I would have to say that I “seriously” started collecting the year after I got out of the military in late 2005 or early 2006 when I booked a trip to Oregon wine country (summer 2006) and first started working at a wine store the week after I returned from Oregon. That was the birth of my “collection”. So I would have been 30.
started taking wine more serious/amassing a decent amount at about the same age as you. Now have 900 bottles. Just depends on your buy/consumption rate…not the age…
Cellaring started at 26. Quickly spun out of control until I reached a max 7 years ago. Still too large but under control and manageable.
about 35
I got seriously interested in last school at about 24, but could only start accumulating after I graduated at 26.
I see a pattern emerging here…
- Wish I had started maybe at 35.
Started collecting in a subtle way in 2013 and ramped up quickly. Was a big cocktail guy prior to that - an entertaining and much cheaper occupation. Just turned forty this weekend.
Like Merrill a bit behind the curve. Medicine does that to you - I didn’t start practice until I was 35, after a decade of Med school, residency and fellowship and the associated real costs and opportunity costs…
Got the bug from my father, grew up with fine wine at the table most evenings. Clerked in San Fran after my second year of law school, went to Napa almost every other week. Got hooked. Found Bordeaux after law school at 25, lights out!
At age 29. We bought our first house and there was an actual basement to store wine. We moved into our current house when I was 36 and that is when the wine cooler came into play, and it morphed from there.
Thanks,
Ed
20ish, but didn’t keep more than 20-30 bottles until 27 when I bought my 1st home.
I was 25 when I first started getting into it, but didn’t really start cellaring favorite years/estates until a few years later. My personal real estate / living situation had a lot to do with that.
It seems to me that its so much easier to acquire older bottles now that keeping one own cellar if more of a preference/privilege, than a real need to enjoy older, complex wines.
28/29 when I first got into it.
My interest in wine was initially piqued right around my 26th birthday, it jumped quite a bit while doing a multi-week tasting series 3+ years later, and my first bottles purchased with the thought of aging were bought shortly after that, right around age 30. Nearly 10 years later, our budget has allowed the “cellar” to grow somewhat, but it’s still quite modest (in comparison to this crowd, for sure).
Started at 28 and it quickly mushroomed… of course that wasn’t that long ago 
My first bottle I bought to cellar long-term was a 2006 Punset Barbaresco Riserva. Haven’t opened it yet.
I started getting into tasting shortly after my 13th birthday on a trip to Tuscany. I’ve never been too much of a collector. I tend to source things I want to drink… but don’t have the self control or patience to buy and hold.
Got bit by the bug when I was 30, but didn’t start in earnest until 32/33.
- Now 61. As passionate as ever.
About 43 and it’s now 13 years later. My palate has wandered far and wide and I still don’t know where it will land. I guess I just like change and diversity of different wines.
Wow- lots of us started young. I felt quite alone and out of my element when I got into wine at age 21 in 1995. My father kept a modest collection of first growths- so I had little sips of Lafite and Mouton on special occasions from a young age which is what really got me into it. Once I turned 21 and could buy bottles on my own, it was full steam ahead from there.
Back then the market was so much different than today. It was possible, on a reasonable budget, to try DRC, the first growths and most of the really great wines of the world. Not just that they were far more affordable than today, but local access was quite secure. Times have changed, sadly.
For me it was in grad school, maybe 24 or 25. But I didn’t start amassing a cellar until I bought a house right around my 30th birthday.