Not too long ago I got an email from one of my favorite wine purveyors. They were offering me a bottle of 2000 LaTour, a prestigious and well known Bordeaux, for $1299. After taxes that’s $1415.91…for 750ml of grape juice I wouldn’t drink for another 20 years.
Now, I would have loved to own this bottle, and I would love even more to live long enough to enjoy it at its peak maturity. neither one of these things is likely to happen but it set me to thinking about perceived value. After checking with an internet volume calculator and doing a bit of math, I realized that this wine costs roughly $472 dollars a cup or $10 a teaspoon, $30 a tablespoon. Think about it… $30 dollars for a sip. This isn’t wine as food, friends, this is wine as an extension of ego. Like most folks I know these days I’m finding bargains in a much lower price range while I wait for my great bottles to age properly.
And let’s not underestimate the value of aging wine. Most wine in America is consumed withing 3 hours of purchase but I consider that a problem similar to childhood obesity. A little education goes a long way. Most red wine in its youth is rough and tannic, an unpolished diamond, cinderella before the fairy godmother visits. Just wait a bit and you get cinderella in the gown and slippers! It’s like slow food but you drink it, and believe me, it drinks you back.
So over time I’ve developed a strategy I call “The sustainable cellar” which supplies all the thrill of the hunting and hording without the high cost of those IMPORTANT bottles and a Parker subscription.
The inspiration for this approach was a slightly tannic 2nd label syrah from Clos Mimi called Petite Rousse. It was one of those wines that was even better the second night after opening and I knew it had great potential to last 5-7 years at least, long enough to shed its tannins. I bought a case at $17.50/bottle after trying the 2003 and I put it away. I did the same with the 04 and ‘05. I stopped when the price hit $25 plus because it was no longer a super bargain, just a superb wine. At this point I have a few ’05s left and this wine was and is phenomenal. It has aged beautifully, developing secondary and tertiary aromas and flavors. the tannins are soft and sweet; it is a graceful wine in perfect balance. Once black and purple, it is now brick red and quite lovely. Drinking it is like making love on your 30th anniversary; There is a depth involved that can’t be faked.
A more recent find was Can Blau, a spanish wine at $13.50 that is superb. That one showed up in 2005 and they are great drinking at this time. the 2007 version is now available and it just as good.
The technique is simple. find a wine at $8-$15 that has balance and sufficient weight to last 3-5 years and put away a case. Try a bottle next year or the following one. Follow its development. You just need a cellar or insulated closet that hopefully doesn’t vary more than 5 or 10 degrees over the year, heat light and vibration are bad. 55 degrees is an ideal but 60 works, it just ages a little faster which is not always a bad thing. Be creative, it’s part of the fun. Solid foam panels are cheap insulation for a closet or crawlspace and are available at any big box hardware store. Get a thermometer so you know how stable it is and across the seasons and how quickly or slowly it might age the wine.
Now for the fun part. As you explore the bins at your local purveyor, you buy a mixed case of reds, whatever varietals go best with what you eat. When you find one with sufficient stuffing and balance to merit aging, you buy a case and put it away for at least one year. Repeat as necessary. Some wines last longer, some begin to fall apart. Just track them and keep notes if you need to. Within a few years you’ll find that you have a large supply of really good inexpensive wines in various stages of aging. you’ll be buying fewer and fewer new wines and you’ll have a better idea of where the value is when you do.
My next experiment will be a California classic, Bogle Petite Sirah @ $8.50 I can’t wait because I’ve never had one that was more than three hours old before. ~Bob
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