The Ultimate Backfill Thread

Now that I gave it that title, I’m excited to watch this one fall off the front page.

It gets mentioned sporadically in other threads, but I’m really interested in what everyone is backfilling in their cellars.

Questions to ponder:

  1. What backfill vintages / wines are great deals compared to their current release counterparts?
  2. Vintages / wines that didn’t get the appropriate attention because their release was near a “vintage of the century” or high critic score but in the long term made beautiful / classic wines?
  3. Deals on specific wines that you’ve run across (after you’ve placed your order of course!)

500 respondents will give you 500 different answers.

I like this idea!

I’m backfilling Bordeaux and California cabs/blends largely as I didn’t buy any of them the first 10 years of building a cellar. I find it’s relatively easy to find wines from ten plus years ago for well under what current releases are going for, which is helpful.

I’m using auction sites primarily (HDH, KL specifically) as I like the idea of lots of 4-12 for wines that aren’t in their real drinking window yet.

Regarding vintages… I’ve found in the regions I follow more closely that I find value in both great and sorta so so vintages, just hope to avoid really notably bad years. If anything the lesser vintages drink earlier, which as I’m backfilling due to lack of representation in the cellar is specifically helpful.

There can be good or even great value sometimes in backfilling, but if you’re looking for that, you want to find good drinkers that are not hot names, collector wines, trophy wines, hot brands, etc. And there are plenty that are like that.

Also look for varieties/regions that people may mistakenly think are not going to age well (e.g. good California zins and zin blends), or vintages that were not regarded as well early on but have aged well (e.g. California 1998 and 2000 cabs, 2004 Bordeaux).

Glad we have that one out of the way, only 499 left to go!

This thread is right up my alley. I only got serious with building my cellar ~3 years ago, so I have a lot of back-filling to do. My only strategy thus far has been the obvious one - focus on stuff I like and supposedly good vintages for that stuff. Of course that misses the likely facts of palate change over time and that good vintages are a matter of interpretation and probably that the best values are found in the stuff that the magazines don’t rate off the charts, but for now it works. Interested to see the rest of the 499 responses.

The only wines I’m really looking to backfill at this time are German riesling. Particularly looking at the 2001 vintage.

In Burgundy I have found that the 2014 vintage for reds is very much to my taste as they develop and there are a healthy number of wines available at reasonable prices. For whites obviously another story…

I’ve been backfilling 07. 09, 10 and 12-15 Burgundy and 15 Rhones.

498 now champagne.gif

And fwiw for younger wines less worry about storage and provenance. I get the impression that a lot comes from distributors based on seeing the same show up in the same auctions year after year.

Like

Those of you interested in backfilling 2001 German riesling should also consider 2004, 2008, and 2012 German riesling (and maybe 2002, 2005, 2007 and 2009).

Bordeaux. There’s tons of it around, it keeps quite well and other than first growths it’s often priced below current releases.

Second on 2012, my favorite post-2001 vintage.

Truth. Have some 2007 (the JJ Prum WS Auslese is awesome) and 2012.

Would you say the same vintages for the dry or GG rieslings? I have only had ones from 2010, 2015 and 2016.

This. Always.

I’ve recently been grabbing 1998 and 2000. Will start seeking some more 2005s. Always looking for interesting things from the 1980s and 1990s.

grabbed some 78 NSG off commerce corner recently. Always looking for real good older Burgs.

Could be your lucky day. K&L has a bunch of 2001 lots of solid Riesling producers ending in the next day or so.

Has their been a bad vintage of Mosel Riesling from 2001 on? I can’t think of one. Some are better than others, but none are worthy of the dustbin. A winemaker would have to drop a clanger to produce a bad wine over the last 18 or so years.