If you were starting over, had no wine for your cellar, and I gave you $1000.00 to spend. what would you buy? (oh one more limitation, No french wine)

I would probably buy a case of 1997 Piemont or Tuscany from the 1997 vintage. Though I prefer French wines.

heh, I'd buy 8 cases of castle rock cab and drink it up.
can't do much cellar buying with 1000.00

Is the No French rule something you are interested in pursuing or is it part of the game? And why no French?

Since you can't get a lot of good 'cellaring' bottles... I'd buy a lot of good QPR... Oz Shiraz, Chile Cab and Camenere, Argentina Malbec, and some Italian (whatever I could find with a cheap enough price tag).

I'd take the $1000, go to Vegas and parlay it into a cool $50,000 and then go wine-shopping.

But seriously, you'd have to stick to the low priced QPR's: lots of Aussie shiraz and cabs, Spanish riojas, NZ sav blancs, and a couple of Washington or Oregon reds. But, I'd buy maybe one or two $50 bottles to have for a special event. And one nice $30 NV champagne, like Louis Roederer NV Brut.

isn't champagne french rothko!!!

i'm unsure why french wines are ruled out, but we can buy germans, i'm sure you have your reasons, altho they're not clear to me.

like the first respondee, i'd load up on 97 super tuscans. you can get a lot of value and still substantially more than a case with your $1K.

if i truly had $1K without such a stipulation, you can be sure plenty of 98 southern rhone would be involved.

maybe the game was worded poorly. I realize you can't fill up a cellar up with these limited funds. But you have to START somewhere. and obviously casses are out. if you were to buy 5-20 single bottles (or quanities of 2-3) in the $50-100 range, what would it be?

and I just can't buy french yet.

Frankie, you are absolutely right. I didn't even think about it because when you say "No French wine" I assumed that meant non-sparkling. I mean, how can you NOT buy French champagne!!??!!??

I'd buy a bunch of `02 German MSR's. 1,000 is plenty for that.

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AIM: Drunken Mariachi

40-50 bottles of red wine:

Ex: 10 of Ch Ste. Mich. Reserve Cab
10 of Casa Lapostelle Cuvee Alex. Merlot
10 of Kathryn Kennedy Lateral
10 of Mosciarelli Mont D' Abruzzo $8!!
A few each of Pride/Whitehall Lane/Neal Cab

There - no French

DBW

$1000.00 to spend! I would probably buy Martinelli, Insignia, & Montelena. or perhaps a glass of Screaming Eagle

Is there a time machine included in this exercise?

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www.winebid.com

For cellaring, I'd buy 2000 Vintage Ports. By starting over, that would make me about 21 now, so the 2000's would be just reaching maturity at the age I am now. I hope that made sense -- time machine thing... I didn't know then that I'd like vintage port so much now.

You must indicate what your goal is. Are you looking for wines to consume over the short term? Then go with a larger quantity of value wines. Are you looking for wines that will age and (hopefully) become classics over the long term? Then you would need to settle for just a handful of bottles. Are you looking for a mix of both? Somewhere in the middle? Do you like both red and white wine? Do you even like aged wine? Or are you experimenting to determine where your tastes fall?

Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. - W. C. Fields

I'm not sure what my goal is. I think it is to develop a wine cellar with good drinkable wines. I'm not in to collecting for resale. I just purchased a 280 count unit and my 25 bottles I currently own would be so lonely in there all by themselves.
I love big bold wines with long finnishes. My current favorite are Barolos. and of course I like Cabs.

Pardon my digression from your original question. I am a physician, and I do have great job satisfaction, but if I were to start over, I would love to own a vineyard and be a talented wine maker. Once again, pardon my daydream.

Dick

"oh one more limitation, No french wine"

I would still have $1000 in my pocket.

I came come up with some non-French collectables but France really is the center of ageable wine.

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I came come up with some non-French collectables but France really is the center of ageable wine.

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Oh really? It's good to know French wine is the standard all others have to be held to. Where DID that rule come from?

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France really is the center of ageable wine.

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Oh really?

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Well. Yes. Really. The statement was about ageable wine. Not 'the best' wine, which, of course, is subjective. But I don't think that ageability is that subjective.

You can't put Cal Cabs in France's class. Look at Dr. Tannin's post from a while back that commented on the performance of Cal Cabs in WS's 10 year retrospectives. After 10 years, the vast majority of wines tested (and these were the "first growths" of California) performed poorly. That's not to say that they weren't terrific wines. But they haven't held up so well to cellaring.

You can't put Australia in France's class. Those syrupy fruit bombs will be a disaster in 10-15 years.

Portugal's fortified wines don't count.

Yes, Germany and Italy make some mighty fine ageable wines. Great stuff. But if you were to declare one country the "center of ageable wine", it could only be France.

Now, all of this is a bit off topic, because the original poster asked about stocking a cellar, and didn't suggest that the wines must last 30+ years. In fact, given that the request was for wines to help start a cellar, I would submit that most of the wines should be drinkable within 5 years. With that window in mind, the entire world is your oyster.

I'd probably start out with several mixed cases of QPR wines in the $10-$15 price range, to expand my education since I intend on going into the wine industry shortly. I'd pick up a few bottles of good champagne for personal reasons/enjoyment, but otherwise. I think I'd also hit up a few ports I've had my eye on.

No French, okay how bout chilean, two cases of two buck chuck (drinkable cabs!) and probably some good Hungarian Tokaji.

I'm game, why no Frenchies?

Sascha Illyvich

http://www.lunaravencreations.com - fine hand crafted beaded jewelry

Start with a mixed case of CA Cabs '01. Probably boring but that's what I'd do.

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Originally posted by JimmyV:

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France really is the center of ageable wine.

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Oh really?

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Well. Yes. Really. The statement was about ageable wine. Not 'the best' wine, which, of course, is subjective. But I don't think that ageability is that subjective.

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If your goal is to buy the wines that take the longest to peak then, yes. That wasn't the question. I don't even know why that would necessarily be anyone's goal. That is, if wine A peaks in ten years and wine B in 30, is wine B three times better? Is it better at all? Is that what "ageable" means to you? Not me.

Bob. Did you even read my post? The last paragraph says EXACTLY what you are now saying. I quite clearly stated that the issue of ageability is extraneous to this discussion. Anyone starting out a new cellar should not be concerned with ageability. Otherwise, they will be sitting on a nest of wine for 20+ years before drinking any. Nowhere in my post do I suggest that this be the strategy employed.

I was simply responding to your response to Gewutz Lover. He said that France was the center of ageable wines. A very simple statement. You disagreed, and challenged the notion that France is the benchmark for ageability. I simply agreed with GL. All of which is admittedly off topic, and has nothing to do with what one should put in their cellar. It appears that you now agree that France is indeed home to the most age-worthy wines. So there is no dispute. We all agree on that. And we all agree that buying wines that need 30+ years to age would be a silly purchasing strategy for a new cellar.

And as far as equating ageable wines with "better" wines, I think my first paragraph addressed that. The two have no correlation. Ageability is not subjective. Quality is.

I would buy a case of Dunn Howell Mountain (okay, maybe I'd buy 8 bottles). I'd put those bottles on the bottom rungs of my cellar racks and consider them the foundation upon which I'd build my cellar. I wouldn't touch them until my infant daughter graduated from college.

And anyone who thinks that CA wines don't age, you should be drinking more Dunn.

Semper ubi sub ubi!