What will you HAVE to do differently in 2016?

I just looked at my stats. I thought I had a good year. I thought I had curtailed my purchases smartly when all I did was lower my per bottle price while overall I have managed to still purchase 206 bottles of wine! What did I learn in 2015? I am (still) a schmuck. My very serious goal for 2016 is now declared at 48 bottles, 4 per month. 206 bottles is ludicrous and very stupid of me and shows how wine-greedy I truly am. I need to change that.

It’s a process and I suck at it.

I am out of storage, it is official. I now have to buy less than we drink.

I’m out of storage too. I just went through and reorganized just to get my current holdings to fit. I’ll have to cut purchases even more while I decide if I’m going to rent another wine locker or put in a home cellar. I’m not thrilled with either choice at the moment. Everything that’s still in storage is too young to drink, so buying less than I consume isn’t going to solve this one for me.

I have to buy less as well. I have picked everything i want so 2016 i am now down to 107 bottles.

Also, i am going to build the shell for my passive cellar because i can not stand having 200 plus bottles in stirage 45 minutes away from home.

You and me both.

I just ran my numbers for 2015 and I spent 20% more on wine this year than last. This is despite dropping off the Rhys list and buying no post-2010 Burgundy. My intent had been to cut it by at least 20%

The people I share my storage cage with are complaining (with good reason) about the boxes on the floor.

Of course some of the volume was because I stocked up on the last available year of Clos Roche Blanche so that’s a one time thing. If Marc Ollivier ever decides to retire I may need to rent another cage.

In 2015 I stopped keeping track of my purchases. Problem solved!

Need to smartly look at my purchases as well. Need to limit my Cali purchases to a few favorites for long-term storage (Diamond Creek and Ridge MB futures come to mind), and cut out 80% of the rest of my mailing list purchases. I have enough young/middle aged daily-ish drinkers for a while. Then keep an eye out for premium Burg/Barolo spots to take, but low quantity. Will have a hard time resisting the riesling/pycm/vouvray values that I plow through on the regular.

I have already started culling my mailing lists and have decided I need to stop buying random bottles just because they sound interesting and it is an area I am ‘interested in’. No more jumping on ‘board darling’ or the new hot winery list, unless they offer what I really want and like.

I didn’t buy a lot during BD 2015 but more than I should have. BD 2016 will be limited to Nola’s olive oil and a few select wines, probably things I have experienced before and want more of. No random buying because it is a good deal.

I also need to reimplement my max bottle price I used to stick to. With the exception of a few bottles that I have verticals of, it will be railed back.

Hopefully this will all leave more space in the cellar and more money for vacation. And a new bike.

This weekend I am drilling down to 18-20 cases domestic we will be purchasing in 2016.

Going through my ‘purchases’ in CT and I’m actually pretty surprised how much I’ve already done this. Mailing lists and Envoyer beat the hell out of me in 2013.

How is everyone using CT to evaluate these trends? Surely there are all sorts of fancy ways to make CT synthesize the data that I’m too dumb to understand.

I need to stop buying cellar defender types that are good value, but that don’t give me serious pleasure (Tuesday night wines). I have enough and, at any rate, they are easy enough to find. The exception is Berserker Day, where I will purchase broadly, because the deals are good and I like supporting wineries that support the board.

Also, while I’ve been better at rebalancing my buying patterns, I need to continue to focus on French/Italian/German wines at the expense of California. In particular, I need to buy more Champagne and Riesling.

More backfilling.

Thanks for reminding me, I also need to stop taking recommendations from the tiny-wristed one.

But backfilling, yes, this is good.

My intentions are always good, but my actions are pretty lame. I do give myself a little credit for ignoring EVERY holiday offer I’ve received.

buy more, drink less.

Or is it the other way around? I’m all mixed up.

For me, less backfilling. In 2015 I resolved to narrow my purchases to a select group of favorite producers. That led to feeling justified in purchasing certain wines when they were available at the right price… and I’m pretty sure I spent more on wine than in any previous year!

Champagne.

We all know the two most common themes in this thread will be the lack of storage space and the amount of purchases. Not even done the first page and that’s what most posts are about. We’re turning half the garage into a temp / humidity controlled room since now the cellar is over 400 bottles… and I swore that would be my limit.

This is a problem with me too. ALWAYS on the lookout for the next methadone. I need to focus on the heroin bottles because no matter how good the methadone version might be, it will NEVER be as good as the heroin bottle. This will also help with rampant purchase quantities too since the better wines cost 3 to 8 times more per bottle than the Tuesday night substitutes.

Which segues nicely into…

Having searches set up for “Favorites” on WineBid and K&L make it less time consuming to hunt for backfill wines. I need to pare down the amount of vintages / producers we seek, and set up a bookmark folder with links to WineSearcher for those handful of bottles we really enjoy.

That’s one way to handle it.

Your palate is not ready.

That pretty much applies to me. My top producers make up a very large percentage of my cellar, my palate is narrow. Most of my wine comes from four wine regions in France. My issue is not having enough truly mature wines from those regions.