3 - so true
4 - ? If you have a spouse who doesn’t drink or like alcohol, this is meaningless.
This is of course the correct approach.
Only you know your own tastes.
In addition to tasting from a newly-opened bottle, I also try to learn the oxidation curve of a wine. This takes time, and can’t be done “en primeur” [on futures], because you simply don’t have access to the wines until they finally hit retail shelves.
But the wines which are built for the long haul should easily last a week or more [ I refrigerate them overnight], whereas the wines which are all flash & show & pretension & ostentation [designed to fool the palates of the critics who take 30-second samples in 200-wine-per-day puke-a-thon tastings] will start to fall apart sometime around Day 2 or Day 3.
This would be the correct approach if you actually knew what you liked, but judging from the tenor of your post, I would guess that you’re still feeling out the various anatomical parts of the elephant.
.
.
Probabilistically speaking, this approach will end in disaster. The odds that you can randomly assemble a group of [as yet unknown to you] wines which you will ultimately enjoy sipping are vanishingly small [getting down around the value of Planck’s Constant, in one set of units or another].
Again, unless you have preternaturally good luck, these are vastly too many bottles for you to have acquired already.
In ten years, when you think back on the time value of money you wasted on the $30x200=$6000 [or $60x200=$12,000] worth of wines which you came to discover you didn’t actually enjoy drinking, griseled-old-cynical-veteran-2030-you is gonna wanna build a time machine and go back to confront circa-2015-cocky-upstart-you and shoot the idiot.
Anyway, getting back to Jim Cowan’s advice: Taste & taste & taste & taste, and then taste some more.
And learn your oxidation curves.
[By the way, Nebbiolo produces some absolutely bizarre oxidation curves, which seem to defy what ought to be the laws of physics & chemistry.]
PS: If you absolutely have to purchase some 2016 Baroli completely blind, then search the Berserker archives and learn which producers Berserkers are crazy about [typically it will be the traditionalists, rather than the modernists], and also learn whether those producers have had any recent changes in winemaking style.
For instance, Bruno Giacosa used to be the board favorite, but then [apparently] his daughter Bruna convinced the old man to severe his relationship with their winemaker, Dante Scaglione, at which point the winery fell apart so horrifically that they didn’t bottle any wine under their own name in the epic 2010 vintage, and things got so bad that they had to go to Scaglione with their tails between their legs and beg him to return and right the ship [ which apparently Scaglione has succeeded in doing ]. And somewhere along the way, poor old Bruno died.
Similarly, both Aldo Conterno & Domenico Clerico have died recently [and Aldo’s older brother, Giovanni, died around the time of the epic 2004 vintage].
The problem here is that Barolo tends not to be released until five or six years post harvest, and it needs decades in the cellar in order to soften & relax and start strutting its stuff, so it takes a long, long time to learn [and become comfortable with] a new house style.
PPS: There are far worse things you could do in preparation for purchasing the 2016 vintage than reading [and memorizing] all of Gregory Dal Piaz’s posts.
Andreas, obviously Jim Cowan is spot on, but I would still add the following: you’re lucky and unlucky to have such a variety of choice of countries, regions and producers. Whatever you taste, there are lots of wines you won’t have tasted, which you might find you like more when you do, adding to the problem of space if you buy large quantities of a small selection. When I set out, slightly younger than you, I bought only in twos, reasoning that I would be hedging my bets, buying more of anything I really liked later on. Apart from one vintage, Bordeaux 2003, where this scattergun strategy was a disaster, the policy has served me really well. For all the money I’ve lost buying up more of the ones I found I liked, I have saved a lot more by not buying more of the wines I disliked. And yes, many people do find that their taste changes over time - quite apart from winemaking fads which come and go. My taste has changed several times. If you can afford it, buy one or two older vintages of the wines you are interested in too, just to see how they age. Have fun!
I’ve become limited in my storage space. So, I’ve tried to buy a higher percentage in older vintages that are ready to drink now. Started dabbling in auctions and just being more inquisitive about library wines. Once I started learning winemakers and vineyards, going back to an older vintage on something that I like is a much easier call than getting in a new '17 and starting the learning curve over.
Another way of saying the former: like what you drink and drink what you like. Why buy anything else?
My wife and I are only now, probably 7 years into being completely absurdly nutty about wine, formulating what could be called a “strategy”, and it’s not all-encompassing.
Everyone here has given good advice, but as someone who is likely you a few years in the future, trying to forecast what you’re going to want in your cellar in 20 years when you’re only like 3 years into this thing is a fool’s errand.
Lots of stuff we went sort of deep on 4 or 5 years back isn’t really our jam anymore, and at this point I think we’re JUST NOW starting to sort out what broad categories are our “blue chips”. We’re still solidly in the “research” phase, though at this point we’re targeting our purchases about half to things we know we like and want to cellar and half to things we want to investigate. We know we like Northern Rhone and have had broad experience with it at many stages of age, so that’s a definite buy for us. Ditto Champagne and German Riesling. We think we would probably like Burgundy since we tend towards higher-acid wines, but have less experience there, so we’re trying to put some of our budget to tasting broadly across producer and region as well as getting some aged examples when the opportunity presents itself to make sure we’re going to like the stuff we’re cellaring.
One final note that might seem a tad mercenary, but has really factored into our ability to learn is to make sure you have a small but diverse selection of lightly to moderately aged “classic” regions and producers in your cellar for if you start going to offlines. In our experience, the wine community is super generous and it feels good to be able to bring something fun or interesting or recognizably “good” to events where veterans will sometimes bring some real heat. It’s a huge learning opportunity and being able to participate in good faith is a ticket to being invited back.
My buying strategy is roughly equivalent to a squirrel crossing a 4 lane motorway - erratic, frenzied, sometimes ending in very poor decisions, although always interesting.
JJ Prum Aulslesen
From a good to great year like 2015
Wait…
You’re welcome
I love Chambertin and Musigny. ![[cry.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/8/853b6e76c6e8406be77a6727c2a27ad1672678b3.gif "cry"){kind=small}
Luckily price/quality is logarthmic with plenty of irregularities. There’re a lot of excellent affordable wines in an ocean of mediocrity. You might not “love” them quite as much, but they can be very pleasing. It takes time (and often some help) to find those wines, while maintaining an acceptable level of financial security.
RT
Don’t buy things that you don’t like (or doesn’t speak to you when you try it) because you’re told you “should” like it or will like it when you know better.
I don’t like Barolo. I"ve come to grips with it. Aged, new, traditional, modern. It at best doesn’t do it for me and at worst, the stuff you’re “really supposed to enjoy” high end, aged, traditional barolo I may as well pour down the drain. Yuck. ![[bleh.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/c/cbb27a94fa73081862abf910a8bfa05e2ae2f5c3.gif "[bleh.gif]"){kind=small}
But I own bottles of it because I listened when I didn’t know any better and bought some for when my “palate matured”.
Also get wines for different things. No sense having a cellar that only has bordeaux because you had an epiphany or Cali cab. There are times and places for a bunch of different things and being able to grab a bottle of something at least somewhat appropriate is always great.
Oh and buy more German riesling and good vintage champagne.