Any wine lovers want to have their collection of wines. Not only some bottles of wine from the cellar, which are served to friends but the real collection in which there are bottles of various wines and are arranged according to specific criteria. When creating a wine collection, it’s difficult to talk about rules because they simply do not exist. However, there is a prerequisite for starting to create your wine collection – you need to take care of suitable space. Since some bottles in a cupboard or a pantry cannot be said to be a collection, the first step is undoubtedly a proper space, and then only follow your taste. Remember that the best wine is the wine from the cellar. From your wine cellar.
Wine From the Cellar Should Have a Red Thread. Or Maybe Not.
The wine collection in the wine cellar reflects the owner’s taste, visibility, and financial capabilities. However, the money or the purchase value is not necessarily related to the quality of the wine. Searching for wines for the collection is a pleasure and exciting journey through wine-growing regions, wine cellars, and countless wine tastings, which can be experienced again at home. At the very beginning, accept that no one has all the wines, so it’s better to make some compromises, make a plan and decide on the red thread of your wine collection. If you still can not determine at the beginning, start with a more “free” approach, and later you will tighten the conditions for placing wines in your collection.
So, in the beginning, you just have to store the different wines in your cellar, and at the end of this process, you can say that you drink your own wine from the cellar.
- You can have wines of all colors in the collection, but you can focus only on white or just on red. Some also decide on rose wines that are unsuitable for long aging or orange wines that have become a real hit in recent years.
- Even though domestic wines are already very colorful and diverse, you will probably have some foreign wines in your collection. The regionally diverse collections are most interesting, but nothing is wrong with a collection that follows your taste; therefore, there are only wines from certain regions.
- Different varieties of wines provide the true richness and value of the collection, and this also involves colorful diversity and regional diversity. All wines are not found in all regions. Therefore a collection based on your favorite varieties is most desirable. Wines of the same variety from various parts of the world prove climate and soil’s importance, or “terroir.”
- Special collections like our Cviček or ‘true’ Bordeaux, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and the like can be the working names of collections that can be formed in your wine cellar. We recommend wines that are better aged than Cviček. But of course, there is nothing wrong if you drink this type of wine first, together with some friends with appropriate tasting, and make room for a new collection. You can also decide on the one winemaker and for collecting the same wine for many years in a row. An archive of the vertical of the years is an excellent opportunity to monitor the development of wines and “vertical degustation.”
- Fans of sparkling wine will undoubtedly be part of shelves devoted to sparkling wine and champagne, and you can collect them in the same way as all other wines, i.e., by region, color, grade, and the like.
World Wine From the Cellar – A Collection of Learning and Pleasure
Those wine lovers who want to learn and spread their horizons when you create a collection will start collecting “classics.” I recommend a few bottles of different types or varieties of wine from the world’s best-known regions, for example, three main representatives of the most famous French, Italian, and Spanish regions, some bottles from the famous vineyards of the US, Australia, and New Zealand, and a number of representatives from South Africa the Republic, Argentina, Chile and Portugal, where their peaceful wines are especially interesting. And don’t forget about Slovenia, of course. The design of this collection is a bit more expensive and depends on where and how you buy the wine and on the situation on the market. But in the end, you can simply taste all-world wine from the cellar.
Let It Taste Be Your Guide
I advise that you follow your taste, regardless of what will guide you in forming a wine collection. If possible, buy wine only after you have tried it because the untasted purchased wine, which you do not know about almost anything, can be very disappointing over time. If you plan to create a wide collection of varied wines, the taste will play an even greater role, as you will only choose the wines that best suit your taste.
Is Older Wine Better Wine?
The old proverbs are beautiful, but they don’t hold completely. All wines are not suitable for aging, and they lose quality over the years. Therefore it is advisable to distribute a collection of wines. The first part should be wine suitable for aging, and in the second, those who do not tolerate years best. Later we will explain why and how the collection is renewed and changed, which is directly related to the ability to age the wine. Every wine has a lifetime, and it is best to drink it at the height of its life course. It’s not very pleasant to invite your friends and offer bad wine from the cellar.
How Many Bottles Do You Buy and Why?
I recommend purchasing six bottles of each wine you choose to include in your collection. The purpose of this is that you can follow the wine in its development because the wine changes with aging, but it is difficult to follow it with just one bottle in the collection.
My practice is to try the wine before buying. Then I usually open a bottle in the first few days after the purchase, and five go to the collection. According to the wine I bought, I open the next bottle in a year or two and compare how it evolves. After a while (again a year or two), the third bottle follows, and I compare how it goes. In this way, the wine is old, but I know very well how it progresses, and at the same time, I stop to lose its quality or even breaking down. When no more signs of quality arise, we simply drink the remaining bottles with our friends.
Of course, it is not always possible to buy six bottles, which is usually due to the high price, and in the case of rare wines of the highest quality, such quantities are not on the market. But these are the sweet concerns of those wine lovers who really have a lot of money.
When buying wine, talk to a winemaker or wine expert about how long the expected life of a particular wine is, and then decide whether you will put it in your collection.
What Else Do You Have and What Have You Already Drunk?
By purchasing the first bottles for your collection, start recording all purchased and consumed bottles carefully. You can also make a bottle and label a photo of each bottle you will put in your archive. Later on, you will add notes about how the wine was aged, when you drank some bottles, and how you liked the wine. In a few years, you will have a valuable document about which wines went through your collection, with whom you drank, and who excited you most.