Venturing Into The Wine Cellar

One of the fun things about my job is I’m often approached with the opportunity to take on different challenges and do different things. A few weeks ago I was handed a rather odd opportunity that to be honest I didn’t really think was legit. Someone who knew someone had given my name to another someone who was looking to have a project done. This final someone essentially wanted a person to come dig through his/her cellar and essentially figure out what’s there. So today my girlfriend (who is completely amazing) and I spent several hours sorting through boxes and crates and more crates and cataloging wine.

Perhaps I will someday talk about what I went through and saw, but for now I figure privacy should prevail (plus, I still have to look at all the entries and build an actual list for the client). But the overwhelming majority of the wine was Bordeaux, so as I sat around tonight I really felt it only appropriate to dig out a Bordeaux of my own. No I don’t have any 82 or 96 Pauillac just lying around, so I was a bit more boring. We had to settle for a simple bottle of 2001 Chateau Larose Trintaudon, which should run in the neighborhood of $20. Just a plain old Cru Bourgeois for us–nothing too extravagant.

Robert Parker gave the wine 85-86 points, but no tasting note. Personally I feel the wine represents a well-made Bordeaux that is earthy yet still enjoyable for most somewhat educated wine drinkers. It has nice fruit, reasonable acidity, shows oak integration, and offers some moderate tannin on the finish. I think it’s ripe fruit and a well-made wine. I could enjoy this quite often and the price certainly makes it attainable for most people.

While I could enjoy this on a regular basis, I won’t be running out to stock up on it. Why? Even though I enjoy this wine a great deal, there’s nothing about it that makes me think it is going to improve a great deal over the next several years. That doesn’t mean I think it’s going to go bad anytime soon, I just don’t view it as something that will develop a great deal more. And while I think it’s very nice wine at a good price I’m also confident that there are enough talented winemakers out there that once this wine goes away (i.e. the vintage sells out) I will be able to find something comparable.

Whenever you see people filling huge cellars will large quantities of wine that are either readily available or meant to be consumed young are kind of missing the point. A cellar is not your personal storehouse for California Chardonnay–it’s where you age wines that will hopefully develop and improve over time. Why would you put 3 cases of Yellow Tail in your cellar? If you are having a party you can always just run out and get more (just to clarify, the client I worked for today is not one of these people; for example: 86 Mouton Rothschild ain’t Yellow Tail).

Look, I work in the retail business. I want people to come in and buy lots and lots of wine, and course consume it with lots and lots and lots and lots and even more lots of responsibility. But I don’t want people to be foolish. There is a huge ego factor around having a wine cellar these days, and it doesn’t just have to do with people who point-chase and see who can have the most 95+ point wines. People think wine cellars look cool, and they try to fill them.

The reality is wines worth cellaring tend to cost money. There are the occasional $10-$15 bottles that reward a few years on their side, and you certainly can find some sub-$30 French, Spanish, and Italian wines that will benefit from true cellaring. But more often than not the only way to justify having a separate room that houses 400+ bottles is if you fill that room with the kind of $40+ bottles (and many of them are way north of $40) that are really built to age. Don’t toss three cases of the $12 California Merlot you love right now into your cellar because in four years you’ll be lucky if they’re as good as they today.

Today was a great reminder for me what cellaring is all about. It’s about identifying the wines you really enjoy and are capable of not only handling bottle aging but will actually benefit from it. It’s also about recognizing risk: some of the bottles in this collection have past their prime and will no longer show their best attributes, while others have simply failed to hold up to the aging process. Fortunately my client was aware of this are basically told me up front he was ready to handle the bad news when it came. Anyone who plans on building a true cellar should be aware of these risks and be prepared to accept the consequences. Just remember, that person you read about with the 5,000 bottle cellar could drink a bottle a day for the next decade and still have over 100 cases left. Do you really think those people hit every bottle at its prime?

Cellaring is fun, and believe me as a retailer when I say I’m very happy to have that as part of my business. But for the casual wine drinker I think it is very important to remember you should look at each bottle you purchase as something you will actually enjoy. It’s been said on plenty of occasions: the most important component of any great wine collection is a corkscrew.