Do You Save Empty Bottles?

When you indulge in a special bottle, do you ever hang onto the empty bottle after the event as a memento? And if so, what do you do with them?

I have a vast array on the top of the top rank of shelving in my wine cellar (including a 1969 Mellini Chianti in the old fiasco straw covered bottle I used to use for a candle holder in university days), and although I hadn't realized it when I started typing this, I also have overflow under chairs in my den where the computer is.

Let's see, I have:

1987 Opus One
1989 Stellenryck Cabernet (great wine)
1977 and 1978 Beaulieu Georges de Latour Cab
1996 Special Label Jaboulet Crozes Hermitage (fancy label, came in as a trade sample)
2001 Behrens & Hitchcock Chien Lunatique Syrah (?)
1990 Pol Roger Brut, magnum (must have been a special occasion that I now forget, but handy for self defence...)
1978 Pio Cesare Barolo
1952 Borgogno Barolo
1977 Monterey Peninsula Vineyards Amador Zin Ferrero Ranch

And that's just the accumulation that had been hiding on me.

Any other guilty bottle hoarders out there?

Very rarely, but in fact there is an empty bottle that has been on my kitchen counter for a couple months now that makes me smile every time I look at it.

Sure, Bill, we probably have a dozen or so empty bottles decorating the cellar, mostly of wines that were from special occasions ('59 and '61 Bdx, a double magnum, etc.) Given how well you drink, I'm a bit surprised at the bottles you've saved. Sentimental favorites, or just luck of the draw?

Mark Lipton

p.s. Seeing your mention of the Monterey Peninsula Zin put a smile on my face. Jean and I went through a store's entire stash of a '79 Zin from them back in '86-'87 in NYC. Great stuff that made a Zin lover out of Jean.

I have several and they are all displayed in a row at the top of our kitchen cabinets. I saw such a display in a photo in the Wine Spectator a number of years ago and though it looked pretty cool. The bottles are either special or "once in a lifetime" wines, including the ones my wife and I drank on New Year's Eve 1999 (while we were waiting for the Y2k bug to hit!!)

Given how well you drink, I'm a bit surprised at the bottles you've saved. Sentimental favorites, or just luck of the draw?

Yes, I do drink well - but it took years of practice befoe I graduated from the bib and was able to go au naturel.....

These are just luck of the draw - the more recent bottles I never got around to putting in the cellar (mostly because there is no room for them).

In the cellar are many other older treasures - 1964 Trotanoy and Latour, 1967 Yquem, a whole case containing the bottles from a Sassicaia vertical I did from 1978 up.....I should really take a look some time and see just what I have squirrelled away.

Years ago I used to save labels of special wines in an album with TNs, but stopped doing that. Now I save all my bottles, remove the labels and re-fill them with my home made wine.

Only one.
A bottle of 1974 Heitz Martha's consumed about 2 years ago sits on the corner of my desk at home.
Damn, that was a fine bottle of wine!!
William

nope, I have trouble justifying the full bottles that don't fit in cellar, can't make argument for saving empties.

Two Romanee-Contis and one (DRC) Grands Echezeaux sit on my shelf, signed by all who shared them...

I save bottles that I think are 'special'. I have about 20 - the Piper-Heidsieck 1976 Rare opened when our first child was born in '87; Smothers Brothers Zin, signed by both Tommy and Dicky; and many others signed by owners/winemakers. I enjoy them all as decorations in the cellar. I have not added to them in a while and I wonder what that means.

I'm guilty of doing this. This is what I currently have saved.

-O

I rarely do it. It has to be something really special. I know I have '71 Montebello and '71 Margaux empties (birthyear wines for me), and a handful of others.

Cheers,

Dave

Just one - a Vallana Spanna Campii Raudii, mainly as the label is interesting, but the wine was typically good as well.
I can't see us keeping a collection of empty bottles - that one will do fine.

Not generally. However, we recently had our kitchen remodeled. There was a space between the corner cabinets and the walls (before the granite countertops were installed), so I filled it with insulation then tucked a couple of empties in there for someone to pull out when it's all replaced again in another 25 years. I think I put in a 1989 Chave Hermitage and a 1990 Clape Cornas--both empty. Who knows what the next owners will make of them?

I never save any bottles. Not a big fan of collecting clutter (never mind the papers, those are work related)..

And, I like the whole transient nature of the hobby. In and out through the system goes the wine..

When I was an undergraduate I saved a few bottles of beer and made a sort of "installation" in my room. Something about a bottle of mass-produced beer being hanged from a rope while several high quality beers watched from the top of the window ledge.

Ah, kids...

My lady and I did, but now we try to peel off the labels instead.

Ahh, the college dorm/fraternity house syndrome! Although I usually simply take off the lables, I *do* have bottles saved that carry special meaning, or wines I can never afford to purchase these days at the current tariff. Also, I have a Jean Michel Cazes signed Lynch-Bages and a Corton from Latour signed by Mr. Latour that I'll probably always keep.

On impulse in a hotel lobby I bought this print of a painting of a wine storefront in Paris. I tried to find a place for it in my home and couldn’t. So I put it in the basement of my mountain camp, bought a little shelf and screwed it into the wall under the painting like it belonged with the store in Paris. Then I placed a set of 1997 first growth empties, which I kept for some reason, on the shelf like they belonged in the store. About the only attempt I ever made at an art expression, other then custom cars and motorcycles and literary attempts at reportage I sometimes make on this forum.