I've run out of room in my wine cellar and now must face a decision. Which wines will hold up the best without cellaring? I have a complete collection running from sweet ports, tokays, muscats, dry whites, cabs, shiraz, etc. The non-cellaring will be temporary as I consume my cellar, so please list, in order of presence, the wines that will hold up best without cellaring till I can get them there---
Thanks in advance--
Fred
You poor thing you!
Well to be honest firstly a lot of wines are not made for cellaring, and secondly there is no real hard and fast rule over what varieties cellar longer.
Thirdly, if you are having a storage problem I'm sure I can relieve you of some of your burden. :)
It seems to me it's time to pop some corks.... Let's do some reds today, and maybe tomorrow some whites. Then we can take Thursday off in preparation for New Year's Eve. I can guarantee more room in your cellar before the weekend's over..
Please pass the crackers!
If you have a regular wine cellar and are out of space, you probably have enough money to rent wine storage space until you make more room. Someone at a large wine store probably can tell you who rents wine storage space in your area. Many who live in apartments in major cities have room for only a very small wine storage unit, so they have to use rental space for most of their wine. If one forced me to make such a decision, I would first store old and more expensive wines in the cellar. Next come quality light white wines and Champagne. Next come quality red table wines. Last come fortified wines such as Sherry, Port, and Madeira that were not part of the old and expensive set. In case there is no commercial storage available in your area, do you have enough floor space upstairs to have one of the wine storage boxes? If so, you probably could sell it after you no longer need it. Most who have a full wine cellar would have the means to solve the problem in one of the ways mentioned above. Of course anyone can have a current problem caused by a number of possible financial woes. Perhaps you do have some type of wine storage box, but calling it a cellar without qualificaton may have mislead myself and perhaps others who answered this thread.
My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.
Fred,
I'd first ask myself the question, which wines do I really want to cellar? Based solely on MY cellar, I'd list the big Cabs/Bdx/Barolos, Burgs, Ports ( and similar, i.e. Tokay), big whites (CA & Burg), then Zins and finally Syrahs (all really good ones). In my cellar, that would leave the lessor whites ( except my German Rieslings) for normal interior cellaring, along with many Merlots, lessor Zins/Syrahs. These I would offer up in a party atmosphere to my best friends and drink like crazy.
As stated by others, not all wines are meant to be cellared, or really benefit from it. All my Sauvignon Blancs would go, along with most of my Chards. Any wine that is meant for current consumption would be on that "hit list."
This is similar to what I faced when I moved my cellar. My tennis club had some very nice wine parties, thanks to me needing to consume, rather than move and store.
Gifting is also a really nice way to clean out an over-filled cellar.
Good luck, Hunt
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.