(Gerhard Retter / Editorial team / animated image: © Manfred Klimek – runwayml)
There it is, fluttering in: an email from a well-known chef who is retiring after four decades. A prestigious establishment, a big name, a grand life. Attached: a meticulously organised Excel spreadsheet of his wine cellar. Plenty of Bordeaux. Plenty of Burgundy. Old vintages. Big names. And straight away, the same question that almost every serious wine lover asks at some point: what to do with it all?
And even more importantly: what is this stuff actually worth?
Because when it comes to wine, there’s often a world of difference between cellar fantasy and market reality. A great many people automatically regard their bottles as small fortunes. The market, however, usually takes a far more sober view. Only the absolute world elite remain truly expensive, truly liquid and truly sought-after: a small elite of cult wines, those three or four handfuls of estates that have long been treated like blue chips. DRC, Lafleur, Leroy, Roumier, perhaps a few other names. There, demand, myth and price expectations still align. And that will remain the case – no matter which way crises take us.
The rest? The other wines? It’s getting trickier.
For wine has a treacherous quality: it is constantly multiplying. No sooner do you think you have enough than the next vintage of the century comes along. And, of course, you mustn’t miss out on that one. Never. So you keep buying. Often because, over the years, you’ve had to ‘buy your way up’ just to get anywhere near the coveted allocations. Two cases of solid Premier Crus, so that you might one day be allocated a bottle of the iconic wine.
And so the cellar grows. And grows. And grows.
At some point, you find yourself standing between shelves full of grand intentions and start doing the maths. When you factor in average life expectancy, liver health and how often you drink, it quickly becomes clear: there’s no way you’ll ever be able to drink it all. Especially as most cellars aren’t made up of legendary wines at all, but ‘just’ good ones. Very good ones, perhaps, even. But not the sort of bottles that send auction houses around the world into a frenzy. The market for these is brutally honest. Outside small circles of connoisseurs, many mature wines are of little interest to anyone. Especially not if their provenance, storage conditions or vintage aren’t documented absolutely perfectly.
That sounds sobering. And it is.
Because, in reality, most people don’t collect wine for investment reasons. But out of longing. Out of anticipation. Out of love for a flavour, a vintage, an experience. Eventually, the cellar becomes a biography in bottles. Each row tells the story of a phase of life. That is precisely why it is often so hard to open them.
That famous ‘special occasion’ keeps getting pushed further and further into the future. Birthdays. Anniversaries. Christmas. Eventually, you keep the bottle in reserve for so long that it slowly begins to turn against you. Over-aged. Oxidised. Tired. Once-great wines then end up as a sad kitchen staple, somewhere between cold duck and Feuerzangenbowle.
This is particularly evident with sweet wines. They probably top the global statistics for undrunk top-quality wines. Sauternes, Tokaj, Trockenbeerenauslese – legendary vintages with enormous longevity, which often lie untouched for decades like museum relics. Yet many young sweet wines in particular are sensational: vibrant, fresh, full of fruit and energy. Yet instead, they lie in the dark, waiting for a cosy evening by the fire that never comes.
This is precisely where one of the major misconceptions of many collectors lies. Wine is not a painting. It is meant to be consumed. That is exactly what it was made for.
Of course, there are technical discussions about optimal maturity, drinking windows and development curves. Every wine cellar app in the world now frantically tells you which bottle is ‘ready to drink’ and which is on the brink of ruin. More often than not, they exaggerate wildly. Good cellar conditions can easily give many wines an extra ten or fifteen years. And yet one truth remains: the sommelier’s job has always been to serve the wine as close as possible to its peak. Not to mummify it.
That is why it is perfectly legitimate to drink great wines a little too young on occasion. Proper decanting helps. Air helps. Patience in the glass helps. And above all, it helps to understand that wine does not possess a fixed state of perfection, but rather goes through different stages of life. Some are best enjoyed young, others when mature, and some at both stages. In a restaurant, this is often better understood than at home. There, the cellar is constantly in flux. Wines find their dishes, their guests, their moments. Even slightly tired bottles can suddenly blossom once more when the food, atmosphere and company are just right.
At home, on the other hand, the cellar often becomes a mausoleum for one’s own expectations.
Hence, perhaps the most important realisation of all: do not buy wine for your own funeral feast. Open the bottles. Share them. Drink them with friends, children, lovers, colleagues and neighbours. The greatest mistake many collectors make is to wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment almost always arises only through the act of opening the bottle itself.
And one more thing: anyone who truly loves wine should start letting the next generation share in it. Not in a proselytising way. Not in a lecturing way. But as a matter of course. Good bottles don’t just belong in climate-controlled cellars, but on tables. For that is where they come to life. Or to put it in slightly more philosophical terms: ‘Sapere aude’, as Kant wrote. Have the courage to use your own understanding.
This also applies to the careful building up and downsizing of one’s own wine cellar.
(A different version of this text also appeared in the magazine “Feinschmecker”)