So you want to become a wine collector? Our resident expert breaks down the dos and don’ts of stocking a pro-rated cellar from scratch
For most wine enthusiasts, becoming a collector wasn’t something they set out to do; it just sort of happened.
Looking back, I wish that ten years ago, when I started to think about collecting, I had someone to take me under their wing and help me think strategically. To be fair, there was no dearth of willing wings, but I was loath to let on that I didn’t really know what I was doing.
The truth is that most of us are just winging it, seduced by the latest sale or trendy region and rarely doing much in the way of long-term thinking. Of course, there are people whose approach is purely rational and profit-driven, but I have very little wisdom to impart to them. Instead I’ve assembled a guide for those just on the verge of becoming collectors to figure out where to start.
Identify Your Goals
To quote motivational speaker Simon Sinek, start with why: what do you hope to achieve by stockpiling bottles rather than just buying a nice one whenever you fancy? Money might be a factor. In this age of rapidly rising prices, it can be tempting to see wines from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Domaine Leroy as sure bets to increase in value. However, allocations of these examples are increasingly rare and buying on the secondary market carries risks. Plus the cost of storage, trading fees and taxes can put an unhealthy dent in your profits if not carefully managed.
Another fairly straightforward reason to collect wine is to guarantee your ability to drink well a decade or more down the line. Wines that are somewhat affordable now might not be by then. Even if you can plump for newly released vintages, properly matured bottles might well be out of your league.
A less common but very valid reason to collect might be that you enjoy mature wines that are rarely available second-hand, like Oregon pinot noir or New Zealand chardonnay. Because these wines aren’t yet broadly deemed “collectible”, resellers aren’t often interested in stocking them and the wineries themselves rarely have a library of “back vintages” (older vintages). These may not increase much in value, but if you enjoy them then to you they are, effectively, priceless.
A final reason, though you may not love admitting it, is that you want a flashy collection to impress your friends. There’s no shame in this and it’s better to accept it so you can construct your collection accordingly. You’ll want to buy a lot more mature wine that’s ready for drinking now or you’ll be of advanced years before you’re ready to drink with the big dogs.
Prepare Yourself
While I wouldn’t say training from a professional organisation is necessary, you should have at least a basic understanding of how to taste wine, particularly for spotting quality and age-worthiness. Though professional wine courses will give you a grounding in tasting, the best way to gain experience tasting mature wines is to join events run by enthusiasts’ organisations like the International Wine & Food Society or standalone groups like the Hong Kong Wine Society, which provide varying degrees of rigour in tasting and are good places to meet fellow collectors.
Promotional organisations like the Knights of Alba for Piedmont, Confrerie de Chevaliers de Tastevin for Burgundy, the Ordre de Coteaux de Champagne and the Commanderie de Bordeaux are great venues as well. Many wine merchants organise dinners where you will likely encounter someone who can give you an entrée into an association or private group of wine lovers.
Visiting the regions themselves is a wonderful way to understand the wines on a more profound level. However, you can’t just sign up for a guided tour (unless you’re in California, and even there many cult properties are off-limits). For your first visit, it’s often better to join a trip organised by a professional group to give you access to interesting producers. Otherwise, you may find yourself limited to the often uninspiring options that accept walk-in visitors.
Do your homework, but don’t put your faith in scores, which might be appealing for their simplicity, but completely erase differences in style. I would start by choosing a region I like, try to find, say, five favourite producers and then stick to them for several years, until I get an adequate sense of their wines’ development over time. That experience can be applied to a much broader range of wines going forward.
Finally, to understand wine’s investment potential, there are several helpful online tools. The London International Vintners Exchange, or Liv-Ex, is a marketplace with useful price indices. A pro subscription to Wine-Searcher is a great tool for determining individual prices, while another data-driven tool, Wine-Lister, aggregates critics’ scores and past performance to generate a single score of a wine’s market potential.
See also: The Most Influential Female Wine Experts In Asia—Plus Their Top Wine Recommendations