Paul852
Posts: 2653
Joined: 6/27/2018 From: Hong Kong Status: offline
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Just to illustrate that other approaches are possible, I am, I believe, as big a consumer of wine as anyone here with annual consumption of around 400 bottles (and as high as 900 in 2020). But I've never cellared more than 180 bottles (when I had a big Artevino fridge for a few years) and now after some changes in my life I have between 20 and 50 at any one time, simply stored at room temperature. That's simply 2-4 weeks supply. It's rare for bottles to remain undrunk for more than 3 months. I have the good fortune to live in Hong Kong, which is the centre of the wine trade in Asia. There are hundreds of retailers (mainly online, but also plenty of physical shops) within the territory and all offer free (air-conditioned) delivery within a couple of days for minimum orders of ~US$100-150. There is no duty on wine, and no sales tax. I place orders, normally of 6 or 12 bottle mixed cases, every few days. My attitude is that there are more good wines in the world than could be drunk in 100 lifetimes, and life is short and unpredictable, so I'm simply going to try lots of different wines (in 2022 for example, I drank 617 bottles of 253 different wines), and repeat buy those that particularly appeal. Buying wine now to drink in 10+ years time really doesn't appeal to me. If I want to drink old wine I can buy it now without the intervening hassle, and by reading recent TNs I can avoid wines which actually really aren't that good after all the waiting or are well past their prime. But having said that I almost never spend more US$100 (retail) on a bottle of wine, and rarely more than US$60. The average price of those 617 bottles in 2022 was ~US$25. I have been to quite a few tastings of more expensive wine, and whilst in some cases I do find the wine to be better than my normal purchases I find that there is an extremely steep diminishing return with price: I have never had, say, a US$200 wine that I would swap for 6 of my favourite US$33 wine. Not so long ago a friend shared a bottle of 2012 Chateau Margaux and it was certainly a very nice wine, but it was almost too perfect - it was basically exactly what I imagined high-end Margaux to be like, and as a result it was rather anti-climactic. And it absolutely wasn't worth (to me) the ~US$500 that it would cost to buy one when I could get a couple of cases of, frankly, more interesting wine for the same money. Yes I know that some here would say that it was drunk 10-20 years too early and that it would be more interesting later, but the same friend has shared with me red Bordeaux from some top-end producers that he has stored for up to 35 years and, frankly, the results were very disappointing - a significant proportion were either flawed or years over the hill and far below the wines I consume on a daily basis in terms of drinking pleasure (as I perceive it) at a fraction of the cost. Note though that we (my wife helps me ) drink a rather different mix of wine types than most here. The split in 2022 was: White 40.8% (252) / average US$19 Red 20.7% (128) / average US$31 Rosé 14.7% (91) / average US$17 White - Sparkling 14.6% (90) / average US$36 Rosé - Sparkling 6.3% (39) / average US$36 Others (fortified, dessert, etc) 2.7% (17) White - Sweet/Dessert 1.3% So that means we're really not typical of the community here on this forum, either in terms of the types of wine we drink or how we going about buying them.
< Message edited by Paul852 -- 2/19/2024 6:57:35 AM >
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