Peter D. Meltzer, Ryan Isaac
Issue: October 31, 2004
Collecting wine is an exciting venture for the wine lover because it offers entrée to a world that can fulfill your greatest desires, whether they be red, white or sparkling. What better way to indulge your passions than by retrieving a well-aged bottle from your cellar and sharing it with friends or loved ones?
If you've recently been bitten by the collecting bug, you've come to the right place. This package is dedicated to helping the novice collector start his or her first cellar. There are just three prerequisites: patience, a willingness to learn and enough money to fill your cellar.
To that end, we've set some realistic parameters to help you get started. A budget of $10,000 will allow you to make a strong commitment to wine collecting. Bearing in mind that your collection cannot take shape without proper storage, $2,000 is allocated for building a small cellar or buying a stand-alone unit that can hold up to 250 bottles. That leaves $8,000 to stock the cellar.
Several aspects of collecting will be explored in this package. All beginning collectors should be aware of purchasing options, the importance of proper storage, and methods for growing and protecting your cellar.
To offer direction to rookie collectors, we have outlined four cellar prototypes: the global cellar (selections from many of the world's major wine regions); the vertical cellar (focusing on Bordeaux); the regional cellar (focusing on Burgundy); and the investment cellar.
Once you decide on a cellar strategy, you'll need to carry it out. Wine buying can be as enjoyable as wine drinking. It presents the opportunity to shop around and hunt for bargains, treasures and trophy wines.
Collectors also need to manage their inventory. By recording the wines that you cellar and later consume, it is easy to keep a grasp on your collection.
Wine collecting can be as much a lifestyle as it is a hobby. Your initial purchase is only the beginning. As your knowledge grows and your tastes develop, your collection will expand accordingly. But let's start with a $10,000 cellar.
The Passion to Buy and Store the Best
How occasional drinkers turn into collectors
Peter D. Meltzer
Issue: October 31, 2004
People collect everything under the sun, from seashells to silverware, Matchbox cars to classic Corvettes. The wine collector, however, stands alone: He is the only one who destroys his treasures in order to enjoy them.
An art collector hangs his paintings on the wall for all to enjoy, but an enophile's stockpile sits in a dark cellar, out of sight until the collector decides to pull the cork. Until that moment, the bottle has value but no meaning; it is pure potential. But in the very act of understanding a wine's meaning and determining how good it truly is, the collector empties the bottle and renders it worthless.
The collecting of wine, unlike the collecting of most other objects, is not about hoarding, or even accumulating. While it's true that beautiful labels, full wine racks and complete verticals of select wines provide their own pleasures, most wine collectors don't buy in order to own. They buy in order to drink. They often buy to share as well. They are passionate about the experience of wine, not (or at least, not only) the possession of it. And, in most cases, it's a wine experience that turns an occasional drinker into a collector.
Nick Silvers of Houston is a case in point. In 1998, Silvers, who had just turned 21, drank a bottle of Mouton-Rothschild 1993 that piqued his curiosity.
"In retrospect, it was an unexceptional vintage, but at the time, I was so impressed that I immediately started to experiment with other wines," Silvers, a custom home builder, explains. "I also began reading about them, which spurred my curiosity. Then a local Houston retailer was generous enough to bring me into his tasting group. Before I knew it, I had a stand-up 100-bottle wine fridge, and shortly after that, I was building a proper cellar into my home."
Silvers discovered what many other collectors have learned—that experience with good wines leads to a thirst for even better ones. And, as he began exploring the wide world of wine, his tastes evolved. He began his collection with California Cabernet Sauvignon and Bordeaux; as he learned more, his preferences moved toward the Rhône and Burgundy.
"Once I became committed, I started forming strong relationships with retailers around the country," he continues. "I slowly began buying at auction and started using the Internet to find smaller retailers and brokers who received allocations of hard-to-come-by wines yet were willing to sell at reasonable prices. The most fun [aspect of] collecting now is the treasure hunt when I am in other cities: finding that obscure shop that has one true gem and doesn't realize it."
Developing a wine collection provides multiple pleasures. On an educational level, it's a way to explore wine horizontally by experimenting with diverse wine regions, and vertically by tracking how wines change over time.
On a practical level, it guarantees the luxury of choice. It's much like having an extensive wardrobe to suit every imaginable occasion. Having wine on hand also precludes having to dash to the corner liquor store every time someone drops by unexpectedly for dinner or a drink. Better still, a well-stocked cellar enables you to transform an ordinary evening into an instant celebration simply by opening a special bottle.
Mike and Carrie Benvenuti, a 40-something California couple, made the leap in the mid-'90s.
The Benvenutis visited Napa for the first time in 1994. "At that time, we purchased wine to drink on a casual basis but didn't collect and store wine," Mike says. "We usually bought what we were going to drink." After that trip, they began to accumulate more than they could drink.
At first, they rented space in a storage facility, though they were concerned about the inconvenience of not having their wines at home. Before they knew it, their 12 cases' worth of alloted space was filled. As their palates evolved and they honed their tastes, in-home storage began to make more sense.
In 1996, they moved to Ohio, and there had a basement suitable for storage. For $1,500, they were able to construct a cellar with a capacity of about 750 bottles. "We quickly outgrew that cellar," Mike says, "and were wishing we had one twice that size."
Collecting is in Mike's blood. Carrie is quick to point out that he also has baseball card and Matchbox car collections. Wine, however, takes priority. When asked whether he'd rather acquire his next bottle of great wine or a 1953 Willie Mays card, he says the choice is simple. With the wine, he can anticipate opening it and what it will taste like, and eventually savor it with friends.
After moving to Newport Beach, Calif., in 2000, the couple was able to construct their dream cellar, which holds their 1,800-bottle collection and has room for another 600 selections. Mike likens the cellar, which is integrated into the flow of their house, to a piece of art. The Benvenutis often stand in the cellar and admire their creation, which began only 10 years ago with a few cases of wine in the garage.
Jim Sperandio, a 41-year-old real estate agent who lives in the Chicago suburb of Bartlett, has been collecting wine seriously for 10 years. "I'm not even sure myself," he says, when asked to pinpoint when his wine habit grew from having a case around the house to keeping a 500-bottle collection. "Little by little, if I found a wine that I liked, instead of just picking up one bottle, I'd pick up two or three," he says.
He began cellaring when he noticed what bottle-age did for wine. At first he had a stand-alone unit that held about 50 bottles. Four years later, after moving into a house with an ample basement, he designed a wine cabinet and hooked up a cooling unit. It held 150 bottles.
But his expectations continued to grow. "My goal at that point was always to have an actual cellar," he says. Along with his wife, Marianne, who shares his interest in cellaring and enjoying wine, he has built a collection of 500 bottles. It is stored in a permanent cellar that he claims he'll never outgrow. "It's aesthetically pleasing," says Sperandio, who is also a coin collector and the enthusiastic owner of two Harley-Davidson motorcycles. "When I have friends and family over, we can walk into the wine room instead of just looking at a cabinet."
The Benvenutis' and the Sperandios' wine collections grew as they achieved greater financial stability, found more space to store their wines and began to better understand their palates. To maintain a collection, the same circumstances are needed.
Matt Wilson, 30, who this year left his post as fine wine director of Manhattan's Chelsea Wine Vaults to cofound Anthony Beaumont Consulting, was once handed a six-figure check and given carte blanche to assemble an instant collection. But more often, it's a gradual process.
"I start by finding out what wines the client has enjoyed in the past, and the kind of food they serve," says Wilson, himself the owner of a 4,000-bottle collection. "I help the client explore new varietals or obscure labels. The average collector is usually prepared to spend considerably more than the casual drinker." In the rare wine section of Chelsea Wine Vaults (which Wilson oversaw), the average transaction in 2003 came to $1,400, with a per-bottle cost of $135, compared with $55 transaction and $16 per-bottle averages elsewhere in the store.
John Kapon, auction director of Acker Merrall & Condit, a firm that also operates a retail wine business in Manhattan, says it usually takes six to 12 months for a client to create a serious cellar. "Most start out as small buyers, with a focus on California and Australia because [those regions] are easier to understand and appreciate. But eventually, all roads lead to France—whether it's Bordeaux or Burgundy," he says.
Jacques Bergier and his wife, Reynita, began collecting wine in the mid-'90s and have since assembled an 1,800-bottle collection housed in the cellar they built in their New Jersey home. They regard themselves more as drinkers than as collectors.
"We are constantly buying wine, reading about it, stockpiling, drinking, then buying some more," Jacques says. "The exercise is partly to ensure that we have a quality cellar that is always adequately supplied. It's not collecting in the same manner as one would collect silver or porcelain. It's more like intellectualized drinking."
In Wilson's view, wine collecting is more about your state of mind than about the number of bottles you assemble. It is an appreciation of the world of wine. "You know you're hooked when you start looking into the history of a specific grower or region. For me, a collector is someone who deeply appreciates fine wines and has enough in stock to enable regular access. That may begin the moment one has amassed more bottles than a free-standing shelf in the kitchen can accommodate."
With the proper mindset and adequate resources, starting a wine collection will be an enjoyable and challenging pursuit. You'll be able to share your passion with family and friends, reap the benefits of well-stored wines, and celebrate special occasions with the fruits of your cellar.
$8,000 Prototypes
Four cellars map different collecting strategies
Peter D. Meltzer
Issue: October 31, 2004
In the following pages, we have assembled four prototype cellars, each reflecting one of the various strategies available for building your collection. There is no one right way to create a wine cellar. Just about the only caveat worth respecting is that it should reflect your individual taste, not someone else's.
Consider the sample cellars we provide as guidelines to the form and structure a potential collection could take. Their respective contents are not engraved in stone. You can pick and choose specific wines, or develop a hybrid strategy of your own. There's nothing to prevent you from focusing on a vertical (bottlings from the same winery in a chronological progression) or horizontal (same wine type and vintage, from different wineries) array of your personal favorites.
However, all the prototype cellars here share a common fiscal parameter; they were assembled with a $10,000 spending limit in mind. With $2,000 set aside for the cellar storage, there is an $8,000 budget for buying the wines.
The cost listed per bottle reflects our best estimate of the current market price for a given wine, whether retail or auction. In addition, all wines were scored on Wine Spectator's 100-point scale.
1. Global: A wide variety of entries from major wine producing regions, this cellar is particularly well-suited to the neophyte who is still honing his tastes. Think of it as an enjoyable tool to establish likes and dislikes.
2. Vertical: This takes a closer look at different vintages of cellar-worthy wines from a region's principal appellations, in this case Bordeaux, and is more suited to the seasoned wine lover who has already established personal preferences. The framework could also be applied to Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa and Sonoma, or choice vintages of Brunello di Montalcino.
3. Regional: This focuses on the great breadth of Burgundy, calling upon many appellations to complete the collection. The format, though, could easily be adapted to any other major region of your liking. For example, you could choose California or Oregon if you want to keep the focus on Pinot Noir, or look to the Rhône Valley or Australia if you prefer Syrah. The choices are limited only by your imagination and the quality of wines produced by a given region.
4. Investment: The goal with this cellar is to assemble wines that should provide the greatest monetary appreciation over time. The investment cellar has fewer wines than our other prototypes because investment-grade wines are more expensive than wines that would more typically comprise a beginner's collection. Full and half-cases are the minimum quantities for investment because they are the lot-sizes most commonly offered at auction. But be warned: There are no guarantees that your purchases will gain in value. Be prepared to drink them in the event of a downturn in the market.
Investment-grade wines must be properly stored, otherwise their consignment potential will be lost. Similarly, past ownership can affect future resale; study the provenance of your potential purchase carefully. A wine with a below-average fill-level—no matter how attractively priced—is a bad candidate, as are bottles with torn or scuffed labels. Wines in their original wooden case ("owc") fetch higher prices at auction than those that have been binned
Acquisition Options
When it comes to stocking your cellar, the local wine shop is only the beginning
Peter D. Meltzer, Ryan Isaac
Issue: October 31, 2004
When assembling your collection, it is important to shop wisely. When you can no longer satisfy your desires at the local wine store, or if you simply want to branch out, you'll find there are many shopping alternatives.
Depending on your goals and budget, you can buy current releases through specialty retailers or winery mailing lists, bid on mature wines at auction houses, even secure wines not yet bottled through futures purchases.
No matter what your source, the first step is to research the true market value of the wines you want. There is no point in engaging in a bidding war or paying more than the going rate for any particular bottling. Retail markups and auction estimates can vary substantially, so it's wise to gauge the competition before you write a check.
The Wine Spectator Auction Index, established in 1995, is a bidder's guide to the commercial auction world. Published quarterly in Wine Spectator, it lists average prices for 153 commonly traded wines, along with high/low comparisons and percentage changes from previous quarters. The online edition of the auction index (found in the Collecting section of www.winespectator.com) posts an exhaustive 10,700 listings. Either version of the index can be used effectively to cross-reference a particular auction estimate against recently realized prices, enabling you to make an informed bid. It can also be used to measure retail prices of older vintages.
Wine-searcher.com is a particularly handy tool for assessing retail wine prices. Simply enter the name of a specific wine, producer or vintage that you are interested in, and the search engine taps a national database of retailers for current prices. Wine-searcher's free version sources 100 sponsor merchants. The pro version (at an annual subscription rate of $24.95) provides price comparisons from a list of more than 3,000 suppliers in the United States and Europe. A similar service is offered by winealert.com.
With current prices in hand, a great place to test the market is at specialty retailers. Abundant in larger cities, specialty shops offer great breadth within a specific winegrowing region or country. They often have access to wines that other retailers cannot procure. The specialty retailer provides consumers with the opportunity to build an excellent regional collection—or to try something different from what's on the shelves at the local store.
In theory, auction houses can give collectors the opportunity to purchase mature wines at below retail rates; this is because auction houses function as agents for their consignors and do not have to factor long-term storage into their estimates. The only caveat with buying at auction is that you need to predetermine your maximum bid and stick to it. The thrill of the live auction can wear off quickly when you overpay.
There's little question that the auction pace and pressure can be daunting for novice bidders. John Kapon, auction director of Acker Merrall & Condit, believes that most collectors are more comfortable in a retail environment, where they maintain total control of the transaction. "Learning the auction ropes takes time," he says. "The sheer size of the catalogs can be overwhelming. Some individuals don't want to spend a good portion of a day attending the sale. What's more, there is no guarantee you'll get what you want. So it's understandable that many buyers would rather slap down a credit card and get the wine on the spot."
Yet those who brave an auction's navigable waters can discover treasures, both large and small. Small lots enable a buyer to assemble a broad selection of bottlings without committing to a complete 12-bottle case of any one wine. Once you have honed your personal tastes, you can progress to larger quantities. Acker Merrall & Condit, Bonhams & Butterfields, and Morrell & Company tend to offer single bottle and 2- or 3-bottle lots with the greatest frequency. Online, the established firms of winebid.com and magnumwines.com are two reputable operations that tend to offer smaller lots.
Being on a mailing list is a sure sign that you are devoted to a winery and committed to collecting. The mailing list became something of a status symbol with the emergence of the California cult wines in the '90s. You'll never find a bottle of Harlan Estate on the shelves; either pay top dollar at a restaurant or be one of the lucky few who buys it directly from the winery via the mailing list. Don Bryant, owner of Napa cult Cabernet Bryant Family Vineyards, produces about 1,000 cases per year. Bryant has about 1,000 people on its mailing list, most of whom receive an allotment of six bottles; a minority receive a case. The waiting list tops 6,000.
The futures market is another purchasing avenue that requires patience. Futures, known as en primeur in France, are offerings of wines that have yet to be bottled. When a consumer buys a futures offering, he is locking in a pre-release price and ensuring availability, and is usually reacting to preliminary assessments of the vintage such as barrel-sample reviews or reports from winemakers.
Futures are offered by a third party, an agent of sorts. It is essential that you trust the seller. Seek out merchants who have contracts with estates guaranteeing them an allotment. There's no worse outcome than buying futures through a fly-by-night outfit that is no longer in business when the wine you ordered is released. You can expect to receive your wine one to two years after the futures purchase; nearly all these purchases are by the case.
Futures are most often associated with Bordeaux and, to a lesser extent, California Cabernet. There are also pre-arrival offerings, usually with a six-month window, by major retailers for Burgundies, Italian reds and Rhône reds; on occasion, wines from other major growing regions, such as Oregon Pinot Noir and Vintage Port, factor into the market. It largely depends upon a retailer establishing a market for the wines and having the ability to deliver.
Obviously, in a great vintage, buying futures will reward financially and boost the ego; in a poor year, you may end up feeling like you bought tech stock just before the bubble burst. Make no mistake, you assume the same risks with futures that you do with any other speculation.
Plenty of purchasing options exist beyond the local wine store. The direction you take will be shaped by your goals, personality and propensity for taking risks. Whichever path you follow, keep in mind that there is more than one way to stock a cellar.
Protecting Your Assets
To build or buy?
Ryan Isaac
Issue: October 31, 2004
Most collectible wines fulfill their youthful promise only after being carefully stored under optimum conditions for many years. Indeed, creating proper storage conditions for your bottles is yet another indication that you've evolved into a true collector.
When looking to store your collection—whether it's a beginner's stake of 250 bottles or a lifetime supply numbering in the thousands—there are two standard options: a free-standing refrigeration unit or a built-in cellar. The choice you make will depend on your financial resources, the space you have available and your goals as a collector. Or maybe it will hinge on your willingness to wield a hammer.
The fastest and easiest way to proper wine storage is the free-standing refrigeration unit. Available in many different models and sizes, storage units are produced by a wide range of manufacturers. But regardless of brand, capacity or design, all free-standing units perform the same function.
The benefits of a free-standing unit include convenience and low maintenance. It can be placed almost anywhere in your house or apartment, and once you plug it in and program the desired temperature, there's little for you to do other than fill it with wine.
The cost of a 250-bottle unit is about $2,000. Before you buy one, however, make sure you have enough space; at that capacity, it will be almost 6-feet high and more than 2 feet both wide and deep.
If using 24 cubic feet of your kitchen, living room or studio apartment isn't what you had in mind, seek out one of the smaller options. A 50-bottle unit will be much less imposing. If you have kitchen space or don't mind getting rid of a few pots and pans, you can have a unit no bigger than a dishwasher installed under the counter. But remember that after only four cases, wines will end up in the back of your closet again.
Also consider the shape and size of the bottles in your collection. Burgundy-style bottles are shaped differently from Bordeaux-style bottles. If you want to store your Burgs in a mass-produced storage unit, it may not be tailored to your collection. The same goes for magnum collectors.
Clearly, a free-standing unit is more utilitarian than a walk-in cellar, and it will fill the bill for storing your wines. But it leaves no room for growth. Experienced collectors often warn against stand-alone units because the active collector can outgrow one quickly. And for $2,000, you're locked into a storage price of $8 per bottle.
Jim Sperandio, who has stored wine in both a stand-alone unit and a built-in cellar, prefers the latter. "I like the cellar better because it displays the wines. It's aesthetically pleasing. When I have friends and family over, we can walk into the wine room instead of just looking at a cabinet."
If you have the space to build and the desire to grow and show your collection, a proper wine cellar is the better choice. Any enclosed space in your house can be converted into a cellar; it could be the tiny closet where you keep your golf clubs and cross-country skis or it could be the extra bedroom. It is, however, a significant commitment.
You can hire a contractor to design and build the cellar, or, if you have a knack for home improvement and have been looking for a new project to undertake, you can build it yourself. The cost of installing a cellar will vary dramatically depending upon the quality of the materials you use; some of these decisions will be merely decorative, others could ultimately affect your cellar's contents.
More important than the aesthetic qualities of your cellar is the performance of its components. The walls must be insulated and include vapor barriers; ceiling, floor and door must provide tight seals.
A small cooling unit, which will regulate the temperature and humidity for approximately 150 cubic feet, will cost about $600 to $800 (home air-conditioners cannot provide enough cooling power). A more sophisticated unit that can manage condensation on its own will not require a drainage line. These units top $1,000.
Standing redwood racking will cost between $250 and $500, depending upon what kind you use. Rectangular bins, for example, will be less expensive than racking with individual slots. The shape you decide upon should be as much about your needs (large-format bottles require different racking; Burgundy bottles may, too) as it is about your budget.
The space for a 250-bottle cellar can be as small as 3 feet by 8 feet by 3 feet, but it will get the job done. You won't be spending too much time in there other than to stock and remove wines. As for maximum size, your imagination and available space are the only constraints.
If doing it yourself, you should be able to build a cellar (especially if you're converting a small closet) for less than $2,000. But be warned: It is not an exercise to be taken lightly. Not only is there the challenge of controlling temperature with an eye to the ideal mean, 55˚ F, but you also have to be careful that the relative humidity remains in the range of 70 percent. Too dry (below 60 percent relative humdity) and the wine will slowly evaporate from the bottles; at above 80 percent humidity, mold will form on the labels, bottles and cellar walls.
Where planning is inaccurate and preparation inadequate, disasters await. Bob Vila, America's handyman and the king of do-it-yourself, is also a wine collector. More than 25 years ago, he built his own cellar in what he thought was an ideal site, only to discover some of his wines ruined after a flood.
"The key piece of advice I could give anybody who's contemplating setting up a place to collect wine," he says, "is to do a very detailed assessment of what they have—in terms of the condition of the house, the age of the house, the location of the house." In 1977, he thought he had found the ideal house. It had a stone foundation, was built upon a hill, and had a dry cellar that remained between 51˚ F and 65˚ F. "You don't think about getting flooded in a house that's on top of a hill, but there are all sorts of possibilities in old houses."
Once you've built your cellar, Vila stresses the importance of monitoring the conditions. You need not perform daily inspections of the floor and walls, searching for cracks and drips. However, keeping an eye on the temperature is recommended. A simple and inexpensive (less than $25) min-max thermometer will display the high and low temperatures that your cellar reaches. High-tech options include installing a device that is connected to the Internet, so you can get an instant read on your cellar's temperature from anywhere in the world.
Whatever the shape and size of your collection, it is essential to store your wines properly. Whether you buy a no-frills stand-alone unit or build an ornate basement lair, the future of your collection depends upon the cellar's performance.
Maintaining Your Cellar
Your wine collection changes with every bottle bought or consumed
Ryan Isaac
Issue: October 31, 2004
So you've become a wine collector. Instead of buying wines simply for current drinking, you are systematically laying down wines for the future. And instead of shoving your bottles into a closet or stacking them in the garage, you have invested in controlled storage in order to bring them to maturity in perfect condition.
But a wine collection changes with every bottle you buy and with every bottle you drink. The $10,000 that got you started is only the initial investment. Wine collecting requires ongoing engagement on the part of the collector; in that sense, collecting wine is more like owning a car than like buying a painting. Here are some suggestions to keep your collection running smoothly.
As you enjoy the wines you own, your tastes will evolve and shape the way you replenish your collection. Good record-keeping, whether in a cellar book or a computer database, will help you track your progress and make the best decisions. The systems you have put in place to protect your wines must themselves be protected, through routine maintenance and periodic upgrades. Finally, it may be prudent to buy insurance to cover your storage system and your wine.
Charting your cellar
You may discover a delightful and inexpensive everyday wine, plow through a dozen bottles in your first month, and have to order another case. Or perhaps you slowly work through your collection; you'll want to keep notes on which wines you'd like to drink again and which you've had enough of.
There are two approaches to tracking the wines in your cellar and documenting those you've opened. You can use a pen and paper, or choose among various computerized options.
Cellar books can be found many places: bookstores, wine shops, stationers. If you know the key elements to record, any notebook—from a $2 spiral to a leather-bound ledger—can become your cellar diary.
The information can be entered in two stints—after purchase and after consumption. You will want to include most, if not all, of the following: the wine nomenclature (including producer, wine name, grape variety, appellation, vineyard designation and vintage); when and where you purchased the wine; how much you paid; and what quantity you purchased. Then you'll want to record your tasting notes: when, where and with whom you drank the wine and your overall impressions of it, including color, nose, palate and finish. You may also want to include Wine Spectator tasting notes.
If you turn to your computer for inventory and note-recording purposes, you have a few options. Computer programs can be as simple as creating a spreadsheet file yourself or as sophisticated as installing a bar-coding system that will log wines in and out of your cellar with a scan. Software formatted to fulfill your record-keeping needs is widely available. For collectors who want cellar information at their fingertips, software is also available for PDAs.
Whatever your method may be, detailed bookkeeping is key to the future makeup of your collection and instrumental in tracking your consumption rate.
Budgeting for restocking
Remember, your collection dwindles every time you pull a wine. To make sure that you're never left without options, you have to replenish consistently.
With a starting point of 250 bottles and a consumption rate of only one bottle per week, you will still taste through 20 percent of your collection in one year. And keep in mind that there might be some wines in your collection that will need several years of cellar time, further diminishing your immediate options.
If you dine at home frequently and drink wine with your meals, you may go through four or more bottles a week, depending upon the size of your household. Five bottles a week is a magic ratio of sorts; the equivalent of 250 bottles a year, it would leave your (unreplenished) cellar empty in just 12 months. This formula is a good starting point for measuring your restocking needs. To maintain a full or near-full cellar at that consumption rate, you'd have to buy close to two cases of wine every month.
Three bottles a week requires purchasing a new case monthly. But you need not be so systematic. Wines are released at different times of the year, so you may find that you do most of your buying at a certain time. That's one of the luxuries of a collection—you have plenty of wine to fall back on.
Keeping your storage system in good shape
With a typical free-standing wine cellar, the list of potential mishaps is as long as that for a larger cellar. Like the refrigerator in your kitchen, this cooling unit will eventually malfunction.
In fact, whereas a standard refrigerator is expected to last about 20 years, chances are good your wine unit will meet its maker (or, if you're lucky, just its repairman) in about half that time.
Review the warranty carefully before you make a purchase. They can often be confusing, if only because some units are covered piece by piece rather than as a whole.
When it comes to trouble, the most delicate—and crucial—part of the refrigeration unit is the cooling system. Other danger areas include the evaporator, which plays a part in humidifying and collecting condensation; the thermostat; the cabinet doors, which can fall out of alignment and lose their seal; and the venting system, which can clog and prevent the unit from dispersing heat.
Many companies make cooling systems, and various storage-unit producers endorse different brands. A cooling system has a shelf life of about eight years, and can be easily replaced for approximately $500.
The potential problem with replacement is not in the installation but in the time it takes to get your unit running again. Nowadays, it's fairly easy to have a new cooling system arrive at your door in a day or two. If you keep the storage unit closed and change the cooler immediately, the long-term health of your collection should not suffer.
Some collectors elect not to wait for something to go wrong; they send their units to the manufacturers for regular maintenance—not unlike a 3,000-mile oil change. Companies will often send you a loaner to hold your collection while your unit is in for a checkup.
Cooling units take center stage for built-in home cellars as well. Along with proper insulation, the cooling generator is the most critical aspect. But whereas insulation is a phase of construction, the cooling unit will need to be maintained.
Also, the unit will generate moisture, especially during the summer months, when the temperature in your house will rise. Condensation is usually drained off by a tube feeding into a pan. If the tube malfunctions or the pan is not level, there will be evidence of moisture in your cellar.
Insurance
If you are going to spend more money on sophisticated storage and tracking systems to ensure the well-being of your collection, insurance is a prudent move. While troubleshooting within the storage unit is manageable and can be planned for, a loss of power cannot. With insurance, at least you will be compensated for your monetary loss.
Wine insurance can be packaged with a regular home owner's or tenant's policy, but it can also stand alone. In order to insure your wines at proper value, it's important to have your collection well-cataloged; one more reason to keep good records of your inventory.
While rates on wine-specific insurance will vary (it will be more expensive near fault lines in California wine country, for example), the standard annual cost is around $4.50 per $1,000 of wine. In terms of the beginner's $8,000 collection, the cost is about $36 a year—a good price for peace of mind
Becoming a Wine Collector
Marvin R. Shanken, Thomas Matthews
Issue: October 31, 2004
When does a wine lover become a collector?
It has nothing to do with the number of bottles or the cost of the cellar. Some collectors can boast thousands of bottles, housed in custom-designed cellars, tracked by computer, opened by butlers. But even they started small. Everyone does.
You become a collector the day you buy a wine to drink sometime in the future. It may celebrate an anniversary. It may be a discovery from a restaurant wine list. But when you decide to wait for a special occasion to uncork it, you are no longer simply buying wine, you have started to build a cellar.
Once you have laid down a wine to mature, you have an obligation to protect it. A wine's quality depends directly on its storage conditions. No matter how extraordinary it may be when you buy it, if it gets too hot, or too cold, it will deteriorate. So if you plan on aging it until maturity, you have to create a protected environment.
Whether that environment is a commercial wine storage unit, a do-it-yourself closet conversion or a cellar designed by an architect, the novice collector is now faced with the next step: filling it up.
Your cellar is the embodiment of your tastes. As you taste wine and enjoy it, and buy a few more bottles, or a case or two, you'll find that the contents of your cellar evolve with time. And one day you'll be able to survey your collection and track your development as a wine drinker, not in some abstract way, but by sharing your precious bottles with family and friends. That's when you'll truly understand what makes a wine lover become a collector.
This issue offers a guide to the beginning wine collector. It's full of practical advice on selection, storage and cellar management. We offer some prototype cellars, too, to help you decide what approach to take in your own buying. This extensive package, created by Ryan Isaac and John Siudut in our tasting department and longtime auction correspondent Peter D. Meltzer, is designed to help you take the next step in the lifelong journey of wine appreciation.
If you're a collector of Tuscan wines, you'll find this issue essential. European bureau chief James Suckling reviews nearly 1,000 wines from the region, many from the outstanding 2001 vintage, in his annual tasting report. One even scored a perfect 100 points. Turn to page 36 to find out what it is.
There are values in Tuscany as well as great collectibles. And for more fine wines at affordable prices, turn to managing editor Kim Marcus' report on the wines of southern France. It's an improving region with many exciting discoveries.
As always, we offer dining and travel coverage, too. To complement our coverage of Tuscan wines, we offer you an inside look at one of Florence's best restaurants. If you plan on joining us at the California Wine Experience in Chicago next month, you'll enjoy a round-up of some of the Windy City's top tables. Whether you're a collector yet or not, we hope this issue will deliver plenty of pleasure and guidance.
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