Collecting wines

It says in my bio that I have a passion for wine but I think a deep and continuing interest would be more accurate. This article talks about collecting wines in general and the wines that I have chosen to collect. Collecting is about keeping wines once bought, not buying them to drink immediately. I think the statistics show that 95% of the wines sold in New Zealand get drunk within 24 hours of leaving the shop shelf. I remember visiting Coney Wines in Martinborough one year and bought one of his very nice Rieslings. How long should these usually cellar for I said innocently. The answer was – I don’t know, I think a lot of them get drunk before they have even reached the car they are travelling in. So as a nation we are not really collectors.

Why Collect Wines?

People collect wines for a variety of reasons. The simplest reason is so that you can drink your wine of choice when you want it. Some people collect wine as a status symbol (look how much wine I can afford to collect!). Some collect wines as an investment and some of the very best wines are worth considerable sums as collectibles. Some collect just for the fun of collecting (just like collecting stamps) and the harder they (the wines) are to find the more fun it is.

In my case collecting is something I grew into, starting from the very simple premise of just having wines available to drink. The drinking is still important, particularly as I prefer the sophisticated tastes and flavours of cellared (matured) wines, but I now enjoy collecting in good part for its own sake.

Wines I Collect

One of the first lessons you learn as a collector is that you can’t collect everything – otherwise you will soon have a collection running into the 1,000s of bottles and will probably be bankrupt. So what do I collect and why?

First I collect New Zealand wines only – in part because New Zealand is my country and I think we produce some very fine wines. And this helps keep the size of the cellar under control.

I find wines that I like – for various reasons – and collect vintages of that wine. For example I have a collection of Craggy Range Le Sol Syrah which is in unbroken line (except for those years when it is was not produced) back to 2007. 2007 is not all that old which tells you I have not been a long time collector.

Even with New Zealand wines you have to be selective and I have become increasingly selective as my collection has grown. I try to focus on brands of wine which have a very good long term reputation. For example I only collect a handful of Martinborough brands of pinot noir and that includes brands such as Dry River and Ata Rangi.

The ideal is to buy about 6 of each wine that you collect so you can see how it matures over time. Very interesting stuff but very expensive!! Many of my wines are now single bottle or at most batches of 2 or 3. But I do have some interesting lines from the heady days when I bought whole half cases of wine!

I originally had a collection which was almost exclusively pinot noir but this had now developed so I collect pinot, syrah, Bordeaux style blended wines, riesling and some chardonnay. I collect some gewurtz but only because my wife drinks it. I find my tastes have changed. I now prefer syrah and cab/merlot to pinot but I think that may be down to my ageing palate which demands increasing punch.

Riesling is a bit of a passion of mine in part because it comes in so many styles but also because it cellars so deliciously. Without doubt my favourite riesling producer is Pegasus Bay – but more on that another time.

Where & How to Buy?

If you are serious about collecting then buying wines is not as simple as dropping into the local wine shop – most wine shops stock only a selection of wines and often don’t have the vintages you want.

If you have the time, patience and money the best bet is to buy direct from the winery – most wineries have online shopping and once you are known to them you can get on the distribution list and get early info on new releases. That’s important as some new releases never make it to the wine shops. Most wineries are also very accommodating to known customers with a genuine interest in their wine – it really is an industry which is about passion as much as running a business.

However, buying this way is expensive and some wineries will only sell in half or full case lots.

Because I have pulled back on my buying (partly budgets but also the cellar is full!) I now tend to buy mostly from local wine shops. However, it is still worthwhile to buy online if the winery makes a number of wines you want and you can easily make up a mixed case. Some are also very obliging if you ask nicely to buy only 2 or 3 bottles.

My wife and I also regularly go “on safari” to most wine regions and that is always a good chance to buy small lots – if they happen to be in stock.

Watch out for some wines that sell out very quickly – the worst example is probably Te Mata Coleraine – sold out from the winery in a week in both 2013 and 2014.

So the stores I buy from in Wellington are:

• Moore Wilson
• Glengarry

It is also worth checking New World in both Schaffers and Thorndon as they often have some surprisingly fancy wines in stock.

There are two main problems in buying this way:

• they stock quite selectively
• often they will not get in the latest vintage until they have sold all of the previous vintage

The wine shops are generally pretty good on chardonnay and pinot noir but much more selective on syrah and cab/merlots. Some wine regions are also very poorly represented and that especially incudes Waipara and Waiheke Island.

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