Cellar Dwellers

It may seem odd to begin a story about how to stock a wine cellar by pointing out that you should remember to drink the stuff, but it is the most important caveat wine collectors need heed. Don't wait until it's too late to open that great bottle. Don't agonize over whom to share those special bottles with and, most of all, do not fall victim to waiting for the perfect opportunity to open any single bottle of wine or you may end up with a cellar full of old, and mostly dead, wines and a life devoid of magical wine experiences.

The next thing to remember is never let yourself be overwhelmed by the size of anyone's cellar as you get started. Size and worth mean little to true wine lovers. All cellars begin with one bottle, so the sooner you start assembling your cache, the sooner you will be drinking delicious, mature, aged wine. If you need to convince yourself that maintaining a wine cellar is a good investment, just look at the retail price of older vintages in any wine shop and that should serve as motivation enough to get started.

Research and planning

Knowing what to buy is an ongoing project. It requires regular maintenance and planning well in advance, and it means doing the research about people and the wines they make. Wine publications are good sources of information, and so is following some of the world's leading tasters, such as Robert Parker or Jancis Robinson. It is especially useful to follow a reviewer you trust in your market, and there is always the Internet - perhaps the single biggest information source available to the modern collector. Before you know it, the culture, history, geology and geography of the world's top wine regions will become part of your education.

How much to spend

I often tell people that if the difference between a good wine and a great wine is only a few dollars, always buy the better wine. Believe me, the few extra dollars will look like a bargain a decade from now. That said, set a budget and stick to it. The good news is you can buy a lot of wine in the $25 to $30 range. Just make sure you are getting your money's worth. If you are going to spend more, remember it is much easier for a $50 wine to triple in value than a $1,500 bottle to double its worth.

How much to buy

How much to buy is really matter of budget and how large you ultimately want your cellar to be. A $30,000 cellar is an excellent goal for the casual enthusiast. In essence, you are looking at about a 1,000-bottle cellar with an average spend of $30 per bottle. If you make it a 15-year project or $2,000 a year (roughly $5.50 a day), it is easily manageable.

Six bottles of any one wine is more than sufficient, although three will do the trick, allowing you to age, taste, track and trade along the way.

You have to factor in drinking some of those wines, so consider launching the project with a 100-bottle buying spree of $15 bottles to keep you from being tempted to rob the cellar. Along the way, you can add individual treasures and finds and older wines - all the time building that average age to the sweet spot of drinking: eight to 15 years.

Less is more when you are buying, and patience is the name of the game.

Time and aging

Assembling a cellar of mature wine is undoubtedly financially rewarding, but it is also mandatory if the fine wines you are seeking are to become great wines. Over time, be it three, 10, 20 or 30 years, the harsh, angular components of youth give way to the rounder, more complex flavours that are the hallmark of aged, fine wine. The bottle-aging allows the wine to get better, delivering far more to the taster than any wine just bottled. It builds value as it approaches maturity and, as more and more bottles are consumed (and less is available), your wine becomes rarer and more valuable. It's the secret to collecting.

What to buy

Old versus new

Everyone wants an old cellar, complete with spider webs and dust, full of old, aged bottles, but cost and availability dictate against that happening. Building a cellar takes time and you need to be vigilant. Buying the best young wine you can afford is the preferred route and that means from a reputable producer and from a solid vintage. The current window of opportunity is most of the 2007 releases from France and Italy and definitely 2007 Vintage Port. It is what we refer to as a foundation vintage: young, highly regarded and as cheap as it will ever be at retail. Don't miss the opportunity to lay away a few bottles from a great year.

Your buying strategy should include picking up slightly older bottles of well-made wine  - 2005, 2003 or 2001 Bordeaux, for instance - when you come across them to begin bumping the average age of your cellar up.

But buying young and being patient will save you the premium applied to older wines and a decade down the road you will be assured of owning a scarce, if not valuable, commodity that you never overpaid for.

En Primeur

Buying en primeur, or "futures," used to be a good method of obtaining serious wine still in barrel before its final release hit the market at a higher price, but given the astronomical prices asked for modern-day futures, the savings are less attractive than they were in the 1970s, ‘80s and early '90s.

Red, white and vintage

Allow yourself a few lesser wines in great years and fewer great wines in lesser years, but generally you need to focus on the best producers, the best labels and the best years if you want to build a serious cellar. There is always a new vintage and chances are somewhere in the world, somebody has made an excellent wine.
As to what to cellar, traditionally, French cabernet merlot, pinot noir and syrah are the choice of collectors, led by Bordeaux, Burgundy and Northern Rhône. After that, a select lot of whites from Champagne, Burgundy and Alsace can fill out your French selection.

Appellation is less important in California, but shouldn't be ignored. When it comes to red wines, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet blends from Napa and Sonoma have to rank at the top of your list. A dash of old vine zinfandel, cool coastal pinot noir and perhaps some Rhône blends from the Central Coast/Paso Robles region should round out your needs.

Italian reds are not for everybody but the nebbiolo-based Piedmont wines of Barolo and Barbaresco are excellent cellar candidates, as are Chianti Classico Riserva and its richer cousins Brunello di Montalcino and the magnificent blends of Bolgheri.

South America is virtually untapped by collectors, but a few bottles of high-altitude malbec from Mendoza and a smattering of top Chilean reds from Aconcagua, Apalta and Alto Maipo will fill out the edges of your cellar. Throw in some old-vine, dry-farmed Australian Barossa shiraz, some Ribera del Duero reds, a bit of Priorat, some vintage port, a little riesling and white Burgundy and you are ready to go. The rest is just a matter of time.