Saturday, September 4, 2021

What To (Eventually) Do With Your Wine Cellar

 There comes a time when you need to decide what to do with your wine cellar. It is easy if your child or children are interested. They will be delighted to inherit your bottles. But what if you have no children or they express no interest in your wine?

There are then essentially two options. Option 1 is to at some point sell the cellar to an auction house or retailer who acquires wine cellars. It is a little sad though, if you move from 100 to 0, or say 5, in one foul swoop.

Option 2 is to reduce the cellar while still buying wine. This is how you do it. Say, you consume on average 20 bottles per month. If you are then disciplined enough to buy just one case per month, you reduce your cellar by 100 bottles per year. Instead of buying one case, you may decide to buy 2 6-packs or 3 bottles of four different wines. This still allows you to keep up with a lot of variety if you wish. And you may decide to buy better quality.

In this way, I have reduced my wine cellar from 1500 to 700 bottles in the last eight years. When I get to 200 or 300 bottles, I need to work out how to still have aged wine. Maybe buy at auction from time to time.

Any thoughts?

 

2 comments:

kr1 said...

i am sitting happily at 2-300 and use auctions to try wines that i want to have. I am also buying 6 packs/2 bottles each regularly.
Rarely does the urge arise to buy a half or full dozen of anything. :)

Alontin said...

I think there are two types of serious wine consumers. The first type is looking for a wine he/she likes, then buys quite a bit of it and sticks with it over the vintages. The second type is a taster. He is interested in variety and buys different wines over time. You seem to belong to the second group, and so do I.