Does anybody know if there are certain insurance companies that insure wine cellars. (i.e. the actual wine inside in an indoor underground cellar). It just struct me that what if the house were to burn down, it would either explode all the bottles, or the heat would probably ruin the wine anyway and pow - tens of 000's gone. I keep buying more wine than I drink, so the value keeps going up.
I estimate that some of the forumites cellars would be worth a small fortune. Any thoughts or advice on which way to turn?
Attached some tasting notes of recent wines I drank in the last two weeks
I ranked them in order of what I liked the best.
98 JR
98 Domaine A Cab Sav (Tassie)
94 Howard Park
98 Orlando Lawson's Shiraz
98 Zema Family Cab Sav
01 Craiglee Shiraz
All except for the Craiglee I gave a high rating and cannot wait to try all of them again in another year or so.
Although the JR was still very closed, I triple decantered and allowed to breath for a while and after it opened up, it was an astonishingly good wine. It was a wine with class and sharp flavours that mellowed and improved all night. Complex and multi-layered flavour and eventually a great fruity nose. I had that on the same night as the HP and although I paid $50 p/b for the JR and $70 for the HP, the JR was a clear winner on the night. Excellent and will improve for many, many years.
The Domaine A was a deep, powerful, earthy, oaky, brooding style of Cabernet. I could taste it in on my breath for another day after drinking it. In say 5 years, it would not surprise me if this wine improved to such an extent that it would ranked higher than the JR. It wasn't smokey, but it had that cigar box/deep dark blackberry flavour. Excellent
The Orlando still needs another 3 years to fully integrate. I found initially too hot, as that eucalypt flavour was a bit over powering and made it too spicy to enjoy the fruit. This will be a stunner in time as I think later on the fruit will really come out and provide a fantastic shiraz experience. Highly Recommended
I've had one 94 HP for the last 3 years in a row. The first was a knockout and the second not far behind. This bottle seemed a bit flat. Not a bad wine, just lacking character and perhaps not enough fruit flavour for a 10 year wine. Although definitely a quality wine, it was a tad boring and really didn't leave me thinking that I needed to go and buy more HP. No wow factor. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh as I enjoyed the first 2 so much. Highly Recommended
The 98 Zema was clearly a well structured and powerful Cabernet. Still young and will improve over the next 3-5 years, (peaking in say 2007), it did display quite complex flavours. Highly Recommended
The Craiglee was just ok. A pleasant and easy drinking young shiraz. Certainly not their best as the 2000 I have had many times before and is far better. Not much complexity to this wine, just straight fruit driven flavour without much layering. - Drink now - Recommended.
