Building a Wine Cellar

A few months ago I wrote about starting a wine cellar. I wanted to encourage the many people who have thought that it would be great to have a wine cellar, but who wondered if they could do it. I suggested a few strategies for starting the cellar, and will now suggest several more.

But let’s first think about the downside. You may well be discouraged by the cost of fine wines, and by the thousands of wines from which to choose. How can I control costs? What wines should I choose? In this column, I’ll suggest two strategies for cutting costs. Later on, we’ll talk about specific cellar selections.

When you picture the wine cellar you would like to have, do just that. It is your own cellar we are talking about, not anybody else’s cellar. It should reflect your own preferences and tastes. The fact that someone else likes the great Italian Barolo wines doesn’t mean that you have to have them as well. You might well prefer a selection of fine Chablis. The point is, to please yourself (and significant other). The content of your cellar doesn’t have to conform to anybody else’s ideas.

What should you have, then? I suggest a mix of younger wines (for current drinking) and mature wines (for special occasions). In fact, for many people having an assortment of mature wines is the very point of having a wine cellar in the first place. That’s also my view. Over time, the wine blends together and reaches its peak.

The trouble is, that mature wines worth having often cost hundreds of dollars per bottle. For some of you, that may not be a problem. If so, you are the fortunate ones. But even then, I suspect that you would rather not be taken when you buy wines. We all like to spend our money wisely.

So here are my two suggestions. First, buy fine wine when it is young. This is called buying wine “futures,” and many wine retailers throughout the United States offer this service. You pay for the wine now, usually within the year of its bottling, and take delivery when it arrives at the retail outlet a year or so later. Then you put the wine, case and all, into your cellar and leave it there until it is mature. Ask your retailer for his wine catalog, or futures list.

Compare the cost of wine bought as futures with the price of the same wine when mature, a dozen or so years in the future, and you’ll see the savings you can make when you buy early. As one dramatic example, I remember seeing Chateau Petrus 1982 on sale in early 1984 at $100 a bottle. Today you’d have trouble finding it for $1,000 a bottle. And that is part of the problem. Mature wines may be very difficult to find at all, at any price.

How do you know which wine futures to buy? If money is no object, I’ll make a suggestion. Go where the wines are made the spring after their blending, and taste them. That’s what I did in Bordeaux in the spring of 1989, tasting the 1988 wines. That way, I talked with winemakers and got some good notions about the vintage, and who had made the best wines, and what to avoid. Then, back home, I bought some wine futures. (Not enough, but I will say that the appreciation in value of the wine from then until now did pay for the trip I had taken.)

If that is not possible, then talk with your wine retailers and read all that you can about young vintages. A lot of information can be had with some research, and a lot of it is increasingly on Bonjour Paris! If you do this and find that you would really like to start with half a case of your favorite Burgundy, then by all means do that, you’ll be on your way. We have just enjoyed a luscious Comte de Vogue Le Musigny 1992 with the Easter roast lamb. You will have many such peak wine moments when your own cellar is underway.

My second suggestion concerns buying mature wines. You can’t always wait for wines to mature, and you may want to taste some now. Frankly, most mature wines are priced simply far too high at retail shops, when they are available at all. My suggestion: try bidding at a wine auction.

Wonderful mature wines are available, at Sotheby’s and Christie’s, for example, and may be bought at their scheduled auctions. Both houses have departments that specialize in wines, with catalogs announcing sales. You can contact each of them and request further information on the Internet.

I bought one of my cellar’s treasures, a La Romanee 1969, the smallest Burgundy grand cru, at such an auction. Surprisingly, for this very great year, it cost less than a bottle of 1996 La Romanee would cost you, if you could find it.

Stepping beyond traditional auctions, wine auctioning on the Internet is now beginning to build interest. I have heard of one house, winebid.com, where you can make inquiries about their practices and charges, and consigning wines for bidding. They seem to specialize in single bottle lots, which is an advantage for many people where more expensive older wines are concerned. Also, an Internet wine auction company will be less concerned with compiling a printed catalog, if they do it at all, so the lead time between consignment and selling your wine is far less.

As I’ve said before, for most wines that are not yet mature, I’d suggest a “rule of three.” Buy at least three bottles of wine from the same producer for a given vintage when you can. Since there is considerable bottle variation even in the same case of wine, let alone the same vintage, you’ll be intrigued by the differences in taste from a single wine producer. You’ll add to your wine pleasure as well by noting differences, and highlighting what you liked best about a vintage.

Your cellar should contain a mix of sizes, with some magnums for dinner parties, and half bottles as well. There should be both white and red wines, both dinner and dessert wines, and some champagne too. In another column I’ll explore various assortments at different price ranges. For now, I just wanted to start you thinking about ways that you can enjoy some of the world’s best mature wines, at prices you can afford to pay.

If you enjoyed this article, you’ll love our ongoing discussion of French Food and Wine!

Bill Shepard learned to love the wines of France when he served as Consul General there. You can read more about his life as a consul in Can the U.S. Embassy Help in a Crisis? Copyright (c) 1999 Paris New Media, L.L.C.