One question we get asked is a buying strategy for customers looking to stock a recently purchased wine cooler or cellar. Too often the comment is that the cellar is empty all the time because the customer doesn’t buy more than they consume, or full because they buy more than they drink. Both problems have a root cause and that is poor planning, either in the size of the cooler purchased or unrealistic expectation of how much they drink. I have a very simple formula that I use that helps bring clarity to the problem.
The first question you need to ask yourself is how often do you drink a “good” bottle of wine that is worthy of storage. Look back at my post, “Drinking aged wine doesn’t need to be expensive” and establish what price you want to spend for those bottles. Be realistic. Aging a Publix BOGO $8 Cabernet is not going to go well, but at the same time for most of us $100 a bottle is unrealistic too. Going back to that post I suggest setting a minimum at around $25, but also do not see the need to cellar wines above $50 unless you like red Burgundy, Brunello, Barolo, classified growth Bordeaux or other rare categories.
Now, ask yourself how many times a month do you drink a wine of that calibre? Maybe you drink Publix BOGO wine a few nights a week, but how often do you drink a “good” bottle? Write this number down and multiply it by 52. Multiply that number by 3 and you have your “good” bottles for a few years that you need to buy and not touch. Now think about how many “better” bottles you want to drink a month and write that number down and multiply by 12. Multiply that number by 5 and you have those special bottles you will want to cellar for nice occasions down the road. Finally, think about the number of “great” bottles you want to drink in the future per year and multiply that number by 10. This gives you a special bottle a few times a year for birthdays, anniversaries or celebrating something uniquely special.
Here is an example of this math:
Good: 1 bottle a week x 52 weeks x 3 years = 156 bottles
Better: 1 bottle a month x 12 months x 5 years = 60 bottles
Great: 4 bottles per year x 10 years = 40 bottles
What you see is a drinking plan for 3 to 10 years, and while not a small amount of wine it is not overwhelming either. Not everyone wants to drink wine 10 years from now, or even 5, so you see how to manage those numbers based on your preference. In subsequent posts I will go over what I cellar for each category and why, so you can see what a well planned, if slightly disorganized cellar looks like.