What Are Your Cellar Faves

[David M. Bueker]

Agree - I have 1285 different items so also lots of one or two bottle lots to make up for the 17 wines that I have a case or more of.

That's higher than I expected from you given the number of notes you write that reference case purchasing! However, I'm sure you still have a higher per-line-item average than I do.

I have 223 wines of which I have a half case or more. Much of my more recently purchased wine came in 6 bb cases rather than 12 bb..

I have 97 entries with 6 or more bottles. Another 70 or so have 5, so presumably half case or higher purchases. The only 5 bottle purchases I can recall were both where there were only 5 bottles on the shelf (2008 Roumier Chambolle and 1999 Nikolaihof Steiner Hund Riesling).

I used to do a lot of case buying. I bought 40 solid cases of 2001 German Riesling (64 cases total), and at least 12 cases of 2000 Bordeaux.

These days 6 is normally the high water mark, except for the occasional case purchase of a German Riesling (e.g. 2019 Donnhoff Estate Riesling) or a futures case of half bottles of Bordeaux.

Like Bill. I have a lot of local (Ontario in my case) wines, partly because of supporting local producers, and partly from meeting and getting to know many of the local winemakers. When you are tasting and discussing their wines with them, it's hard not to think "Oh, I'll just buy a few [or a case or two] of your wines, since I'm here".

Anyway. my top non-Ontario wines are

1. Ridge
2. Beaucastel
3. Marcarini (Barolo) tied with
4. Taylor (Port)
5. Chave tied with
6. Jadot

If I include Ontario wines, the list becomes

1. Ridge
2. Queylus (Ontario)
3. Bachelder (Ontario)
4. Beaucastel
5. Marcarini (Barolo) tied with
6. Taylor (Port)

If I go by wine makers, the list becomes

1. Kelly Mason (Queylus, The Farm)
2. Thomas Bachelder (Bachelder, Clos Jordanne, not to mention consultant at Queylus)
3. Paul Draper (Ridge)
4. Beaucastel's winemaker
5. Bruce Guimaraens (Taylor, Fonseca)