how to start buying older bottles?

I’ve been kicking around the booze business for 12 or so years, mostly retail with a few years of managing a brewery packaging line to mix it up. I’ve always felt the draw to wine more than anything else, and my wife to beer, so we’ve opened ourselves a little shop in rural VT. With that, I’ve re-devoted my free time mainly to reading, watching, writing, thinking about wine. Now, i’ve tasted some killer bottles at industry events here and there, but by and large my exposure is to recent vintages of mainly sub-$100 bottles, and zero “old” bottles. I want to start building a little cellar at home, and while i want to put current bottles in for the future, i’d also like to buy some “mature” bottles to experience now and start to familiarize myself with those aromas and flavors. so, to finally get to the point of this ramble: how does one start buying older bottles at auction without going broke or buying swill? I’m no expert at wine, but certainly not a complete slouch either, but winebid (et al) make me feel totally lost…

Welcome to Winer Berserkers Myles!

How does one buy bottles at auction without going broke? Setting a budget and sticking to it is the best approach. Take care of being being overly zealous in purchasing everything one is interested in. Be cognisant of FOMO, and remember there will be other aged wines in the future available in the future for purchase.

As to how not to buy swill? That is at times the challenge in purchasing older wines.

To get a sense of how some of these older wines are drinking currently, CellarTracker is an invaluable tool. One can see latest tasting notes (if available) for a wine and judge whether that’s a wine that may be drinking well and worth purchasing. Do bear in mind though that as with all tasting notes, they are subjective, and one person’s over-the-hill wine may be another’s perfectly mature.

When drinking older wines, I’m constantly reminded of the adage, ‘there are no great wines, only great bottles.’ Purchasing older wine can be a bit of a gamble at times. How a wine ages depends a lot on how it was stored, it’s why many pay so much attention to provenance, and why there can be bigger premiums placed on certain bottles.

Auction houses are a principal source of inventory for aged wines, and places like WineBid are a big source of aged wine at a wide array of prices.

You can also find aged wines for sale at various retail stores, whether it’s from private collections, or library releases directly from producers’ cellars.

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Thanks for the reply! I guess I will continue to gently toe the waters and just give it a shot. If there’s one thing I enjoy, it’s pre-purchase research, so I should be in my element, I suppose.

From a newbie too:

Though I haven’t dipped my toes in the water yet - Benchmark has older bottles for sale versus just an auction. I think there is/was even a “bin sale” going on this weekend. And because its a sale not an auction, you know the price when you go to hit submit and make your purchase.

Another idea, find a winery that sells “library” collections to the public. I was introduced to https://scherrerwinery.com/ here on WB and Fred makes some really great wines (at least that I’ve enjoyed - I know its all subjective). He has some Cabs available for sale going back to 2003, ~10 year old Pinot Noir, etc. You aren’t going to find 20-30+ year old bottles but at least some with some age. Based on their website, they refresh that library inventory every November. In April I got some 2012 Platt Vineyard Pinot that I’ve really been enjoying. You could always get 2 identical wines from different vintages and try side by side to compare young vs old - especially with their single vineyard designations.

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Thank you for the suggestions, I’ll absolutely be checking those out!! I have to decide what kind of age and what part of the world I want to start with, can’t really do anything before I narrow that down!

Yeah figuring out age and types of wine - it can be daunting. Maybe start with those “recent vintage” types that you like - then dig deeper. So like Pinot, try some with age, try some from Burgundy, CA, OR, NZ or get geeky and look at Germany and some other lesser known PN locations. So yeah, pick what you know you like then start to drill down.

It’s a funny journey - enjoy!

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Always pay for provenance. Large cellars are a good source. Talk to the specialists. There are better auction houses which have really good specialists. HDH, Sotheby’s (I gave up buying from them because of problems getting the wine, but they do have good people) and Zachys. Even so, it is worth a phone call to find out about the vendor.

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