Collecting - Two Key Principles

The choices of wine I buy are grounded in two simple truths.

In relation to the finest wines, be mindful of your rate of consumption 

This is a very obvious point. If you cellar very fine wine in my experience you will only drink it with people who also have very fine wine - and that means you do not have to supply all the wine.  It is surely very rare to provide wine of the highest quality to people who simply have no idea what it is, because knowing what it is enhances the joy of drinking it. In practice we very seldom serve our best wines to anyone other than knowledgable wine lovers. And they will not let you supply all the wine because they themselves have collections and are always generous in wanting to share.   You may be part of a small group that meets occasionally, or participate in wine focused dinners, but these are not so frequent in my experience as to require a lot of bottles in your cellar.  To these events you each bring a single bottle - or at most two.

I do think if one is in the wine trade that makes a big difference to consumption rates since the opportunity to engage with like minded enthusiasts is so much more frequent. I would go so far as to suggest a high proportion of the greatest wines are drunk by people with some connection to the wine business or collectors who really are themselves on the fringes of the wine business and count people in the business among their friends. Groups meet to consume these high end wines. I could be wrong, but I expect it is pretty rare that a husband and wife, neither of whom have any connection to the trade, routinely share a bottle of Chateau Latour at home on a Saturday night. Perhaps i am wrong about this and of course if one’s spouse is also a wine lover that no doubt increases the rate consumption of fine bottles considerably. But, not myself having a spouse quite as into wine as I am, we don’t drink Chateau Latour at home. Outside of the context of arranged wine focussed events we in practice have a very limited number occasions to consume the very best of our collection. Price rises have also made it even less likely that we will serve the finest wines in circumstances where the company does not ‘appreciate them”. This is a shame, but that is our practical experience.

Do the math.  Know your consumption rate of wines in different categories. You likely do not need as much of the finest wines as you think. 

Some sensible material has been written on what your cellar should look like. Most suggest you look at consumption rates and do not have more wine on hand than fulfills that consumption for ten years assuming you buy no more wine. Unless you do a lot of entertaining that means 2,500 bottles is probably the maximum you should have. It could be more - just be sensible about it. My point of principle is that the cellar also needs to be shaped correctly. For a while I went to the trouble of writing down what would have been the ideal wine to drink on any day that I was drinking wine - regardless of what I actually drunk. I included when I brought wine to tastings with friends. After a year of doing that I got a clear message about how little grand wine I needed.

Maintain the difference between a thirst for knowledge and a thirst for wine

This is the other reason I have in the past bought examples of the finest wines. A thirst for knowledge can too easily translate into a thirst for wine. I am very much wanting to learn everything I can about the great wines of the world. But to avoid buying too much, I have to be satisfied that it is enough simply to know all about particular wines - for example, Clos St Hune, Chateau Grillet or Chateau Haut Brion. It is enough to know that these are unique wines of extraordinary beauty and why - but that it is perfectly fine not to have bought them for our collection. When I study a wine region I want to sample its finest wines. That is probably quite natural. My enthusiasm from reading a piece or listening to a podcast can get the better of me. I want to buy the wine. It is a good thing there are so any wines I can get excited about. But I try to resist. So while wanting to expand my knowledge widely, I have to accept that knowledge alone is enough because I cannot routinely buy every great wine in the world.  There have of course been some additions as certain wine categories have merited inclusion on the 'routine buy" list.  For example, I buy some top end Austrian wines today because they fit a particular culinary purpose ( and I love them). They are very difficult to find when they are mature. And they are not crazy expensive. But I have been buying only since vintage 2013. Yet the bar is set high for a fine wine to be added to my list of regular annual purchases.

The purpose of any wine collection is to have on hand the right wine for every occasion at its optimum maturity. And that occasion could be a picnic. Very few collectors it seems to me have too little fine wine. Most have too much. And that, unless intended as a legacy to your children, is not a collection to drink but a collection for its own sake, which is a different thing entirely. Buy more Beaujolais !