Too Many Bottles In Your Cellar, Does It Worry You?

Just wondering if anyone else has concerns that their cellar has grown too large? I’ve recently started to worry that I wont be able to consume some of my inventory before it’s past its peak. Due to my current work hours my consumption is way down and my cellar has grown larger then ever. Buying heavy in 2012 & 2013 CA wines hasn’t helped! I’m more concerned about some of the older wines in my cellars and drinking them in their prime. Just curious if anyone else has the same concerns?

If you have such concerns, this might not be the place for you.

I am starting to wonder about the same thing. My problem is that I get excited about a new region and then load up. It hasn’t helped that we moved and re-did our kitchen because the meals out meant less wine being consumed at home. On the other hand I have tasted a bunch of wines that I normally probably would have skipped over.

Steve, I love your camaro avatar. I had a '71 Mulsanne Blue 350 Rally Sport. Loved that car!

Byron

Invite more friends. Problem solved.

Yes, I have these concerns. So I stopped buying more wine (only one CdR this year), and have sold 2 cases.
Also for my birthday in a couple weeks I will be having a party that will blow through a couple cases at least.
It is simple for me:

1. Don’t buy more
2. Sell when it make sense
3. Drink up

[ Steve, I love your camaro avatar. I had a '71 Mulsanne Blue 350 Rally Sport. Loved that car!

Byron[/quote]

73 Camaro, first car I ever owned! Might still be my favorite

I had wine stored all over the place and just before Christmas I was finally able to consolidate it all in one room. I knew what I had based on CT, but seeing it all in one place at one time made me step back and realize that I had too much. So my New Year’s resolution was to cut back on purchases and consumption. Year to date we’ve cut both about in half. We still enjoy wine, we still buy wine, just not as much. I think we are just as happy now as before.

I’m planning to cut back significantly after the 2013 releases.

I’m planning to cut back significantly after the 2013 releases.

So you buy mostly CA wine?

What are too many bottles?

It’s like insurance. What if you want to have a Chianti one night and you don’t have any? Or you want a Napa Cab, or you want something from Cote Rotie and you don’t have anything? You’re screwed and you end up drinking something you’re not in the mood for. Better to have something around just in case.

How you considered a bigger cellar?

I do have variety in my cellars so I do have choices, its just mostly CA which suits my tastes

I use off site so the size of my cellar is of no concern. Drinking through what I currently own is what my potential issue is

Steve:

My cellar isn’t all that big, but I have similar concerns. In my case, the problem is three-fold:

1. Buying bottles with relatively short drinking windows, which means that they must be consumed faster. I include things like CA Pinot in this bucket, though I also tend to think that CA wines age far better/longer than most people admit. My solution: drink the older wines first.

2. Buying bottles of wines I no longer like to drink. CA Cabernet falls into this category. My solution: stop buying wines I no longer fancy. I don’t sell these bottles though; instead, I drink them when I feel like I’m in a rut or when a meal calls for it. Gifting is another solution; most people would be thrilled with a bottle of aged wine.

3. Saving my “best” bottles for special occasions. There’s no need to save a bottle for so long that it actually goes bad. My solution: so long as the wine is alive and so am I, it’s fair game. So if you want a special bottle because it’s a Wednesday, go ahead and drink it.

This might sum me up, sometimes…

I tend to over shop and need to have a serious cellar reduction party.

I’m sure that the number (or range of numbers) of bottles that might be considered too many will vary greatly based on age, drinking habits, etc., but I am overwhelmingly curious to have a few data points from folks who claim some concern about the number of bottles they have and how they might manage to drink through all of it.

How much wine is too much (for you and your situation)?

As a side-bar, the person I know with the most wine in his cellar just turned 80 this year, and is still buying current release wine (e.g. I just split a purchase of Ceritas chards with him). I don’t know if he is still buying Bdx or CDP or not, but his cellar is at around 5-6k bottles. He has children to pass the wine on to, he teaches a wine appreciation class at a local university where he opens ~9 bottles a week for tastings, and every time he holds a tasting or attends a dinner, he brings between 6-20 bottles. He still will object to you opening a Monte Bello you brought if it is less than 15 yrs old, once claiming, “I’ll drink it with you in 10 years.”

I only tell his story because mine doesn’t apply (yet), my cellar is approaching a whopping 200 bottles maybe and I just turned 30. I have a problem with not being able to buy more than I drink.

No, it does not worry me. We have quite a bit of wine, enough to last many, many years even if we never bought another bottle (assuming current consumption rates hold steady at 300 - 400 bottles a year or so), and we still buy with regularity and in quantity.

I worried a little when my husband and I got married and I thought about the size of our combined collection. I wondered if we should perhaps cut back on buying, now that we had a deep and broad assortment of exactly what we love at our fingertips. Then I got honest with myself and admitted that, while drinking the wine is my favorite part of being a wine lover/collector, I also get pleasure out of the act of buying, out of perusing offers, out of shopping for the wine, out of attending auctions. And yes – I get pleasure out of the sheer having. I love playing with the collection in CT and looking at it from different angles (region, producer, drinking window). I can’t wait to have our new house, and thus our new cellar, complete so that I can finally see everything we own in one place!

I do not think there is anything wrong with enjoying this aspect of collecting wine, the buying and the having, along with the drinking. One can argue that you are somehow wasting money if you buy wine you are unlikely ever to drink, but I disagree. Hobbies bring us pleasure in many ways, most of which are fleeting, and we pour money into these hobbies anyway. If I die with wine un-drunk, having loved the process in all its manifestations along the way, I am ok with that.

There is not a person on this board that has not walked into their cellar at some point and no matter its size has not uttered the words, “Not a damn thing to drink in here.” Except for maybe Jon Favre. There is ALWAYS something to drink out of that bad boy.

You know that TV show about hoarders? Yeah, I need something like that.

[quote=“Dusty Gillson”]I’m sure that the number (or range of numbers) of bottles that might be considered too many will vary greatly based on age, drinking habits, etc., but I am overwhelmingly curious to have a few data points from folks who claim some concern about the number of bottles they have and how they might manage to drink through all of it.

How much wine is too much (for you and your situation)?

58 years old. I have approximately 700 bottles. I currently only go through 1 or 2 bottles a week. Probably buy on average around 200+ per year, which will get lower soon!. I was lucky enough to start buying in the early 90’s before prices got out of hand. The bottles I’m most concerned about consuming are a lot of cult (for a lack of a better term) Cabs from the mid 90’s. They should hold up but I’m just worried that because of the quantity that I have I wont be able to drink them all before they go past their prime. It’s not a bad problem to have!