In the past I always felt I’d buy 3 or 4 btls of any cellar wine or none. I’m changing my mind on that and finding that single btls can be very rewarding, risk limiting and easier on the overall budget.
Last night had a killer little $20 WHT Burg - 05 Bize Savigny les Beaune Blanc. This was an Envoyer btl that sounded great but gave me pause because of possible premox. Still, I couldn’t resist and it way out performed my expectations. Would it have been fun to have one or two more, yes, but no regrets as one good night was just fine and no risk of running into a less solid second btl. Bottom line, very happy I bought one instead of none. If I had pondered buying three, I never would have pulled the trigger and enjoyed this wine.
Its making more and more sense to me to buy, ready to go, single blts from older vintages and have something I can enjoy immediately while my 02,05, 06, 07, 08, 09s and 10s spend the proper time in the cellars to get to their more ideal 15yrs+ drinking widows. Aged single btls also means I can bring something ready to drink to offlines. Single btls are an easier purchase decision than 3-4 btl which can be a budget buster.
A while back I noticed a buddy was buying random single btls of champagne from K&L and the logic of doing that made sense to me. Get to try more producers without making a big investment in something you may regret later like the 3 btls of 04 Aglianico I own that are never ready to drink.
I’ll do some 3-4 btl purchases of wines I’m 100% confident in like Billaud Simon Chablis Montee De Tonnerre but I plan on moving more and more to single btl purchases going forward. Single back vintage btls don’t require you to have a huge cellar full of Burgundy, BDX or Champagne to be able to show up at any dinner with a cool wine to share. I’ve had some duds but I’ve also had some the best wines I’ve ever experienced like a recent '85 Diamond Creek Volcanic Cab or a great $40 '91 Morot Sav les Beaune about 2yrs ago. I’ve also had duds from wine I’ve cellared for decades that showed up premoxed or corked too.
One thing that happens to me is that when I have one bottle of an upper-level wine (at least of something not easily obtained at retail at the time at similar prices), I am far more reluctant to open it. I’ll much more willingly open a wine the more I have of them. As a result, my cellar keeps trending towards single bottles of things.
But what happens when you end up really liking the wine and you can’t get more? Better safe than sorry. Buy the whole pallet
Personally, I’ve found myself moving towards larger purchases of the same wine, especially since I’ve figured out exactly what wines and what producers I like. And if the price is right, taking extra isn’t that difficult, as the other bottles can be liquidated (no pun intended) back to cash.
For current consumption, sure. Why not. But for laying bottles down, no way. I know what producers and vineyards I like. The biggest risk I face is opening bottles at the right time. 3 bottles is my minimum (ok, some twos in there for 2012 burg) and six is better.
A
Double edge sword I guess, whenever I open an older single I like it’s always “man I shoulda bought more of these” when they’re mediocre its “thank god it’s the only bottle”
I try to buy in twos and threes to try one now and the others later. Wines can evolve so much from release to two, five, twenty years later that it is a shame to buy just one and not experience it again later in its life. If you are buying it already aged then it is obviously a different situation.
I never do this unless I am literally forced to, i.e., for some reason I want/need that specific wine, and the wine store only has one bottle.
And not to pick on Craig, but I would also never bring a single bottle of wine to a wine tasting/dinner - what if it’s corked? Always bring a back-up - to me, the “golden rule” of off-lines. Doesn’t have to be the same wine, of course, but you need to bring a back-up.
I am with Bob and Adrian on this. More and more, I buy sizable quantities of wines I know I like. SIngle bottle purchases are rare - the occasional very expensive bottle, the offhand experiment or when I need something very specific, for the most part. I know what I like, and I never want to run out.
I purchase mainly 1 or 2 bottles. I’m still in the learning stage and this allows me more diversity and lowers my overall cost/risk. No regrets in not buying more as there will always be another vintage down the road. It would help if I had the experience to better project how a bottling will evolve as I do enjoy them with some age.
Single or double purchases here. Honestly just too many things out there that I want to try to bulk up on any one. Granted often those are multiple instances of singles or pairs from producers I know I love.
Well then every btl needs a backup because there is zero guarantee that any btl will not be corked or flawed in one way or another. I used to bring a backup red every time but now I do only do if I have a good reason to assume my btl may be flawed like poor storage or reputation. I like sharing wine so I never bring less than 2 btls anyway. I love whites so I always bring either a starter white Burg or a champagne to every tasting too.
One piece of info I’ll add is that I have years of multiple btl purchases in my cellar already. So, at this point I really don’t need to be buying 3+ of anything. That said I never buy more than 4 btls. When I have bought six out of the shoot I usually end up drinking a btl or 2 too soon because I feel like I have btls to essentially waste. Plus unless you have huger cellar (3000+ btls) buying six blts is going to fill your cellar pretty quick and limit your ability to explore more producers and regions. I maintain around 1000 btls and have a really nice range of producers and regions to explore with different food pairings. But, 42% my cellar is red and white Burgundy.
I won’t buy or accept a gift ticket to the Super Bowl because what if I never get another chance to go?Or something like that.
What’s wrong with a wonderful single experience of whatever it is (bottle of wine, trip to Italy, dinner at The French Laundry…)? Why make ourselves crazy thinking about what if? It’s not like there are no more wines in the cellar (literally and metaphorically).
I’ve started buying 1-2 bottles when I do buy something, both to limit purchases and to expand the wines that I get to drink. I find that it generally works well, though I make exceptions for certain types of wines (sauternes…).
I definitely have a lot of singletons, but 8% cases and 16% six packs surprised me. I generally don’t buy by the case that often unless it’s a wine I’m pretty psyched about. Clearly doubles and triples are my most common strategy.
You buy a single bottle, you drink it, you like it, you buy more. If you can’t, oh well.
If you buy many bottles, unless you consume a lot of wine, you end up with a lot of a few wines. I guess that’s OK but is it really that much fun to drink the same thing all the time, no matter how much you love it?
