Tag: Wine Collecting

Slumming

Game-of-Thrones-Tyrion-Pour-Wine

Just about every wine collector feels a magnetic pull when passing a wine shop: let’s admit it, wine collecting is addictive on some level. Once you know a wise buyer is running a good shop, it’s hard to resist popping in to peruse a few sections.

Sometimes, though, it’s an entirely different game. Every New York City wine collector I’ve known has gone slumming at least a few times.

Slumming is braving busted-ass wine shops, most often with highly suspect cold storage, searching for mispriced wines. Your higher-tier cuvées selling at entry-level prices; say, Goldkapsel Riesling selling as standard Riesling; or Sesti Brunello selling at Sesti Monteleccio prices. It can happen in any number of shops, but it happens most often in dirty, disorganized ones, with rudderless and woefully underpaid staff.

I’m talking about shops with weird, stained, dusty, damaged wines all over the place; Lord  knows when or where they got the wines. Shops where a high turnover means there’s no knowledgeable, passionate staff, where there really isn’t any consistent logic driving the selections; it’s strictly profit margins and opportunity.

Slumming doesn’t necessarily mean you are in a slum. Far from it! It’s actually the middle of Manhattan (Click to Read more)

Wine and Mortality, pt 2

Geddy Lee and His Wine
When will Geddy Lee have enough wine?

My last article examined our penchant for aged wine in light of our mortal condition. Next up: wine collecting.

A spurt of adrenalin accompanies any major wine purchase.

Perhaps the same holds true for any number of things that aren’t as quotidian as bleach, garbage bags, or canned beans.  But even when compared to other luxury consumer goods, somehow, it’s an entirely different emotional landscape with wine.

How does wine somehow outstrip other purchases?

It’s not unlike buying a book which one looks forward to reading. “I will get to know this wine”, one seems to assert — conscious or not — “because I’m going to ingest it and ponder it”. This leads to one of wine’s noblest pleasures: vicarious travel and education, through wine.  What does one eat in this region that might accompany this wine? What do things taste and feel like in this corner of the world, through the lens of this bottle?

Sure, wine is a drug. But wine is not simply a bottle of characterless vodka, which cannot speak of place and which offers a stiff, pharmacological dose of ethanol. Wine with a sense of place is so much more than just a bottle o’ booze; there’s a genie in there somewhere which speaks of a different culture. And there’s a historic record of weather and time itself, etched in the liquid — what was the vintage like? What decisions did the winemaker make?

With each bottle purchased, one purchases a tiny lot of joyous futures; one imagines opening the bottle, sampling it, trying it with food, and then watching it change.

Most importantly, there’s a commitment to living life as a collection of experiences implicit in a costly wine purchase (Click to Read more)