So.......economic gloom and uncertainty /working cutbacks & retrencments/ stimulus money and low interest rates!!!
Its all a bit weird
Personally i have cut back in my spending on wine...not significantly but moderately. Why?? I find the state of society tends to manipulate no matter what.....just my opinion.
So...
Has the state of everything altered your spending habits??
Have you stopped/slowed buying wine for the minute /or for a while??
Work for me is secure as ever now, if not moreso (for now) however I've stopped buying much purely as it's coincided with a clear decision to start culling the cellar. That, and the fact we now have a 1 year old and money tends to get absorbed in buying toys, books, bikes, food, clothes... you name it.
There'll always be the odd buy but I don't see myself getting excited about decent purchases for at least a year or two yet.
There'll always be plenty of good wine to get hold of, it'll still be there in a year or so.
Cheers Wayno
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
Wine spending (and dining out for that matter) has fallen significantly lately, as we are saving for a trip to France. Unfortunately for us, the downturn has led to a dive in the strength of the AUD, which is quite unsavoury..... Otherwise, the economic downturn has not affected our jobs much.
Quite the reverse. Global recession doesn't compete with local promotion, and the delightful Sue and I have just booked a long long weekend in Denmark (the WA town, not the country) to celebrate and sample (buy) the local wines (Howard Park, Forest Hill, and a heap of smaller producers).
Having said that, I'm sure normal prices will rise - power, gas, food, fuel, and we will all get bitten to some degree.
Wine, women and song. Ideally, you can experience all three at once.
I'm buying less wine, but mostly because I don't have any more good storage space left. My wine cellar is full to capacity and where I store the more immediately drinkable wines in a passive temperature cellar is getting pretty full. I"m starting to get the stares from my very understanding wife.
If I had the room I'd be buying more wine now as the prices are coming down, in some cases by quite a lot. I'm avoiding new releases and retailers who haven't figured out the economy has gone south. Shiraz wines are particularly good buys right now and Oregon Pinot Noir's aren't. The real bargains are in the wines from vineyards with solid reputations but not a high score in an otherwise decent year. Ch. Leoville Barton in a good year was just on sale here in the States for 60% off its retail price last year, making it a phenomenal price.
Fortunately, I'm in a big build up stage and you guys might be interested in proxy riding my journey(?). The GFC has not affected my job, close to (early) retirement and we have spare cash. The downward pressure on prices is a happy coincidence for me.
The state of my cellar is different to you guys because I'm in the "early maturity" life cycle stage: just 10 years into wine & only 3-4 years into it as a passion. But I have to get serious very quickly about a cellar dbase and refrigerated storage. I can no longer process informally the "portfolio balance" of my cellar (varietals, prices & ages), or remember each of the interesting wines where there's just 1-2 bottles. My passive wine storage is good (below ground garage annex, slow temp variations across days and seasons). But this will not do for the super premium stuff I've started to get into. Apart from much Aussie wine, I've started to buy some Sth African (esp. Bordeaux blends), French (esp. Bordeaux blends & Cote d'Or reds - at this stage in lower [not low] price ranges) & some Italian (esp. lighter reds). I now frequently buy in $A50-100 range, and will lift that price range as I learn more about and buy international wines.
I'm fortunate, it's an exciting stage for me. I'd happy welcome advice and insights from your experiences.
Softie wrote:Fortunately, I'm in a big build up stage and you guys might be interested in proxy riding my journey(?). The GFC has not affected my job, close to (early) retirement and we have spare cash. The downward pressure on prices is a happy coincidence for me.
The state of my cellar is different to you guys because I'm in the "early maturity" life cycle stage: just 10 years into wine & only 3-4 years into it as a passion. But I have to get serious very quickly about a cellar dbase and refrigerated storage. I can no longer process informally the "portfolio balance" of my cellar (varietals, prices & ages), or remember each of the interesting wines where there's just 1-2 bottles. My passive wine storage is good (below ground garage annex, slow temp variations across days and seasons). But this will not do for the super premium stuff I've started to get into. Apart from much Aussie wine, I've started to buy some Sth African (esp. Bordeaux blends), French (esp. Bordeaux blends & Cote d'Or reds - at this stage in lower [not low] price ranges) & some Italian (esp. lighter reds). I now frequently buy in $A50-100 range, and will lift that price range as I learn more about and buy international wines.
I'm fortunate, it's an exciting stage for me. I'd happy welcome advice and insights from your experiences.
Rgds, John
I'm in a similar position but even less far down the road - just over two years' buying so far. Domestic storage options are increasingly scarce but there's already enough that we want to hold onto for a few years that external options will have to be explored fairly soon.
Financially things have tightened somewhat as opportunities for extra work have dried up. But the day job seems relatively secure so until there's a mortgage or a child I'll plough onwards - after all, if it all goes wrong at least I'll have something to numb the pain.
I've cut down significantly on my wine expenditure. I have another baby on the way, so I have to 'consolidate' my collection a bit anyway and use up some bottles that have been kicking around for longer than necessary
I find that I'm looking to more affordable purchases all the time; I just don't have the money to spend on wine like I used to. It's quite depressing really.
I too am in the have young child category but my reasons for reduction in buying are more in line with less drinking, storage room and a smaller part finances and future economic outlook. I leave work, go home and spend as much time with my son as possible and really don't feel like drinking at all. A few years back it was definitely at least a bottle every two days which meant I needed more stock replenishment. Now I will drink mainly on weekends with some very big bottle opening events with friends. I now buy higher end wines on occasions.
That said I did really enjoy a bottle of 2002 Bin 28 over the last three nights. Got better as time went on and should be a corker IMO in about 5 to 10 years.
Rawshack wrote:I've cut down significantly on my wine expenditure. I have another baby on the way, so I have to 'consolidate' my collection a bit anyway and use up some bottles that have been kicking around for longer than necessary
I find that I'm looking to more affordable purchases all the time; I just don't have the money to spend on wine like I used to. It's quite depressing really.
Yes, nothing like having a child to put things into perspective somewhat, all things relative to income etc of course. That said, I don't think I could be arsed now spending up on lots of heftily priced bottles on anything more than an occasional basis, child or not. I'll still go for the yearly Rockford stuff, vintage dependent and a few other bits and pieces but my eyes are very much on what I currently have. Even without buying much for a year or two, I'll still have a solid collection moving forward, so the next couple of years are all about cellar opimising, in some regards.
Cheers Wayno
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
Perhaps i should have also mentioned in my initial thread that our house building project has drawn parallel timing with the economic downturn and thus the more progress payments the less spare cash and sadly less wine......
We have 2 grown up children still living at home (and another very close to the drinking age), a 750ml bottle of wine is no longer sufficient for meals ......
My wine budget has been reduced significantly, mainly my storge is getting full, there is not that many exciting wines around, the french wines prices here is getting sky rocketing, and the GFC also affecting not only people's hip pocketrs more so is the people's confidence and saddden people's mood, how/what would you feel to crack open a bottle of a couple hundred dollars bottle/s of redwine and just heard from the news that 1500 people had lost their job.
Rgds,
Wilson
Everyday is a bonus! Drink the best wine you can afford.
Boyeah wrote:My wine budget has been reduced significantly, mainly my storge is getting full, there is not that many exciting wines around, the french wines prices here is getting sky rocketing, and the GFC also affecting not only people's hip pocketrs more so is the people's confidence and saddden people's mood, how/what would you feel to crack open a bottle of a couple hundred dollars bottle/s of redwine and just heard from the news that 1500 people had lost their job. Rgds, Wilson
The better the wine, the sweeter the toast to these poor people...
We're buying a lot less, partly because we left our cellar in Perth and have moved to Melbourne for 12-18 months. Have to say it's a kind of torture really, because prices in Melbourne are much better than in Perth.
We're enjoying having a whole new raft of wineries to visit, but touring around with our little girl does mean there's no mucking about - seems every activity has a 2y.o. happiness time limit!
buying 1/3 of what i did 2 years ago. really cutting back as i decided my cellar is too big. i buy my tried and true favourites and ignore the rest. spending more on other interests these days. the recession occassionally worries me but jobs 'seem' secure at the mo!!
I have basically stopped buying wine, but not due to the economic cycle. I have been buying 2005 vintage wines as that is my daughter's birth year, but now figure I have enough 2005's. In any case I have a 550 bottle collection in my cellar, and many of them cry out for drinking.
My partner and I both aren't working at the moment but it's a choice we've made rather than having been pushed into. My contract finished at the end of January and I hadn't had a holiday for two and a half years so I'm taking some time off now.
My partner took a voluntary redundancy last July and we haven't really needed her to work and she's loving being off and I'm loving coming home to a house with the lights on and dinner nearly ready and the dog walked, etc. Funny thing is that she worked for Centrelink and the VRs were available because hardly anyone was unemployed so there wasn't much to do. There's been a lot of change in the last 9 months and I heard Centrelink have employed 1000 new folks.
So I should probably start looking for another job in the near future but I'm not in any mad rush. In the interim, yes, I'm buying less wine.
This is a combination of trying to not spend unecessarily, having a very full cellar and not being all that tempted lately. I'm still buying when tempted though. But I'm also trying to make a bit of a dent in the cellar as I'm seriously running out of room. I've probably only bought 3 or 4 cases or so this year. Well down on usual.
Cheers,
Kris
There's a fine wine between pleasure and pain
(Stolen from the graffiti in the ladies loos at Pegasus Bay winery)
however I've stopped buying much purely as it's coincided with a clear decision to start culling the cellar. That, and the fact we now have a 1 year old and money tends to get absorbed in buying toys, books, bikes, food, clothes... you name it.
