How to handle FOMO

How do you handle the fear of missing out on certain wines or vintages?

My wife and I are on several California/Sonoma/zinfandel lists (once a northern California girl, always a northern California girl), so it predominates what we have in our closet and ultimately means that our annual wine budget and limited storage space is largely blown on those wines. I’m not complaining, we drink stupendously well, but it does mean that we aren’t necessarily able to intensively explore or build up a bounty of what I think that we might be missing in our collection (Rhone, Italian, Spanish, Argentina, Portugal, German Riesling, etc., etc.). Buying more wine just isn’t a realistic option, sadly, and we don’t have room for 1,000+ bottles of wine.

After oddly stressing out over it (don’t I need to jump on 2015 Rhone and CdP? What about the Brunellos that will start coming out? Gah!), I’ve decided that it is what it is - I have bought mixed Bordeaux futures over the past few years so that I can try various wines and see what I want to keep on buying, so I’ll enjoy (and am already enjoying) those, but my forays into other areas will end up being more targeted/limited and if I miss out on a certain year of Rhone or Tuscan wines, I can’t worry about it. For now, I may get a few bottles here and there from various regions, but my cellar and budget can’t support deep dives into all of these regions and producers, and to the extent that I want to do it in the future, I’ll just shift my dollars there and away from the domestic purchases, and if I missed out on the ‘vintage of the century’ (haven’t I heard that before?), well, there will always be another year.

Interested to hear how people think about their collections, where they think they have gaps, and how they handle it. [cheers.gif]

Don’t take advice from me.

This is a real problem that can adversely impact your enjoyment. Wine shouldn’t be something about which you stress. But I would guess that many here do/have suffered from some form of this. I hope I’m past that stage but time will tell.

We like wine from all over so we don’t focus on only a few regions. I have a rough idea of what I feel is enough variety and depth in things and won’t buy more until it starts to drop below that. For example, I try to keep two cases of Taurasi/aglianico. One case is a vertical of a favorite producer which isn’t too expensive and the other is a mixed for variety. In other areas, we may keep more or less depending upon consumption and aging potential. When it comes time to restock, we look at what areas are low and head to the store with those in mind. At the store, I’ll focus on what we identified but also talk to the staff about anything new and interesting. They all know us after all these years and are preferences and usually pick out some great choices for us as well as sometimes steering us away from items that they know aren’t for us. This way has led us to some great finds that aren’t the board darlings or getting high points in the magazines and really drove home the point that there is a lot of fine wine coming out of many areas and all the time, so there is rarely a time to chase. If we buy more than planned in a given visit, it’s not a worry, we just wait longer until the next visit.

When it works well, we enjoy the cellar without the stress we used to have in the past. However, as tastes and interest change we do find that we need to periodically cull the cellar of things that need to be consumed shortly and re-evaluate a category that seems to be changing in consumption. Greece is an area where we are increasing as it’s just full of bargains, some of which are quite good. One the other end, we are decreasing Napa, pretty much across the board. We just don’t drink as much of it so restocking at a slower rate and focusing on a limited number of producers that we have enjoyed for years.

Buy what you enjoy and remember that there is a vintage of the century every 3-4 years.

In terms of finding gaps & filling them, having a finite storage space (way less than 1000 bottles) has perversely really helped. Each year on an Aussie wine forum, there is a thread about buying plans for the next year. I use this as an opportunity to think properly about what I’d like, or like more of, and sometimes what I need to curb my buying of. Thus a somewhat flexible wishlist is drawn up, from specific wines, to more general ‘explore Portugal’, ‘dabble in natural wines’ or simply ‘buy some wines from grapes I’ve not tried before’. I’ll occasionally refer back to it to remind me, but especially at the mid year when we post a ‘how’s it going’ update. I’m not averse to adding the odd new interest to the list. I’m also very much not averse to buying random bottles that aren’t represented. However when buying a dozen bottles online, I’m really looking for more than half the bottles to be represented on the wishlist. This really does help avoid that ‘vintage of the century’ or ‘but it’s a bargain’ mentality from simply filling the cellar with wines that might be good/cheap, but not actually what I want or need.

Also, when reviewing at the end of the year, it helps focus on those wines on the list that didn’t get bought - did I realise I didn’t really want them? were they difficult to find? do I redouble my interest and commit to buying some next year? All really good questions.

Thanks, guys. This was really helpful. When I have time in December, I’ll run the CT regions report to see which regions are already sufficiently represented and where I will want to focus my purchases for the coming year. Cheers.

Hi Bryce
Yes that’s a really good starting point.
Regards
Ian

How to handle FOMO?
Don’t participate in WB. Group discussions about moments of ecstasy with a particular wine or how the planets aligned when they tasted their first bottle of 2012 Chateau d’Raisins broyés can spark interest in wines for which you otherwise would never have known existed.
This board moves markets! One bottle at a time.

On a serious note: I think the concern about missing out diminishes as one becomes more confident in their own palate and preferences and develops a history with tasting that wine over several vintages. If you find wines that you much enjoy, or find interesting, I think you can be happy with those year after year and not feel like you are missing out on some new wine.

A recent example for me: I enjoy Podere Le Boncie “Le Trame” - a wine that was Chianti Classico but I believe is now labelled Rosso as Giovanna Morganti, the winemaker, has been experimenting and does not want to conform to the DOC rules. I wanted to buy the 2015 vintage but my local wine store was asking a fairly high price. I passed, content in knowing I had a good number of bottles of Felsina Rancia waiting for me in the cellar. Such contentment was developed over time.

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