The Auswine Forum

It’s been a decade or so since the conversation has come up here. How’s everyone’s cellaring practices holding up? Adjusting with tastes and age?

I strained my back the other day moving endless boxes of Barolo and it finely dawned on me I may have too much wine for my circumstances. Living overseas was different with as many wine events per week as you wanted. Big cellars were shared in a smorgasbord of mainstream or obscure events ( 1880’s Madeira for example ).

Be interesting to hear what everyone’s doing? The annual Wendouree thread suggests many have heaps cellared and not so many drinking reports?

A few boomer cellars coming up at auction. A recent had hundreds of bottles that peaked years ago. That said, I bought some an still going great guns. Early nineties SA fo example.

Hi Jamie

Definitely adjusting with tastes and age.

I currently have somewhere around 3,500 bottles in the cellar. The 'buy young, drink older' philosophy is definitely the norm with an oversupply of older vintages. It's given me a greater appreciation of aged wines, but to the detriment of younger wines.

I'm trying to buy less, but also there are some wines that are 'every vintage' buys. I may have to reduce the number of these, too.

I'm also drinking / buying more French and Italian wines, so the average spend per bottle has inevitably increased.

I suppose it's now buy less but buy better. I recall a thread 10-15 years ago where someone was saying how they were only buying 3s and occasional 6s of wines to cellar, back when I was buying (lower priced) dozens. I'm down to 6s for anything I want to cellar (noting there will be less of these over time).

Cheers
Allan

I was definitely of the view of never buying 12’s again a decade or so ago but buying in sixes hard to avoid due specials or IB.

I’m drinking 90% plus mature wines so I’m struggling with young wines too. Especially in stelvin. A vertical of Serrat Chardonnay last night had me desperate for more complexity. Older vintages better. It’s a great wine but a good example of how your palate calibrates.

My cellaring practices have changes greatly over the the last 30 years of doing it, especially in the last 5 years or so. Some of the changes include:
1. I no longer purchase dozens. For a long time I purchased six packs of the same wine, but now tend to purchase no more thasn three bottles of the same wine.
2. My collection at one stage was as high as 550 bottles, but found that was too many as I wasn't drinking enough to justify this size of collection. I now only drink a couple of bottles a week, and don't want to drink just aged wines. My collection is now down to 350 bottles.
3. I used to collect mainly Shiraz with a smattering of Riesling. My tastes are now more diverse , with my collection encompasing Shiraz, Cab Sav, Pinot Noir, Nebbiolo (mostly Barolo), Riesling, and a bit of Chardonnay and wines from Cyprus (my parents' homeland).

Hi Jamie,
it is a great and vexing question.
I've got around 6,500 bottles in the cellar(s), mostly Burgundy, with Champagne and Bordeaux equal second. Simply waaaay too much wine.
I pull Aussie wines out for Xmas, Easter or family/friend2 get togethers, a good way to dwindle the supply, but I still have, I'd say, close to 1,000 bottles of Aussie stuff, 99% from the 90's-70's.
I really want to completely stop buying wine, but then a nice little bargain from Meursault or Volnay comes along hehehe

Like the majority of wine-lovers, my tastes have really changed.
In my 20's it was Aussie shiraz, in my 30's Aussie pinots and Cabs, then from mid-30's onwards, it was all French. That's 30 years ago, when Burgundy was cheap, Different story now, and sadly, the young wine lover is deprived of one of the World's greatest wine regions because 99% of the stuff is stupidly priced.
I also now drink white wine as much as red, and to be honest probably love white Burgundy more than Red Burgundy!!

I'm definitely on the downslope of wine buying, and to a lesser (but still noticeable) degree drinking. The net result is a steady contraction of the cellar size.

I'm glad that I focused strongly on wines that shine with cellaring, even though the early days had me battling the old cliche of 'so many wines but none of them ready to drink'. Auctions were the thing that got me out of that hole, and confirmed my belief that I preferred wines with age.

One subtlety of recent buying, is a move away from (long) cellaring wines. I have plenty of those still there at varying stages of maturity, and a combination of increased price and questioning the need for long term acquisitions, has curtailed fancier purchases. In their stead, I've had more of a focus on solid, sometimes rustic wines that will do fine in the short-mid term, a few more whites (mostly vinho verde, timorasso), and when ordering from continental Europe - wines that we rarely see here such as Lambrusco, Brachetto, Vespolina, Nero di troia etc.

I’m probably different to some.

- I no longer have a single wine I buy every vintage. I have more wine than I’ll ever drink, so now I only buy the better vintages.
- I bypass many wines that I actually really like simply because I have too much of them from older vintages, or in the case of certain champagnes, have gone up too much in price
- Those wines that I absolutely adore are purchased in quantities of 6-24. Even with two dozen it only means I drink one per year, so there’s not a chance I’ll get sick of them
- I’ve learned, in the main, to resist the lure of the ‘next big thing’. Most of the time, ten years later, the emperor has no clothes.

I mostly keep reds, as I prefer my whites young and fresh. I am happy to say that my cellar is mostly shiraz and cab blends now, as that's what I like.

I did a big cull and sell off from my cellar ~5 Years ago. On a very hot weekend 2 x weeks ago, stuck indoors, I revisited and consolidated my wine storage, I am bordering on having too much wine again for my needs.

I know from our friends and family, people are drinking less particularly red wine, hence consumption patterns/trends are much different to say 5 years ago. I have enough 'special' wines to last me the next 20 years now.

Apart from my Wendouree order in July 25, I didn’t buy anything to add to my collection. 2026 and onwards is very likely to be the same, apart from the odd bottle I get gifted.

Very interesting reading folks. Very diverse directions in every case, even when passionate about similar wines.

I’m up to about 100 bottles and bought a new lecavist wine fridge. I’m at the start of my journey and focusing on 3 packs of premium age worthy wines but at discounted prices via sales. All Aussie wines with a slim inclusion of selbach oster Riesling

An amusing story was that upon buying my new fridge, the spot I put it in got afternoon light in the afternoon and was aware that tv light is no good for wine, sooo I pulled apart a cardboard box for nappies CD and duck taped it to the inside of the glass , which actually fit like a glove luckily. So now I have a wine fridge with nappy boxing visible hahaha

But honestly with the amount of sales happening at c1 and cdco there’s really not much incentive to buy at release and at full price

Just about all wine lovers >60 (me 65) re-evaluate their cellar. For example with my Wendourees I worked out what others have stated which is the cab Merlot is the pick of the bunch so most of the rest has gone. Quite cathartic actually. Rockford BP gone. Many Standish back to 2012 gone, mainly because I’m not sure smooth rocket fuel will cut it and especially as the wife hates the concept. Many burgundies gone, partly because they don’t stand out THAT much to some pinots one tenth the price (don’t judge me felix).
I agree with SipAndANibble that there are too many great bargains out there, especially cellarone with their Gladstones last year, and JDCellars just to name a few.
So in once sense I’m cutting down and another buying up. But value buying. My one downfall is Tyrrells. Too much of a quality product and too much good service when tasting in the member’s cellar door. Thanks Andrew and Richard!
I treat every bottle in my cellar as a future good time, each with a friend or family. Selling bottles means robbing myself of future good times.
Another reason is whilst I have grown up kids and they like drinking my wine, they think the expense is folly and aren’t really on board with the concept. So I don’t need to plan to keep them focused as I am. Cathartic as well.

I don't buy dozens of any wine these days and even rarely buy 6 unless I've tasted it and it's really impressed me. Even our favourites I normally only buy 3. If I buy a 6 pack it's to split with a friend. Makes it difficult buying direct as I like to do, but I just don't have the room and I have way too much wine. I think we at about 2500 bottles.

When my wife and I first started drinking wine we were both into the big Barossa fruit bombs. Oh how our tastes have changed over the last 25 years or so. It's more lighter and elegant reds these days. I don't buy Pinot as I don't want to go down that rabbit hole.

I'm not buying wines just because they are decent and cheap anymore (bargain sites, discounts etc), I've done enough of that. I'm getting much more particular in what I buy. I'm a Grenache and Chardonnay lover so quite a bit of that. Most of the Grenache I buy these days comes from Blewitt Springs and a few from the Barossa. Shiraz wise, we always buy Rockford, Standish, Sami Odi and Eperosa from the Barossa and I've started buying Tyrrell's and Mount Pleasant from the Hunter and wish I'd have paid more attention to them much earlier, especially the whites. Wendouree is another, but these days if I miss out I don't care that much (though my wife does). I did start buying small amounts of Italian, French and Spanish wines the last few years, but due to the high cost, I think I'll drop that pursuit from now on. So much wine we love from Australia, I can't see the point. I probably need more Cabernet in the cellar, as I pretty much only have quite a bit of Wynn's and a small amount from Margaret River.

I'm hoping to build a new cellar at home later this year as mine is way too small and I've had to insulate the garage and air condition it, which I'm hoping will hold all my wine, fingers crossed. I may have to have a bit of a cull and be quite ruthless. I don't want to, but needs must.

Cheers
Ian

I am similar to others regarding purchasing in 3-6 lots now. I have the wines I buy each vintage on mailing lists, which does limit trying/buying new wines at home. I have around 1100 bottles in the cellar and they are predominantly Shiraz and Sav in the reds, and Semillon and Reisling in the whites. Similar to you Ian, I've started purchasing grenache, and dabble in some Italian and Argentinian reds (Barolo and Malbecs). My plan is to purchase wines for another 10 years and then stop and drink them over the following 20 years.

I’m 40 and have about 1200 bottles in storage and probably another 40 in the Vintec (for aged or higher quality ready to go wines) and then another 50 or so quaffers on wine racks at home that get drank and replaced.

I started buying more seriously 6 or 7 years ago so most of my storage is somewhat newer vintages save for auction buys, but I’d say 70% ish is vintages from the last 10 years.

My storage is climate controlled and probably more than I’d like to pay but these are the breaks in Melbourne and wanting something closer to home given my house is what I’d call inner city.

How much is too much? Hard to say. I think I’ve got a good collection that can probably start being drunk soon enough and a lot that will have legs. Most of my buys in recent years of newer vintages are in 6’s save for somethings like Standish etc which I might get a couple of some things and one of some others.

The challenge for me is organisation - it needs to be better so I can more readily access things I want to drink sooner, and stuff I don’t want to touch in the near term can be pushed back into the depths.

How much is too much? Not sure.

The financial realities of having a young family has constrained my buying a bit from where I was, and like some of the other commentary I’m probably moving towards buying less volume but higher quality wines aside from the classics like Wynns BL, Leo Buring Resiling etc

Open to thoughts and suggestions!

Cheers Ed

I buy very little to cellar these days, I’ve actually reduced it by about 600 bottles in the last few years, down to about 1600 bottles. Ideally I’d like to get down to about 1200 bottles which will include about 400 bottles of Australian Fortified.

The other thing is now is my cellar is a mess. Everything has been moved around and haven’t updated my spreadsheet for a few years.

Cheers Con.

Hooray hooray...too much Coonawarra Cabernet.
I'll toss my 2c in after I have completed the move next month...but like many here there are many unanswered questions. Good topic though.
Cheers Craig

I got the bug for wine relatively late in life in the early noughties.
My collection would probably be larger if not for the constraints of space, and financial constraints. I can't remember what it peaked at some years ago - at a guess 1000-1200 bottles, but now I'm back to two fridges (one white, one red), with maybe 50 bottles of overflow, so maybe 4-500 bottles if I'm lucky.
I'm forced to think hard about what's in those fridges, and what I still enjoy drinking, or where my changing tastes are leading me.
My current collection size is probably not large enough to cover the breadth that I would like to have.
At present, I probably could afford to reduce my Australian shiraz and riesling numbers to make way for more northern Italian reds and whites, more chenin, more chardonnay, and others.
I definitely prefer aged reds, and am wanting to keep exploring international wines of all types, so to fulfill this, and with my taste for aged wines in mind, I do rely on the secondary market a bit (and the generosity of others!)
As good as it is, and despite all of my own advice, I simply can't afford the space to purchase and store each new vintage of Wynns BL cab, or any wine for that matter, to be able to achieve the breadth of collection that I desire.

Pat wrote: ↑Thu Feb 05, 2026 1:43 pm My plan is to purchase wines for another 10 years and then stop and drink them over the following 20 years.

I’ve had that plan for the last fifteen years. Good luck… you’ll need it!

Mike Hawkins wrote: ↑Fri Feb 06, 2026 4:49 am

Pat wrote: ↑Thu Feb 05, 2026 1:43 pm My plan is to purchase wines for another 10 years and then stop and drink them over the following 20 years.

I’ve had that plan for the last fifteen years. Good luck… you’ll need it!

Ha ha, that's what they say about me...quoted somewhere that 2012 vintage would see me out...still going
Reckon 2025 vintage will definitely see me out
Cheers Craig

Lots of interesting comments.

- On Wendouree, I drink mine at the 20 year plus mark and I find the Shiraz blends have a complexity I enjoy most. I have too much Wendouree and this because I couldn’t meet demand for events when living abroad. Hopefully I’ll get to present more events next year.

- Australia is the world dominion of good-ordinary wine. There’s so much good wine I can see the new generations struggling with cost of living not being lured down the road of wines that rapidly appreciated years ago- or wines that command high price without any proven lineage.

With all this good-ordinary wine and boomer cellars being auctioned off, if I were starting out I’d have a very enlightened and adaptable view of collecting!

- Label illusion is a problem . Many “bargain” wines of once great labels are not the wines they use to be. Yet it’s easy to be lured into buying them and cellaring.

- Storage costs. I can see this getting grim with energy inflation and high property prices. The 350 bottle option and the monthly money saved from a 3000+ bottle cellar, is attractive. In my circumstances, I could keep 350 rare $1000-ish retail wines ( I didn’t pay that of course ) and buy diversely from auctions. Money raised could be invested and added to the income saved from cellaring costs, forming a wine buying budget.

Mike Hawkins wrote: ↑Fri Feb 06, 2026 4:49 am

Pat wrote: ↑Thu Feb 05, 2026 1:43 pm My plan is to purchase wines for another 10 years and then stop and drink them over the following 20 years.

I’ve had that plan for the last fifteen years. Good luck… you’ll need it!

Haha you're probably right!

Re. Number of bottles of wine to buy, I usually ask myself how many tasting notes for the wine I am likely to be bothered writing. This is the max number I usually buy.

Very seldom I can be bothered writing a tasting note for the same wine 6 times, so I seldom buy 6 of the same.