Is wine cellar diversity all it is cracked up to be

[brodie_thomson]

I am not going to buy wines I don’t really like just to say I have a diverse cellar.

That’s a straw man. No one has said that. Don’t begrudge people who thrive on variety the opportunity to express their enthusiasm for it.

I think to some extent over-diversity in a cellar purely for diversity’s stake or overly glorifying the drinking of obscure varieties is for most wine drinkers (certainly not all) a stage younger wine drinkers go through until they figure out what they like. Eventually, most people settle on a few types of wines as their primary regions and then several others as occasional wines and, while our favorites change from time to time as we try new things, the diversity reduces for most wine drinkers as one’s tastes mature.

Or not. I’m roughly your age and I find my tastes have widened with time. I began with Bordeaux, then Northern Rhone. Later came German riesling, Burgundy and Barolo and Barbaresco. A few years ago, I put away some Etna Rosso, and I recently loaded up on Cesanese di Piglio and Felsina Chianti. Drank a red Sancerre last night and wish I had more.

Likewise. I am completely with John here. I am in my 60s and my cellar is more diverse now than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

Whether intended or not the OP comes across a bit grumpy with a Alan Eden type clickbait title.

Brodie

[Eric_Ifune]

Howard, I’ve been cellaring wine almost as long as you have. I don’t worry about diversity yet still have a very diverse cellar. Perhaps choices were limited when you started, and you haven’t ventured outside your norm. Still there are a plethora of great, great wines out there, many very similar to your beloved Burgundy. I go out, travel, have an open mind and find many wines I prefer to many of the classics. Having a limited palette to one’s palate strikes me as narrow minded, nonadventurous, or both.

[Sarah_Kirschbaum]

I don’t own any Rhone wines. I have never had a dish that required a Rhone wine - in other words where I could not use a wine that I like, for example a Bandol or a Zin or a Chinon or any number of other wines. I guess your palate is just a lot more finely tuned and sophisticated than mine is.

<Sigh.>

Howard - Of course if you don’t like Rhones, you would not feel those are the right choice of pairing. I can’t stand amarone, and would never choose it, even if I did think, intellectually, that it might be a good pairing.

The sarcasm (my highlight), however, is definitely not called for here. My gut instinct, when I read the OP, is that I don’t believe in diversity for the sake of diversity either. But, as an exercise, I thought seriously about the question, came up with an example from my own life that could fit into that category, and shared it. I think you might be seeing criticism where none exists, and it’s causing you to react in an unnecessarily defensive manner. I assure you, none was intended.

Edited for punctuation.

Sarah,

Thank your for your comment. I really don’t care if people have a very diverse wine cellar or if people’s cellars contain all of one type of wine. I assume that many of us have cellars that are somewhere in between - most wines come from 2-4 regions, then we have another 5 or 6 regions where we have some wines that we drink more on occasion but really like, and then several types of wines where we only have one or a few bottles. Maybe we like one producer from that region or bought a bottle or two on vacation or whatever. For example, I like Bandol a lot but do not have that much of it and what I have is largely from a couple of producers. But, this is not all theoretical. There have been two threads recently where the diversity police have called out people for not having a diverse enough cellar or for not drinking wines that were geeky enough.

I just do not believe in diversity for its own sake. And, your comment with Amarone is just the point I was making. Your pairing with Rhones is only a perfect pairing because you like Rhone wines. If you did not, you would find a different wine to pair.

Sarah, I very much respect your approach to wine and did not mean to belittle you. You and I often do not like exactly the same types of wines but you like what you like with enthusiasm and bring a lot of joy to your love of wine and to your posts here. I am sorry if you think I meant to offend you rather than to make the point you did with Amarone.

Thanks, Howard. I objected only to the sarcasm, which did come off as snarky, not the point itself. Guess I’ll go ahead and post the note on the Baden wine I pulled for you tonight after all.

[Howard_Cooper]

<Sigh.>

Howard - Of course if you don’t like Rhones, you would not feel those are the right choice of pairing. I can’t stand amarone, and would never choose it, even if I did think, intellectually, that it might be a good pairing.

The sarcasm (my highlight), however, is definitely not called for here. My gut instinct, when I read the OP, is that I don’t believe in diversity for the sake of diversity either. But, as an exercise, I thought seriously about the question, came up with an example from my own life that could fit into that category, and shared it. I think you might be seeing criticism where none exists, and it’s causing you to react in an unnecessarily defensive manner. I assure you, none was intended.

Edited for punctuation.

Sarah,

Thank your for your comment. I really don’t care if people have a very diverse wine cellar or if people’s cellars contain all of one type of wine. I assume that many of us have cellars that are somewhere in between - most wines come from 2-4 regions, then we have another 5 or 6 regions where we have some wines that we drink more on occasion but really like, and then several types of wines where we only have one or a few bottles. Maybe we like one producer from that region or bought a bottle or two on vacation or whatever. For example, I like Bandol a lot but do not have that much of it and what I have is largely from a couple of producers. But, this is not all theoretical. There have been two threads recently where the diversity police have called out people for not having a diverse enough cellar or for not drinking wines that were geeky enough.

I just do not believe in diversity for its own sake. And, your comment with Amarone is just the point I was making. Your pairing with Rhones is only a perfect pairing because you like Rhone wines. If you did not, you would find a different wine to pair.

Sarah, I very much respect your approach to wine and did not mean to belittle you. You and I often do not like exactly the same types of wines but you like what you like with enthusiasm and bring a lot of joy to your love of wine and to your posts here. I am sorry if you think I meant to offend you rather than to make the point you did with Amarone.

Thanks, Howard. I objected only to the sarcasm, which did come off as snarky, not the point itself. Guess I’ll go ahead and post the note on the Baden wine I pulled for you tonight after all.

Thanks. Not at all sure if Baden wines will be of a style I like - generally, Riesling with some residual sugar, but I am interested in your notes as I know nothing about these wines - even where to find them. I was very surprised that 50% of someone’s wines were from Baden. Made me kind of notice.

[Craig_G]

This has really elevated taking offense to a fine art. I mean, taking offense to an entire thread by starting a new thread about it, and then pre-emptively taking offense to the anticipated replies… it’s masterful stuff.

[Cris_Whetstone]

No wine diversity police here, Howard, but we do have diversity of opinion on all things wine . . . and that’s a good thing.

I respect diversity of opinion and respect very much the opinions of quite a number of people here. They are making excellent points for themselves and we can have an interesting discussion, which is what I was hoping for.

But, I have little respect for people who respond with nonsense like this:

“Well some people only eat hamburgers when they go out to eat. There are many kinds of hamburgers: Burger King, McDonalds, Shake Shake, 5 Guys, In and Out, Sonic. So many kinds out there you could say you have a solid diet with such a vast array of hamburger meat without eating the same burger twice. I guess this is how Burgundy lovers think of their beloved pinot noir from the hallowed slopes.”

To be fair, Howard, the tone of your top post isn’t exactly inviting discussion about why people choose to have diverse cellars or not. It was more akin to a rant. Getting defensive about responses to such a post is not the best approach.

[David_K2]

No wine diversity police here, Howard, but we do have diversity of opinion on all things wine . . . and that’s a good thing.

I respect diversity of opinion and respect very much the opinions of quite a number of people here. They are making excellent points for themselves and we can have an interesting discussion, which is what I was hoping for.

But, I have little respect for people who respond with nonsense like this:

“Well some people only eat hamburgers when they go out to eat. There are many kinds of hamburgers: Burger King, McDonalds, Shake Shake, 5 Guys, In and Out, Sonic. So many kinds out there you could say you have a solid diet with such a vast array of hamburger meat without eating the same burger twice. I guess this is how Burgundy lovers think of their beloved pinot noir from the hallowed slopes.”

To be fair, Howard, the tone of your top post isn’t exactly inviting discussion about why people choose to have diverse cellars or not. It was more akin to a rant. Getting defensive about responses to such a post is not the best approach.

With Howard, pretty much every post can be boiled down to “my preferences are more sophisticated than yours.” You can bank on it. Every time.

[John_Morris]

… Guess I’ll go ahead and post the note on the Baden wine I pulled for you tonight after all.

Thanks. Not at all sure if Baden wines will be of a style I like - generally, Riesling with some residual sugar, but I am interested in your notes as I know nothing about these wines - even where to find them. I was very surprised that 50% of someone’s wines were from Baden. Made me kind of notice.

Knowing your well-advertised love of red Burgundy, I suspect she was thinking of a Baden Spätburgunder. They grow riesling in Baden, but it’s a relatively warm region best known for its reds, particularly Spätburgunder.

[Nola_Palomar]

I don’t own any Rhone wines. I have never had a dish that required a Rhone wine - in other words where I could not use a wine that I like, for example a Bandol or a Zin or a Chinon or any number of other wines. I guess your palate is just a lot more finely tuned and sophisticated than mine is.

<Sigh.>

Howard - Of course if you don’t like Rhones, you would not feel those are the right choice of pairing. I can’t stand amarone, and would never choose it, even if I did think, intellectually, that it might be a good pairing.

The sarcasm (my highlight), however, is definitely not called for here. My gut instinct, when I read the OP, is that I don’t believe in diversity for the sake of diversity either. But, as an exercise, I thought seriously about the question, came up with an example from my own life that could fit into that category, and shared it. I think you might be seeing criticism where none exists, and it’s causing you to react in an unnecessarily defensive manner. I assure you, none was intended.

Edited for punctuation.

Sarah,

Thank your for your comment. I really don’t care if people have a very diverse wine cellar or if people’s cellars contain all of one type of wine. I assume that many of us have cellars that are somewhere in between - most wines come from 2-4 regions, then we have another 5 or 6 regions where we have some wines that we drink more on occasion but really like, and then several types of wines where we only have one or a few bottles. Maybe we like one producer from that region or bought a bottle or two on vacation or whatever. For example, I like Bandol a lot but do not have that much of it and what I have is largely from a couple of producers. But, this is not all theoretical. There have been two threads recently where the diversity police have called out people for not having a diverse enough cellar or for not drinking wines that were geeky enough.

I just do not believe in diversity for its own sake. And, your comment with Amarone is just the point I was making. Your pairing with Rhones is only a perfect pairing because you like Rhone wines. If you did not, you would find a different wine to pair.

Sarah, I very much respect your approach to wine and did not mean to belittle you. You and I often do not like exactly the same types of wines but you like what you like with enthusiasm and bring a lot of joy to your love of wine and to your posts here. I am sorry if you think I meant to offend you rather than to make the point you did with Amarone.

Sarah, I very much envy your wine knowledge, tasting experience, and your thought provoking insights to wines around the world.

[Sarah_Kirschbaum]

… Guess I’ll go ahead and post the note on the Baden wine I pulled for you tonight after all.

Thanks. Not at all sure if Baden wines will be of a style I like - generally, Riesling with some residual sugar, but I am interested in your notes as I know nothing about these wines - even where to find them. I was very surprised that 50% of someone’s wines were from Baden. Made me kind of notice.

Knowing your well-advertised love of red Burgundy, I suspect she was thinking of a Baden Spätburgunder. They grow riesling in Baden, but it’s a relatively warm region best known for its reds, particularly Spätburgunder.

Actually not. I like the spats a lot, but I don’t think Howard would so much. Since I hope my approach, enthusiasm and joy also comes with some understanding, knowledge and insight, I would point him more towards the Rieslings and Weissburgunder made by Andreas Laible. Possibly not exactly in Howard’s wheelhouse, as he mostly makes dry, but of undeniably high quality and character and a good representation of what can be done in the region.

[Howard_Cooper]

Thanks. Not at all sure if Baden wines will be of a style I like - generally, Riesling with some residual sugar, but I am interested in your notes as I know nothing about these wines - even where to find them. I was very surprised that 50% of someone’s wines were from Baden. Made me kind of notice.

Knowing your well-advertised love of red Burgundy, I suspect she was thinking of a Baden Spätburgunder. They grow riesling in Baden, but it’s a relatively warm region best known for its reds, particularly Spätburgunder.

Actually not. I like the spats a lot, but I don’t think Howard would so much. Since I hope my approach, enthusiasm and joy also comes with some understanding, knowledge and insight, I would point him more towards the Rieslings and Weissburgunder made by Andreas Laible. Possibly not exactly in Howard’s wheelhouse, as he mostly makes dry, but of undeniably high quality and character and a good representation of what can be done in the region.

Thank you.

[Jim_Brennan]

A exceptionally-wise man once asked me, “How many times do you need to try a wine before you know you don’t like it?”

[David_Bu3ker]

Treading into this thread with a great deal of trepidation, but I don’t think of diversity as an end. It’s an end to a means. I eat quite diversely, so diverse wines are needed. I enjoy different tastes, which leads to diverse choices in the cellar.

When I first started with serious wine collecting I was very focused. Later I spread my wings and tried different wines. A lot of that had to do with joining tasting groups, and experiencing different stuff, then buying what I liked (a la Jim Cowan). I then went into a very focused phase, building up a significant cellar of my favorites. Now I buy quite widely, because I enjoy experiencing new things alongside my tried and true favorites. This has led to a very diverse cellar that suits my diverse (except Sauvignon Blanc) tastes.

So at least in my case, diversity is all it’s cracked up to be.

[Mark_Golodetz]

Although my cellar tends to be fairly tight, divided among producers and regions I have got to enjoy, I do try and taste as many new wines as possible. The problem is that a combination of global warming and new standards of ripeness result in me finding far fewer wines than before, as my taste has gone to the Uber traditional. Also, the wine groups I belonged to are in lockdown, and that was usually a source of some interesting wines. Given that I find so few wines to be interesting, it is an expensive exercise to sort through so many wines that I don’t enjoy to find a few gems I do.

That being said, I decided that the lockdown gave me a chance to explore some regions I really did not know well. Best find was Mosel wines, and the chance to do some in depth tasting and sourcing. Gone a little nuts with Prum, and a few others. Also just posted on an Assyrtiko, a very different wine, but very special in its own right.

[Peter_Hirsch]

I first got interested in wine when I was in my late 20s. Started with Bordeaux, moved to include Calif Cabs. In my 30s, I expanded widely to all kinds of regions, thank goodness one of those regions was Burgundy, and another one called Barolo. By my 50s, I’d found that when given a choice, I generally always choose Burg or Barolo or Northern Rhone. And so for the last 5-10 years I’ve been getting down to what I really like. Calif Chard from 1-2 producers, Chard from the Margaret River (a new discovery), Chard and Pinot from Burg, Nebbiolo from Barolo, Syrah and maybe a little Viognier from Northern Rhone.

[John_Morris]

Thanks. Not at all sure if Baden wines will be of a style I like - generally, Riesling with some residual sugar, but I am interested in your notes as I know nothing about these wines - even where to find them. I was very surprised that 50% of someone’s wines were from Baden. Made me kind of notice.

Knowing your well-advertised love of red Burgundy, I suspect she was thinking of a Baden Spätburgunder. They grow riesling in Baden, but it’s a relatively warm region best known for its reds, particularly Spätburgunder.

Actually not. I like the spats a lot, but I don’t think Howard would so much. Since I hope my approach, enthusiasm and joy also comes with some understanding, knowledge and insight, I would point him more towards the Rieslings and Weissburgunder made by Andreas Laible. Possibly not exactly in Howard’s wheelhouse, as he mostly makes dry, but of undeniably high quality and character and a good representation of what can be done in the region.

Well, damn. And I thought I’d nailed it.

[J_D_o_v_e]

We have had a lot of threads lately about wine cellar diversity among countries, regions, and even obscure grape varieties as if diversity is an end in itself. I will admit that when I was younger, I tried a lot of different types of wines. I have kept buying the ones I like and have stopped buying the ones I don’t like. I am not going to buy wines I don’t really like just to say I have a diverse cellar. No, I don’t just like a couple of producers and no I don’t just drink the same few wines over and over again, but I think to some extent over-diversity in a cellar purely for diversity’s stake or overly glorifying the drinking of obscure varieties is for most wine drinkers (certainly not all) a stage younger wine drinkers go through until they figure out what they like. Eventually, most people settle on a few types of wines as their primary regions and then several others as occasional wines and, while our favorites change from time to time as we try new things, the diversity reduces for most wine drinkers as one’s tastes mature.

So, now the diversity police can start criticizing me.

I think it’s very rare for people to build a cellar of wines they don’t especially love for the sake of diversity. Frankly, I’ve never seen it.

I see young people who buy a thousand bottles of California bruisers (or hundreds of bottles of Mosels) not knowing the difference between St. Emilion and St. Julien or Rioja and Ribera or Chablis and St. Bris way more often than the young guy or gal who is thoughtfully buying stuff from all over the place. And, let’s not forget Tom Hill — who has probably never drunk the same wine twice and he’s no spring chicken (with love). . Loving stuff from all over is clearly not the exclusive domaine of the young.

I think people are just different. Some want to go deep and some want to experience everything. I know people who only ever go on vacation to the same place. You know what I say to that? How f*cking boring is that? Of course, they end up going to the wedding of the guy who owns the bistro down the street from their vacation house… Different strokes.

One last thought — if you gave me a choice to blindly pick one of two cellars:

Cellar A: Deep in two regions. Light in two or three more. Very well selected
Cellar B: Not deep anywhere — but, very well selected from the best wine growing regions that I like

I’ll take B (even though my cellar looks like A). I frankly don’t have the energy to build cellar B. But, I love wines from all over the world. Who only likes wines from 4 or five regions? And, who the hell doesn’t like wines from the Rhône. That’s like saying you don’t like vegetables or you hate seafood. How limiting is that?

Sorry — rant is in fun. And, it’s over…

[Wes_Barton]

My “on deck” wines are pretty diverse for diversity’s sake. That’s because they are for exploring. Much of that goes into “brown bag” blind tastings, much of which are at the end of winery work days. That’s an ever-transitional grouping of bottles. Always singles. Interests shift. Wines I’ve bought “for the cellar”, as in to age or already aged, are largely not so diverse, classically ripe, age-worthy. Though there are some odd balls and historic unicorns. Regardless, every purchase has a context in mind, which relates to who I’ll be sharing it with. I don’t really buy much that needs extended aging aside from Monte Bello these days.

An interesting tangent is I live in an area with a very healthy wine scene. I don’t need my cellar to focus on every region I enjoy. I can deep dive some regions/types for great selections and not explore others at all (or have a few stellar under-the-radar producers or whatever), as other friends have their focuses of expertise they can contribute from.

[JDavisRoby]

So my cellar being 92% USA is okay?

[Mattstolz]

I can see both sides of this. so on one side, my first instinct is to say diversity is good for food pairing, moods, and seasonality. on the other side, I think that can be relative. For example, Howard, I think we all know you love Burgundy. I dont think someone who really knows Burgundy well would have any problem finding Burgundy to match just about anything, from fairly powerful and dense to lithe and elegant (relatively at least), red, white, sparkling. The same could be said for Bordeaux, or California, or Oregon, or Italian. we all know Barolo is tannic, acidic, and bold, but even that is relative: it can be elegant and linear or it can be round and dense.