How many bottles?

[Julio G]

I have been collecting wine now for about 7 years and have just ticked over 300 bottles. It made me think that I'm collecting with no conscious strategy or optimum collection size. As my tastes have changed and broadened, one conscious practice I have adopted is not buying more than 3 or 4 of one wine.

I am curious to know, how many bottles do you have in your collection? Do you have an optimum number of bottles you would like your collection to reach (how many is too many?). Any particular practices/principles you follow?

[Waiters Friend]

G'day Julio G

I see the bug has bitten. My advice is try to tailor it to your turnover (i.e. how many bottles will you drink in a year?). The complicating factor is allowing for wines you want to mature.

If there are wines you have decided you want to buy a few of, year in year out, and watch them develop, then that sort of cyclical system it something to go for. However, with a cellar pushing 800 bottles, I find that a) I tend to buy some wines year after year (if they have proven themselves to suit my palate and budget, b) there will always be a fair percentage of bottles that will find their way into the cellar of their own accord, c) the amount you spend per bottle on average will probably increase, and d) your tastes will evolve, and the contents of the cellar will evolve accordingly (with experience, hopefully affluence, and more experience).

Have you considered some sort of cellar tracking software? I'm a bit of a hypocrit, as I don't use one, but would probably recommend one.

Cheers

Allan

[via collins]

Hi Julio,

I've been cellaring (don't think of myself as collecting) for 4 or 5 years now, and have just tipped 170.

Funny you ask, I was lying in bed wondering what's optimal only this morning. I figure as I drink less, but better now, I'm hoping to have 3 - 4 really good wines on hand per week, and this year, it's starting to happen. So I guess from hereon, a case of month, spread across a range of tastes, should do the job.

I love the way that my tastes change as I learn more about wine. So I take the advice of posters here and at Bert's by putting away things that don't appeal immediately, but I know have respect. Chardonnay being the perfect example where I can fall in love with a wine that I would have sneered at only a few years ago.

Cheers,

[fatdoi]

I have been collecting wine now for about 7 years and have just ticked over 300 bottles. It made me think that I'm collecting with no conscious strategy or optimum collection size. As my tastes have changed and broadened, one conscious practice I have adopted is not buying more than 3 or 4 of one wine.

I am curious to know, how many bottles do you have in your collection? Do you have an optimum number of bottles you would like your collection to reach (how many is too many?). Any particular practices/principles you follow?

interestingly i now have just over 300 bottles since i started in 2001.... back then i had no idea about what's good or bad, so when i heard 98 was good vintage, i bought the big brands penfolds, henschke etc.... now after nearly a decade of experimenting & from looking the printout from cellartracker.com i can see i am now buying trend changed from regional blends to single vineyard ones.

I don't think i've changed my taste as i always liked bolder style wines (barossa) but only refined to some producers whose products align to what i'm looking for as i like to experiment on new ones (not too many) from time to time.... as there are a few producers whom i'd buy from them constantly ie 2 hands, torbreck, greenock creek, radford, hobbs, noon....

my ideal size (if i've conditioned storage) will be ~600 as i can expand my regions/varietals/vertical vintages... also i like to refine the number of producers as my list currently has over 60..... to shorten (hopefully by half) that means i can buy more from of different years.

good luck Julio

[monghead]

I honestly don't think there is such a thing as too much in this regard...

Cellar as much as your budget (and partner) will allow...

Cheers,

Monghead.

[Roscoe]

As mentioned by a number of posters, you need to look at how much you currently drink, how much you think you will drink in the future (using your crystal ball), how much you will drink on purchase (e.g for evaluation purposes or just for quaffing) and the average time in the cellar your cellaring wines will need to reach your optimal drinking window (which of course varies from wine to wine and person to person). BTW, I don't know what stage of life you're at, but average price per bottle (adjusted for inflation) does not necessarily rise over time. Things like mortgages, children and (especially) private school fees can easily divert large amounts of money elsewhere.

[DJ]

How old you like your wines is probably the big question. There are a lot of wines which don't hit their straps until about 10 years old. If you want to drink 2 bottles a week of 10 years from release wine, it means you will need about 1040 bottles!

I started buying to cellar in 1990, by 1996 when I married I had about 200 bottles. It is now in the 1200 - 1300 range with a good few cases of kids' birth year wines. The room I'm about to turn into a cellar will probably end up having a capacity north of 1600 bottles - this is too much by my drinking reconning. I'm fortunate my better half is a partner in crime.

[Julio G]

thanks for your responses... too many unknown variables for me at the moment... I will boldly keep accumulating and deal with any consequences as and when... seems more fun that way!

[rooman]

In part this question is driving by how you prefer your wines. If you like young fresh reds and whites, you will have less need for a deep cellar. In my case, I like rieslings with 8-10 years age, cab savs with min 12 years and shiraz in the 6-8 year range. On average I drink about 3 bottles a week which translates to around 150 per year. So for me to drink wine with the age profile I like, I figure a critical mass of 1500 (which I now have) fed with 150 a year means I can take out the wine I like to drink each year.

[Rawshack]

I've usually got somewhere in the region of a dozen cases in stock and like you, have no real strategy about what I do or don't collect. I do try and keep my cellar logged so that I can have some indication of what is ready to drink, but it frequently slips.

Like someone else said, I 'cellar' rather than collect. I had a conversation with a nice, but wealthy and rather pompous man who told me that he only collected pinot (he reeled off a list the usual suspects) and then said he would probably never drink them. I think my point being that whatever goes in your cellar, make sure you love it for what it is, not what it cost or what the label says.

A trite and perhaps obvious point, but often overlooked

Good luck with the cellaring!

[Fortune 3rd reg. attempt]

How many bottles? Depends on how many hiding places you have, and how big they are...

[Julio G]

I've usually got somewhere in the region of a dozen cases in stock and like you, have no real strategy about what I do or don't collect. I do try and keep my cellar logged so that I can have some indication of what is ready to drink, but it frequently slips.

Like someone else said, I 'cellar' rather than collect. I had a conversation with a nice, but wealthy and rather pompous man who told me that he only collected pinot (he reeled off a list the usual suspects) and then said he would probably never drink them. I think my point being that whatever goes in your cellar, make sure you love it for what it is, not what it cost or what the label says.

A trite and perhaps obvious point, but often overlooked

Good luck with the cellaring!

I use "collect" as a substitute for "cellar" as I do not have a cellar, just a collection of polystyrene boxes and an internal wall cavity. I promise you that I plan to drink my collection

[Rawshack]

I've usually got somewhere in the region of a dozen cases in stock and like you, have no real strategy about what I do or don't collect. I do try and keep my cellar logged so that I can have some indication of what is ready to drink, but it frequently slips.

Like someone else said, I 'cellar' rather than collect. I had a conversation with a nice, but wealthy and rather pompous man who told me that he only collected pinot (he reeled off a list the usual suspects) and then said he would probably never drink them. I think my point being that whatever goes in your cellar, make sure you love it for what it is, not what it cost or what the label says.

A trite and perhaps obvious point, but often overlooked

Good luck with the cellaring!

I use "collect" as a substitute for "cellar" as I do not have a cellar, just a collection of polystyrene boxes and an internal wall cavity. I promise you that I plan to drink my collection

Poly boxes... Sounds familiar!

Drink drink drink!

[Mike Hawkins]

I have roughly 1000 bottles and like to drink them at about 15 years of age on average. My cellar is the ideal size for my drinking frequency (finding byo over here can be problematic).

Mike

[Softie]

... there is such a thing as too much in this regard... Cellar as much as your budget (and partner) will allow... Monghead.

Hmm, does anyone have Lisa's email address? Lisa: this rather implies the sky is the limit unless you set the limit.

(Oh, and would you mind not talking to Kerry please, Lisa?)

I have 330 bottles and going up. Have recently adopted Cellartracker. Find 3-6 is a good qty to buy - six for those you want to drink across years to enjoy the evolution (esp. now we have Stelvin taking over). My average price has gone up, now around $A40. But a key for me is cellar diversity, including in price. Every now and again there's a terrific wine [eg 94+ JH] released as a cleanskin/hidden label dozen - often well under $20 - and that gives degrees of freedom to drinking choices to 'protect' wines bought in smaller sets that should be cellared. [Thank you Red Bigot.] This is more vital for those who can afford quality, but are in sub-200 bottles stage. I have to watch single bottle ("I'll just try one of these", or from a polite, at least one bottle per cellar door visit, tendency). I am consciously trying to leave some room for future evolution of tastes.

I suspect that somewhere in 400-450 bottles is my long term target cellar volume. The quality of my full bodied Aussie Shiraz (esp. Barossa) and CS/blends inventory means I must become very selective in rate of buys of same, in favour of much diversity in high quality wines, including Pinots, softer Shiraz/blends, more age-worthy whites, various European wines, and dessert wines.

Geez, isn't this pastime fun?

Rgds, John

[kwattro]

I've started my stairwell cellar a couple of years ago and my latest account was roughtly 20 cases - and it is pretty much at its capacity . i have no real strategy, i buy a few to try, then buy more of what i think will be good for the long term. Now that you've brought it up, i have to go give it a bit of thought - it doesn't make sense to all these wines matured within a few years of each other.

[Chuck]

How many bottles? Depends on how many hiding places you have, and how big they are...

I'm with him. There is no such thing as too much wine. Least that's what I say to SWMBO. I've lost count but reckon there's about 800-1,000 in my underground passive cellar. Clearly not enough. Someone referred to "critical mass". Once reached it's important to at least maintain it by replacing as fast as you drink.

It's nice drinking aged wines and replacing with current vintages. Drinking young reds is infanticide.

Chuck

[malliemcg]

I currently have about 200 bottles in our cellar. It's an internal storage cupboard that has been gutted and covered in Sisilation and Extruded Polystyrene Sheets, which flattened out the daily temperature swings to at worst 0.5C and dropped max temperature in summer to 19.5C. I reckon this is not quite ideal for long term storage and happy wines after a great many years, but given that we go through about 120 bottles a year (some stuff bought from a bottle shop for the purpose of drinking/preventing drinking one of the better drops that we should have enough to keep us in some 5-8 year Shiraz and 10-15 year Cab if I can work out how to manage the boxes.

Ideally I'd love to be drinking pretty much only wines with age on them, but in the foreseeable future while trying to get a home, having kids, I'll "make do" with what we've got and shoot for an in ground cellar with capacity for 1500-2000 bottles as an end goal - preferably within the next 10 years so that I should be able to enjoy some of my own stuff that has been laid down sleeping not too far away for 20 years or so.

As far as tastes changing - I have discovered that mine has, the wife's has as well so am putting the occasional "experimental" box down of things that I'd like to see a) what it does and b) if I like it or not in the future if I was perhaps unsure at release.

All I can say is that it's a lot of fun and thoroughly enjoyable. I'd also recommend cellartracker.com if you don't have a tracking program/spreadsheet/system - I like it for both the what's in the cellar and the what we've had and how we felt about it parts.

[Peter Schlesinger]

I'm with everyone who takes the view that you buy as much and as many as you can afford. I put our first dozen down under our house over 35 years ago and the stash now fluctuates between 130 to 140 dozen depending on how much help I get from our sons in making cellar space and what releases happen to be irrestible at the time. Prevention is better than cure so I always ensure that there's something there to drink for every occasion. As for leaving too many behind, if I can't take them with me I'm not going.

[I Love Shiraz]

My collection is a touch under 600 bottles, which is more than enough. I don't want it any bigger than that. My wife does not drink alcohol, so my drinking rate is slower than most of you on this forum.

I started in 1997, and tend to buy big in the great vintages (1998 and 2002). I also have a lot of 2005's as it is my daughter's birth year. As my user name suggests, I love shiraz, so most of my collection is that variety.

I also tend to buy in case lots as I like to assess how a wine is developing over a period of time, and find that I like drink most of them them after 10 years.

[Red]

Haven't really given much thought to how many bottles I will end up with. My focus rather is having cellar worthy wines across as many regions and varieties as possible. Won't buy more than 6 bottles of any individual wine as well.

Do people have each individual Australian region/GI represented in their cellar? This is something I'd like to end up having

[graham]

I started about 13 years ago and have about 120dozen in collection. Largest vintage being 05 at 23 dozen and 15 magnums for daughters birth year. Collected alot of shiraz and cab sav to start but now getting more pinots. Main problem the cellar I had built will only take about 180 dozen......a nice problem to have

[Red Bigot]

Do people have each individual Australian region/GI represented in their cellar? This is something I'd like to end up having

No, I only cellar reds I like.

[Red Bigot]

My aim was to retire with about 10 years good drinking in my cellar and I managed that about 5 years ago. It's stayed fairly constant since, close to cellar capacity or just over 3,100 bottles currently.
Red Bigot Cellar

[dazza1968]

I have been collecting wone since 98 and have 2000 bottles

found now a this size that i buy less and concentrate on quality ..

125 to 200 bottles a year go in and out every year mind you this last year was a bit skinny but hey it doesnt matter really

[daz]

I have been collecting wone since 98 and have 2000 bottles

found now a this size that i buy less and concentrate on quality ..

125 to 200 bottles a year go in and out every year mind you this last year was a bit skinny but hey it doesnt matter really

What is wone?

[seddo]

Have about 600 and will probably slow down a tad with collecting (yeah right ) - hope to max this out in about 3-5years to 1000 - we will see - have two consuming pasions wine and bike riding. Would love a Baum or a Colnago Master Lite

cheers
Seddo

[daz]

I'm happy enough with my 1999 ZZR1100 that I've owned for over 10 years..

[seddo]

I'm happy enough with my 1999 ZZR1100 that I've owned for over 10 years..

good one daz - mate at work wanted to put a 50cc wippersnipper motor in my pushy, would prefer to have his hardly rideable

cheers
Seddo

[dazza1968]

I have been collecting wone since 98 and have 2000 bottles

found now a this size that i buy less and concentrate on quality ..

125 to 200 bottles a year go in and out every year mind you this last year was a bit skinny but hey it doesnt matter really

What is wone?

oops wone is a foreign word for wine LOL

regards Dazza