Collecting wine

Some visitors have indicated they wish to collect red wine.  Others have indicated they wish to collect the wine for the purposes of selling it for a profit later, in other words investment wines.  How would one broach either of these tasks?

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The process involves two general steps:

1. Selecting the appropriate wines.

2. Properly taking care of the wine.

We know need to delve further into each of these steps.

Selecting the appropriate wines

Firstly, it’s important to determine whether you wish to collect wine for your own purposes i.e. simply letting it age to drink it later or whether you plan to collect the wine so that you can sell it for a profit. 

Your intent will determine which of the two steps are followed. 

Let’s first discuss the scenario of someone who simply wishes to purchase wines and drink them later.  With this purpose in mind, it’s important to pick wines that you like.  If, for example, you don’t really like Cabernet Sauvignon then it doesn’t make much sense to buy a case of it for aging purposes (unless you plan to give it to guests or someone other than yourself).  Admittedly, wines can improve with age, but if you don’t like a wine to begin with, then it’s generally silly to think that simply letting it age will transform it into one you really enjoy.   

You need to ensure that your collection has a combination of everyday wines that you can drink anytime and wines that you’re going to leave age.   Speaking from experience, it’s much harder to let the wines age (i.e. not drink them) if you don’t have wines on hand that you can drink at anytime.

Let’s now discuss the scenario of someone who plans to collect the wine and later sell it for a profit.  Again, I do not provide any financial advice or investment advice and if this scenario interests you then you really need to consult with a wine expert who specializes in investment wines and can provide advice in this area.  To be clear: It is paramount to consult with a person who has expertise in this area.

Properly storing the wine and protecting it

Once you’ve selected the wines - regardless of whether you intend them to be a personal collection or investment collection - you need to properly take care of them and protect them.  You need to store them in a properly store them.

The following points are very important:

Wine should be stored in a dark, dry place. 

The temperature should be around 10 degrees celcius (50 degrees farenheight) 

Wine should be laid on its side so the cork does not dry out. 

Another important consideration is odors.  Avoid storing wine in an area that contains unpleasant odors such as old tires, gasoline, or for that matter any other unpleasant odor.  Some of these particles are small enough to penetrate and contaminate the wine.  It may be consumable but the taste will be ruined. 

Obviously you would want to avoid any excessive vibration that might disturb the wine; especially with wines that have sediment.   Often people overlook the vibration that can be harmful to wine that comes from things like a furnace or washing machine etc.  An example I can relate to is that I had the perfect cool place in my basement to store the wine.  The humidity was just right without much fiddling.  However the room contained my water conditioning equipment for the house (as the water in my home was supplied by a well) and it contained the pump that pumps the water supply into the house from the well.  This pump could indeed cause vibration which could damage the wine so I abandoned the idea.

Wine cellars can be very basic or very high tech and fancy.  Nevertheless either must incorporate these basic elements or they would not be a good wine cellar

While you don't have to get too caught up with your wine cellar you do need to ensure you do it right or you could be throwing away a ton of money.  I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to collect wine either for their own personal or investment purposes that they pick up a copy of Chris Miley’s e-book “Build Your Own Home Wine Cellar.”

Chris’ book goes into detail about all the things that you can do to construct your own cellar and much more.  He even discusses how to keep a proper inventory his modestly priced book can save you a ton of money and it makes the process very east for anyone.  So do yourself a favour and check it out.

Finally, if you’re collecting wines for investment purposes then it certainly stands to reason that you need to protect yourself against loss.  In other words you need to ensure the wines are properly insured.  Contact your home insurance provider to ensure you have coverage.  If you do not have coverage then ask where you can go to get it and then get it! Imagine if their stolen or destroyed in a fire, etc.  It could be devastating.  So make sure their covered!  

Having the rightly constructed and maintained wine cellar will certainly increase your enjoyment of wine and prove itself to be very valuable.