The Auswine Forum

Just throwing out a question on collection sizes and consumption plans/futures.
Give or take i reckon I've got about 500 bottles stashed.
In my late 40's I'm thinking whats the plan with all the vino? How much is too much? How much is bang on the money.
I would assume with a lot of forumites there's some pretty large collections that are probably growing exponentially.
I look at 500 bottles and wonder whether I'll actually get thru it.
I'm not sure I even have a plan in mind.
When to stop collecting. When to trim it a bit. etc etc.

Anyway, I was wondering how some of you are tracking? Do you have a consumption plan? DO you even care either way?

Hi Scotty
One data point from me.
We grew the collection relatively rapidly, once we'd pushed through the 100 bottle max limit we originally set. We probably maxed out just below 500 bottles in 2012, having driven through France to Piemonte and back, during which a *few bottles fell inside the car boot.

We're now slowly decreasing what's in the cellar (CT says just under 350 bottles, but I've not audited it for a while, so that may not be very accurate).

What has changed, apart from slowing down the buying, is that we've moved away from the real 'cellar-builder' focus we used to have, as keeping and ageing wines was very much part of the hobby for me, and we really like aged wine. The replacements are more likely to be 1-10 year drinking windows, rather than 10-25 years. Don't worry, we've got a decent concentration of those cellar-builders and with enough that should be at a nice maturity. The purchases also represent that realisation that there are some cracking wines at the ~ AUD 25-35 level, that give me more options when reaching for a bottle of wine. Hence there has been an element of reshaping the cellar balance.

What would I change? Hindsight would change a few things for sure, but that's mostly about hitting the balance of knowing what you know well and exploring other regions. I probably stayed a little long with an Aus/NZ focus, but specifically too long trusting Aussie critics that Barossa/McLaren vale was "where the best wines are", whereas for me Grampians, Hunter Valley, Coonawarra, etc. all offer more to my tastes. Had I explored Portugal earlier, especially the Northern regions, then the cellar would almost certainly have a very different mix. i.e. the advice is, if you're going to explore, get on with it, as some discoveries may have a major shift in what you want to drink, and that's a problem if you have 500 bottles of stuff that's not what now excites you.

Regards
Ian

* ~ 120 (10 cases), which was still just half our customs allowance when we were in the EU

Good subject, Scotty and excellent comments Ian.

At around 1300 bottles, I was determined to buy less and cap out the cellar there. In the intervening 6 or so years, I've managed to reduce the cellar to a much more manageable 3000. My downfall? The number of wines that I buy every vintage has grown a little, while my interest in other wines (and other countries) has broadened considerably. I would also echo Ian's comments about being too Aussie-centric for a long time.

How will I get through 3000 bottles? No idea, although a large number of people offer their assistance. I am now spending more per bottle than ever, and hopefully that will help reduce the number of bottles purchased.

Cheers
Allan

May I please answer this in 2025, when I make my last purchase
Cheers Craig

I'd be in a similar situation Scotty... I guess I have just hit my late 40s and I am probably sitting on 850 or so bottles. Of that, I'd say about 250 are fortified and many of those are a long way from peak. I've always had trouble matching consumption to purchasing with the later outstripping the former for the last decade or so. I think this year I have reduced my purchasing a bit because a) I haven't been able to go anywhere and b) I found a non-wine hobby to channel some of the cash that would have gone towards wine. I still need to resist bargains and buy wine in lesser quantities than 6s or 12s to start reducing my cellar though.

phillisc wrote:May I please answer this in 2025, when I make my last purchase
Cheers Craig

Stop sounding like a politician's promise

Fair topic ... I guess I have about 900 bottles in a cellar in Oz, and a little more than 100 in storage or awaiting delivery with BBR and about 130 assorted bottles stashed around my apartment.

Since the crisis and largely declaring my Aussie cellar full I have managed to keep at approximately this level, with just what is in the house fluctuating based on how good the offers are from my usual preferred online stores.

Being in my mid-30s, I would be happy for this to increase more over time, but my main concern is managing wine in different countries. I suspect when I finally get back to Oz I will do a clear out and send some things to auction and reinvest the proceeds into more European wine. I have too many unopened 6 packs in Oz approaching 10Y old ... probably not the best way to optimise pricing but I have in mind to just cull 2-3 bottles from a bunch of them to avoid wasting it later.

Great topic.

In the American TV vernacular, for me this is a bit like the “perp walk of shame” as I am walked thru the office in handcuffs.

The cellar peaked at 5100 bottles about 5 years ago. It is now down to “only” 3200. The only way I have achieved this apparently impressive reduction in total bottle count is thru selling wines. I have probably sold around 1500 bottles in that time period.

I am 63 so probably have no more than 25 drinking years left. My dad was a heavy drinker and he pretty much had to stop completely in his late 80s. Maybe medical science will help extend my personal drinking window?

I have a plan of sorts. I used to buy 300-400 bottles peer year and the plan is to buy between 100-200 per year. But covid and lock downs have not helped with the plan. The average annual consumption rate is about 200 bottles/year. I need to buy less of course. My net decline rate without sales is probably less than 100 bottles/ year which means that the cellar will outlive me.

I maintain a cellar inventory spreadsheet and it has a “remaining bottles vs time” plot (and data)that goes back 15 years. I can see the trend lines over time and can see if the slope is going the “wrong way”. Covid lock downs have generated a slope reversal as I buy more.

I have an incurable case of Wine Acquisition Disorder (WAD). My logic for continuing to purchase is mostly around demographics. Too many old bottles already, need to make sure that is 10 years time there is a good range of ages in the cellar. These days my purchases are a bit different: Champagne, German Rieslings, Etna Rosso, Chianti, few NZ pinots. I have stopped buying Bordeaux, Burgundy, Barolo, Aussie reds, Rhones.

I really do want to shrink the cellar down a lot over the next 10 year, but the whole WAD issue is making that hard. I just love buying wine, I love bidding in auctions, I love excitement of a new vintage or a new discovery.

Cheers to everyone here to live long and drink well.

Brodie

I'm sure we all have an element of WAD in us, so ain't no-one going to be pointing any fingers of shame

Ian S wrote:

phillisc wrote:May I please answer this in 2025, when I make my last purchase
Cheers Craig

Stop sounding like a politician's promise

Ha ha Ian...hope that I don't sound like the bloke from marketing in Australia, who is in more trouble than the early settlers...what's his name again
I will have to give Emanuel a call .

Cheers Craig

I’ve cut back on consumption in recent years for various reasons but at current rates have enough to keep me going for 45 years. Given that the average age of my wine is already 20 years, it’s time to cull the collection by 1000 bottles. That said, it feels like selling a child….. and I keep procrastinating

Mike Hawkins wrote:I’ve cut back on consumption in recent years for various reasons but at current rates have enough to keep me going for 45 years. Given that the average age of my wine is already 20 years, it’s time to cull the collection by 1000 bottles. That said, it feels like selling a child….. and I keep procrastinating

Mike is that just the champagne collection?

Cheers Craig
Ps. I will be considering same, my son is threatening spreadsheets and sharp pencils...20 somethings suggest that the cellar should be paying for itself, so what am I doing about it

I have about 1000 bottles and am 50. I built a 2000 bottle cellar two years ago and have gone from 600-1000 since. As I squirrelled away bottles it gave me a bit of a mortality check (thinking "I'm 48, I want to drink this in 20 yrs, I'll be 68......68!!@@###!!"). I figure we drink 150-200 bottles per year. So they way I look at it, if I turned off the tap of purchasing we'd only be drinking from the cellar for about 6-7 years. I feel like I might live for ever so at this stage am just trying really hard to buy less but better....

Well short. I love special wine drank at optimum. So that means no problems drinking Grange mid-week watching Netflix ( so to speak )

I would happy with 5000 bottles half of it Piedmont. The rest I can get along the way. I’d drink 500 bottles a year from the cellar so all is well. What I don’t drink my daughter can inherit and rationalise or whatever she wants. Along with my other assets I can’t sell due CGT. She knows my passion and I hope she enjoys them.

I love a great bottle of wine so much I’m fine with this hobby. I’ve friends who own WW2 fighters and their hobby is far more expensive and I guess as exhilarating as opening a magnum of a very rare wine signed by the winemaker in a faraway land: Conterno for example

phillisc wrote: I will have to give Emanuel a call .

You can buy every drop of my French wine if you want? Or I’ll offer it to that treasonous French-apologist Turnbull.

Looking forward to British nuclear submarines launched with a magnum of Nyetimber and Arras.

How are your LFTs at 10 bottles a week...I'd be dead or well over 100 Kgs.

Cheers Craig
PS...think most of us will be in a nursing home...well before British subs hit the water

Great topic, one which is exercising my mind more and more these days.

Have a reasonable cellar, not quite as much as others, but still around the 2000 bottle mark. Mainly Australian, some French, some very little Italian, but virtually no other countries. Second half of my 60's

How long do I keep buying current vintages, when I prefer to drink wines with some amount of age?

Mike Hawkins wrote:I’ve cut back on consumption in recent years for various reasons but at current rates have enough to keep me going for 45 years. Given that the average age of my wine is already 20 years, it’s time to cull the collection by 1000 bottles. That said, it feels like selling a child….. and I keep procrastinating

Yes Mike I know the feeling, I intended to drink every bottle I bought.

For me the best way to get over this to tell yourself; you are giving someone else the opportunity enjoy them in their prime rather them gathering dust in the cellar and getting (potentially) over the hill. So think of of release your babies (that are now fully grown up) out into the big wide world

Cheers Brodie

I have way, way too much and it really is starting to stress me out. Seriously.
I have purchased far too much, and I drink less these days. Probably average 2 bottles a week, thanks to the wonders of Coravin, I usually have about 10-12 bottles on the go at any one time, lasting 5-6 weeks.
Special occasions, family dinners, mates dinners, wine groups, probably get me close to 200 bottles a year consumed.
It will be the treasure trove for my kids, hopefully they will drink rather than sell.

The other aspect of cellaring is my wine is largely, 80-90%, Burgundy and Bordeaux. The absurd prices of Burgundy being realised now make it pretty well impossible to drink. Even though I might have purchased a dozen for $80 a bottle 20-30 years ago, many are now worth $800-2500 a bottle. I don't want to drink wine worth that, so I have started to sell, something I thought I would never do. Who is paying these ridiculous prices, I have no idea, but I assume they had lots and lots of bitcoin.

My advice to any newcomer to this wonderful world is to set a 1000 bottle limit to their cellar, and absolutely, absolutely stick to it.

phillisc wrote:How are your LFTs at 10 bottles a week...I'd be dead or well over 100 Kgs.

Cheers Craig
PS...think most of us will be in a nursing home...well before British subs hit the water

I share my cellar so it’s not reflective of personal consumption. That said, the main reason I buy at auction is to meet the expectation by family and friends that you will share! I recall hiring cottages in the Barossa years ago and sharing the first generation of my treasures. Little appreciation so now I just bring out auction wines for some.


Always been fine with Liver tests and the like. I wonder if a lot of it is processed food which I don’t eat? I’d come back from Piedmont after a month of crazy eating and drinking and little weight. Jungles of Asia helped too- I’d be on expedition most months remote trekking.

Subs are coming! In what form IDK. Confirmation of will win an election.

felixp21 wrote:The absurd prices of Burgundy being realised now make it pretty well impossible to drink. Even though I might have purchased a dozen for $80 a bottle 20-30 years ago, many are now worth $800-2500 a bottle. I don't want to drink wine worth that, so I have started to sell, something I thought I would never do.

Hi Felix, I share you pain. I have 3x more Red burgs than any other category in my cellar. It is a lot and like yours some of them have gone up on value ten fold or twenty fold. And as you say, drinking wines that auction for literally thousands of $$ is somewhere between uncomfortable and impossible. The problem is I really want to drink them, but the occasions where opening such wines actually makes sense are pretty rare in my world. I have somewhere in the region of 300 bottles between Dujac, Mugnier, Roumier & Rousseau and as much as I love these makers and their wines, I don't get to open them very often.

Brodie

I struggle with a few things, partially like Felix, the price appreciation of burgs, particularly Rousseau mean I can’t justify drinking something that commands $2-3,000 pb. Genuine first world problem, granted.

Part two of my conundrum is that whilst I have many wine drinking friends, none of them venture further than, say, a 10 yo Bin 389. Most don’t even understand Pinot noir nor want any to pass their lips. Yet it is my favourite ‘go to’ wine style. So, I am not really understood wine wise by them. Two or three of them will only drink Barossa Shiraz, but if I offer a Yarra Cabernet they will run for the hills.

I still have too much stuff, although happily it is spread across a number of continents, ages and styles so I am reluctant to cull too much right now. And all three of my adult kids show interest in my wine estate so maybe I won’t cull.

The other problem is potentially my health. My doctor constantly reminds my about the upper daily drinking limit of 2 glasses (I mean, really?) including 2 alcohol free days each week. JUST. NOT. POSSIBLE! I would like to explore this health thing with you all, maybe it deserves its own thread.

Apologies about the rambling nature of my musings.

The Curse of Burgundy. It’s not a new phenomena it is just obviously at new heights. It affects seriously wealthy people too. I’ve met and dined with some of the big Burgundy collectors in Hong Kong and their once passion corrupted by money. I suggested to one he build a small pyramid and take his Burgundy to the afterlife. He didn’t get my jab. And by the time some get their head around their wealth and their ability to indulge in their passion, it is too late. It’s sold as part of their estate.

Maybe we should have a mid-week Auswine Burgundy fest? We all drink a bottle of our best Burgundy and forget what it costs and find the passion of decades past?

I was at around 1200 bottles 10 odd years ago, went through a very expensive divorce, got out of the corporate rat race, moved to the country and started my own little consulting business and since all that happened have had to dumb down down my lifestyle to suit my financial circumstances. Spend way less on wine these day but have had the benefit of being able to drink my way through the cellar over that period without having to resort to drinking plonk. Am now at around 300 bottles and am looking to keep it that way, buying wise I limit myself to 5 dozen respectable wines a year which is a bit over 1 a week which works for me rather than the 20 or so dozen I used to buy.

Great, if painful, topic.

Yep, too much wine and too much Aussie Shiraz from 20 years ago. Most hold bigger parties or send it to auction.

During these last two years we've finally decided to buy almost nothing from a few wineries that we've been following for years. Decades even.

Time to drink better, give a few more as gifts, auction off the stuff we're bored with and buy more Champagne. Oh, and Sparkling Red for Mr Carrington when he next visits from the UK.

I think I got up to 1200 about 10 years ago and have between 900 and a 1000 now. The big problem for me is that only a 1/4 of those wines are in my current location and the rest are stored with friends, family and merchants in Europe. The chances of that becoming 1 wine collection in 1 location seems to be nil and I suppose I will have to dispose of a lot of the European stuff next time I go back. I dont actually mind that I wont get to drink a lot of it as my tastes have moved on and I had such great fun collecting it in the first place.

In that collection there are a few expensive bottles and I dont subscribe to the "its now now too valuable to drink" thinking. The main reason stopping me from drinking them, apart from not having them at home, is actually that they are all too young. Even the oldest red - 98 La Mission, my first En Primeur purchase, is only just starting to reach its drinking window.

I have reached my storage limit at home and tonight, for the first time ever, I actually passed on buying a wine I really wanted at auction as I just dont have the room ( 3 bottles of 09 Cirillo 1850 Semillon). Its given me a real sense of freedom and now the plan is to only buy when there is room to store it. Thats going to also mean a lot more auction buys for ready to drink wine, rather than wines that need time to age. Will see what happens when the next Wendouree offer comes out.

The 'intentionally limited' storage space is indeed one of the best ways to combat impulse or FOMO buying.