any wine bought at auction or via an exchange. Merchants often say “has been with us in our cellars for a long time” (I find that less than encouraging when I see it), and we have a friend who found the perfect place to store wine in that nice cubby hole right next to the boiler.
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